The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-03-29
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, d. c.
ONE MORE GARDEN STORY.


which the poets sing and neglect to
sing.
This new one is the spring garden
campaign. 1t has been with US now
for some four or five years, and its
| outbreak has been each year more
violent than before. It began by plead
ing the necessities of war. and now it
pleads the necessity for thrift. 1t
! emanates primarily from the depart
ment of agriculture, but is assisted by
various worthy lay organizations. 1t
claims to have converted ten million
Americans, to the cult of the hoe, and
no one seems inclined to dispute the
| figures. 1t was a good deal laughed
at in its early, days, but this happens
no longer. Any one can see that ii has
i put many thousands of acres that
would otherwise be waste land under
intensive cultivation; that it has inn
planted the gardening habit in mil
| lions, and in the face of these great
and undeniable achievements it be-
hooyeS the scoffer to keep mum.
] The difficulty which the evange-
J lists of this movement now encounter
| is that there is hardly anything new
to say about it. However, Mr.. Edwin
T. Meredith, the new secretary of agri-
culture. gives US an exclusive inter
view on the subject in which he says
that the professional gardeners are
buying only half as much seed this
year as usual. Therefore, he argues,
1t is going to be hard to buy vegeta-
bles. The market gardeners cannot
get the necessary labor. If you want
fresh vegetables you must furnish your
own labor. Mr.. Meredith gives the
following realistic account of how to
go about it:
The steps in making garden vary
! somewhat with conditions, but essen
| TALLY they are the same. Here is an
! outline of what John Juniper, who
lives in a suburb of Baltimore, Md,
will do from the time he gets the
| garden bug" until that glad and
happy day when he begins to pull the
products.
| First, John goes to the Kitchen
door, surveys his thirty by SIXTY feet OF
| backyard, and then he sits Down and
draws himself a plan. John is one of
| those systematic fellows and he be-
| lieves in knowing what he is going
to do before he does it. He puts down
| on paper the exact dimensions of his
available land. He assigns space to
! the vegetables he wants to grow, CIV
| ing the sunniest spots to the crops
that require most sunlight. He bears
in mind that lettuce. radishes. early
beetS and some other crops can be
grown in the same rows with others
and removed before the main crop
attains sufficient size to require entire
space. He remembers that carrots,
beets, satisfy, early turnips, parsnips,
and all crops of that type may be
grown in rows twelve to eighteen
inches apart, and will occupy a COM
paratively small space if grouped TO-
| gether. The taller-growing crops.
such as pole beans, tomatoes trained
| to stakes, and sweet corn, he plans to
plant at one side of the garden where
they will not shade the smaller crops.
John finds that he can run his
rows north andl south. which is a. good
method from the sunshine standpoint,
and also that he can arrange the rows
| so that they may be conveniently cuf-
| tivated.
| The next thing John Juniper does
the weather still being cold and the
ground hard-is to get his seeds and
tools For his seeds he goes to a
dealer he knows to be reliable and
buys varieties that are guaranteed to
! produce. When he buys his tools he
feels the inclination-felt by all be-
ginners in gardening, by the way
to load himself down with enough
tools TO cultivate a small farm. But
John checks himself, and finds he
can get along with few and compare
! lively inexpensive articles of equip
ment. He learns that the only essen
| tails tools are a spade or spading fork,
| a hoe and a steel rake. He adds two
| wooden stakes and "a strong string to
I servo as a line in making straight
rows and later on he buys water
ing can.
John is told by his wife that she
wants fresh vegetables just as soon as
they will vegetate. So he gets a shall
low box that will just fit in window,
puts some rich-lool1ing soil into the
I box, sows a few seeds of tomatoes
and cabbage. places the box in a win
dow where it will be protected from
the cold and at the same time get the
| benefit of the sunlight, and allows
/ nature to take her course. Nature
does. the seeds terminate, and when
| the weather gets warm John transfers
these plants to his garden. Because
of their head start these plants are
first under the wire and on the table.
Johns first real work comes when
he starts preparing the ground of his
yard for the reception of his seeds.
The ground is new to gardening, all
the stones have to be pulled out and
! piled at one side. and the same thing
has to be done with wires and every
thing else that is not soil. Then the
ground must be spaded-the plot is
not large enough TO justify hiring
it is thoroly raked. John breaks the
soil up into fine particles TO depth
/ of eight inches. BY this time he has
learned the true and historic meaning
Aof the phrase, sweat of the brow
But he keeps going.
John suspects. and probably with
| justice. that his soil is not as rich as It
might be, so he fertilizes it. He is un
able 10 find the wagon load of manure
that She probably would need-blame
/ the automobile for that-s0 he buys
commercial fertilizer for his plot. He
finds that sack of commercial fer
tiliZer would be too much for his
needs so he joins with two neighbors
and they buy the sack together. Then
John applies his fertilizer by scatter
ing il broadcast over the land after
spading and raking. The fertilizer is
thoroly mixed into the soil by another
/ thoro raking.
It seems to be almost time to be
putting the seeds in the ground, so
John calls up the weather bureau Of
flee and finds what is the average
date OF the last killing frost in his
community. Supplied with this knowl-
edge he is able to make his planting
with comparative safety. Some crops,
such as irish potatoes. smooth peas,
onion sets, kale. turnips. beets. let