Part 43

A good variety of pie-plant, then, should be a vigorous grower, prolific, large in the stalk, not apt to flower, of a sprightly acid without any earthy or woody taste, not stewing away more than one-third when cooked, and not requiring too much sugar.

We have observed in our trials that seedlings having smooth leaves, with the upper surface varnished and glossy, are seldom good; while every plant which we have thought worth keeping, had the upper surface of its leaves of a deep, dull, lack-lustre green.

FORMATION OF A BED.—Select a strong and rich loam. Let it be spaded full two feet deep. If the subsoil has never been worked, and is clay, or gravel, a large supply of old manure should be mixed with it. Our working-method is this: Mark off the square, begin on one side, lay out a full spadeful of the top-soil clear across the bed; lay four or five inches of manure in the trench, and then spade it down a full twelve inches deep; beginning again by the side of the first trench, put the top-soil of the second into the first; add manure and spade as before; and so across the bed. The surface-soil thrown out of the first trench may be wheeled down and put into the last one. This process will leave the bed much higher than it was; let it stand one or two weeks to settle. If the bed is prepared in autumn it will be better, and in the spring it may be half-spaded again before planting.

Mark out, by line, rows three feet apart, and set your plants in the rows three feet from plant to plant, if of the large kind, and two feet, if of the small. Very large varieties require four feet every way. Tho buds should be left just below the surface of the soil.

AFTER CULTURE.—Through the summer keep the surface mellow and free from weeds. In the fall of the year, when the leaves show signs of falling, form a compost heap of fine charcoal, if you can get it from blacksmith’s or elsewhere, vegetable mold, ashes, and very old manure. Spread and spade in a good coat of this, spading lightly near to the plants and deeply between them. When frost destroys the tops wholly, cover the bed with coarse, strong manure about four inches deep, smooth it down, and let it remain thus. The next spring stir the surface smartly with a rake, and no further care will be required except to pluck out any weeds that grow through the summer.

GATHERING.—Leaves are constantly springing from the centre. Of course the full-grown ones will be on the outside. These should be harvested, leaving the inside ones to mature. By going regularly over your bed, and taking in turn the outside leaves, a bed may be used till July without the slightest injury. Other fruit, after that time, usually displaces pie-plant and leaves it to rest the remainder of the year. The leaf-stalks should not be cut off. Slide the hand down as near as possible to the root, and give the stalk a backward and sidewise wrench and it will be detached at a joint or articulation, and no stump will be left to rot and injure the root—we usually cut off the leaves on the spot, leaving them about the root, both for shade to the ground and for manure.

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PRESERVE YOUR POT-PLANTS.—We warn ladies having pot-plants designed for winter-wear, to be prudent beforehand, or some frosty night will cut every tender plant left out, and then prudence will be good for nothing. Every one who pretends to keep parlor plants should own a thermometer. If at sundown or at nine o’clock it stands anywhere near forty degrees, your plants are in danger. Sometimes it will fall, in one night, from fifty degrees to below thirty-two degrees, which last is the freezing point.

SUN-FLOWER SEED.

To some extent this is likely to become a profitable crop. Medium lands will yield, on an average, fifty bushels; while first-rate lands will yield from seventy to a hundred bushels.

MODE OF CULTIVATION.—The ground is prepared in all respects as for a corn crop, and the seed sown in drills four feet apart—one plant to every eighteen inches in the drill. It is to be plowed and tended in all respects like a crop of corn.

HARVESTING.—As the heads ripen, they are gathered, laid on a barn floor and threshed with a flail. The seed shells very easily.

USE.—The seed may be employed in fattening hogs, feeding poultry, etc., and for this last purpose it is better than grain. But the seed is more valuable at the oil-mill than elsewhere. It will yield a gallon to the bushel without trouble; and by careful working, more than this. Hemp yields one and a fourth gallons to the bushel, and flax-seed one and a half by ordinary pressure; but two gallons under the hydraulic press.

The oil has, as yet, no established market price. It will range from seventy cents to a dollar, according as its value shall be established as an article for lamps and for painters’ use. But at seventy cents a gallon for oil, the seed would command fifty-five cents a bushel, which is a much higher price than can be had for corn.

It is stated, but upon how sufficient proof we know not, that sun-flower oil is excellent for burning in lamps. It has also been tried by our painters to some extent; and for inside work, it is said to be as good as linseed oil. Mr. Hannaman, who has kindly put us in possession of these facts, says, that the oil resembles an animal, rather than a vegetable oil; that it has not the varnish properties of the linseed oil. We suppose by varnish is meant, the albumen and mucilage which are found in vegetable oils. The following analysis of hemp-seed, and flax-seed, or as it is called in England lint or linseed, will show the proportions of various ingredients in one hundred parts.

Hemp-seed. Linseed. (Bucholz.) (Leo Meier.) Oil, 19.1 11.3 Husk, etc. 38.3 44.4 Woody fibre and starch, 5.0 1.5 Sugar, etc. 1.6 10.8 Gum, 9.0 7.1 Soluble albumen (Casein?) 24.7 15.1 Insoluble do — 3.7 Wax and resin, 1.6 3.1 Loss, 0.7 3.0 ---- ---- 100 100

The existence of impurities in oil, such as mucilage, albumen, gum, etc., which increase its value to the painter, diminishes its value for the lamp, since these substances crust or cloy the wick, and prevent a clear flame. All oils may, therefore, the less excellent they are for painting, be regarded as the more valuable for burning. Rape-seed is extensively raised in Europe, chiefly in Flanders, for its oil, and is much used for burning. Ten quarts may be extracted from a bushel of seed. We append a table representing the richness of various seeds, etc., in oil.

Oil per cent. Linseed (flax) 11 to 22 Hemp-seed, 14 to 25 Rape-seed, 40 to 70 Poppy-seed, 36 to 33 White mustard-seed, 36 to 48 Black mustard-seed, 15 Swedish turnip-seed, 34 Sun-flower seed, 15 Walnut kernels 40 to 70 Hazel-nut kernels, 60 Beech-nut kernels, 15 to 17 Plum-stone do. 33 Sweet almond kernels, 40 to 54 Bitter do. do. 28 to 46

APRIL GARDEN-WORK.

Every one will now be at work in the garden. A few suggestions may make your garden better.

PLOWING GARDENS.—We do not like the practice except when the garden is large, and the owner unable to meet the expense of spading. But if you must plow, let that be well done. Those contemptible little one-horse plows, with which most gardens are plowed, should be discarded. The best plowing will be too shallow, but these spindling little plows, drawn by a little meagre horse, will skim over your ground, averaging from three to four inches deep, and preparing your soil to receive the utmost possible detriment from summer droughts. What chance have young roots, or the finer fibres of plants, to penetrate more than a few inches of surface-soil? Persons come to our garden and wonder why some vegetables flourish so well, while they never have luck with them, “It must be a difference of soil.” No, it is the difference of working it. Give your vegetables a chance to descend eighteen or twenty inches if they incline to it, and you will have no more trouble. A large plow should be used, and you should stand by and see that it is put in to the beam. A garden soil is usually mellow, and a plow can go to its full depth without hurting the horses.

SPADING.—This mode of working the ground will always be employed by those ambitious of having a first-rate garden. Indeed, where there is much shrubbery and permanent beds, as of asparagus, pie-plant, strawberry, and plantations of currants, raspberries, etc., spading is the only method which can be employed.

SPADING SHRUBBERY.—Let very fine manure be spread about roses, honeysuckles, and ornamental shrubs (where they are not standing in a grass-lawn). Beginning at the plant, with great care turn over the soil one or two inches deep, yet so as not to injure the fibres; gradually deepen the stroke of your spade as you go out from the plant; at two feet from the shrub you may put in the spade half its depth, and at three feet to its full depth. You will of course cut many roots, but they will very soon re-form and send out fibres, and by the manure spaded in, be supplied with abundant nourishment for the season.

SPADING FLOWER BEDS.—This requires a practised hand. There is danger of wounding and displacing clumps of flower-roots, or of filling the crowns with dirt, or of leaving the surface uneven, and the edges ragged. If there is a skillful gardener to be had, hire it done, and watch while he performs, for any man who has seen a thing done in a garden once, ought to be ashamed if he cannot himself do it afterwards.

SPADING VEGETABLE BEDS.—Asparagus, pie-plant, strawberries, etc., require enriching every year, and to have the manure forked or spaded in. It is easy to perform this upon strawberries, and a spade is preferable. A three or four-pronged fork is better for asparagus and pie-plant. Be careful not to tear or cut the crowns of the plants. No material injury ensues from clipping the side fibres, in the spring; in summer, when a plant requires all its mouths to supply sap for its extended surface of leaf, it is not wise to cut the roots or fibres at all, but only to keep the surface mellow and friable.

DEEP SPADING.—Ames’ garden-spades measure twelve inches in length of blade. In a good soil the foot may gain one or two additional inches by a good thrust. Thus the soil is mellowed to the depth of fourteen inches. This will do very well; but if you aspire to do the very best, another course must be first pursued. The first spadeful must be thrown out, and a second depth gained, and then the top soil returned. This is comparatively slow and laborious, but it need not be done more than once in five years, and by dividing the garden into sections, and performing this thorough-spading on one of the sections each year, the process will be found, practically, less burdensome than it seems to be.

GETTING POOR ON RICH LAND AND RICH ON POOR LAND.

A close observer of men and things told us the following little history, which we hope will plow very deeply into the attention of all who plow very shallow in their soils.