Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them — John Shaqi
Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow ThemAnonymous
Science
Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them
Anonymous
Vegetable gardening
[Illustration: The Great B. B. (Brinton's Best) Tomato, Best for Main
Crop.]
The out-of-doors season is profitably prolonged by picking all the
mature or nearly mature fruit when the first frost comes, in October,
and placing these unripe tomatoes on straw in a cold frame. Covered
with straw and with the sash to keep out frost, the fruit ripens in a
satisfactory manner for several weeks. Such a frame must be well
ventilated or the tomatoes will rot rather than ripen.
[Illustration: New Fortune, one of the Best Second Early Tomatoes.]
=Diseases and Enemies.=--Tomato diseases, fortunately, are not
numerous. Blight sometimes sweeps off a whole field of early-set
tomato plants, on farms where later plantings are quite healthy. This
favors the theory that blight results from weakness caused by early
planting in cold ground. It is a fungous disease, and may sometimes be
prevented by the use of Bordeaux mixture. The same remedy is the best
known preventive of black rot.
Potato bugs may be either hand-picked or poisoned with Paris green.
The tobacco worm sometimes causes much damage to the tomato. All
diseased or blighted tomato vines should be promptly burned, and the
crop carried to new soil the following year.
=Marketing, Profits, etc.=--As already stated, choice tomatoes in
clean baskets are always in demand, and a new basket will usually pay
for itself on a single sale. The sum of $150 per acre may be quoted as
the average gross receipts from tomatoes at present prices. This
estimate is based on the low yield of a half-peck of fruit to each
vine at 25 cents per basket. If sold retail, the tomatoes would
command more money, while if sold in bulk to a canning factory the
gross receipts might be larger or smaller, depending on the size of
the general crop and other circumstances.
TURNIPS AND RUTA BAGAS.
Turnips and ruta bagas are closely related. The latter are turnips in
fact, and are frequently called Swedes. The common method on many
farms is to sow turnips broadcast, but it is a far better practice to
sow both these and the ruta bagas in drills, so that they can be kept
clear of weeds and worked by horse-power. Not only are these
advantages secured, but the row system makes it possible to take out
the superfluous plants, and secure roots of uniform size and shape.
Turnips and ruta bagas have high economic value as foods, both for
humanity and for live stock.
=Turnips.=--Turnips are grown for market purposes both in spring and
in fall. In the spring the seed should be sown early, in mellow soil.
For the fall crop the seed may be sown either in July or August. The
rows in garden or field may be as close as can be conveniently worked.
TURNIP.--For earliest, we recommend Purple Top and White Milan.
For fall crop, Mammoth Purple Top Globe and Golden Ball. For
descriptions, see "Johnson & Stokes' Garden and Farm Manual."
[Illustration: Budlong or Breadstone Turnip.]
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