THE GARDEN.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 51, 24 May 1884, Page 6

THE GARDEN.

Kitchen Garden. (From fie Auckland <' Star.") Continue dressing the asparagus, rhubarb, and seakale beds as directed last woek. There is no time like the present for making new beds for the s>ame, or as long as the dry weather lasts. All spare ground ought also to be dug or trenched and manured. Still sow in green crops. It will do for late spring green food, or if not wanted for such, dig it down, as the ground is wanted in the spring for other crops ; if dug down it will put the soil in better fettle next year, especially clay soils. Continue planting out lettuce, tie up so as to blanch those that are advancing ; the late cold wcathei ought to have had the effect ot making them more crisp. Late celery and leeks, give their final earthing up ; after all the soil is put up to the ridges, give little water and pat it with the spado. This \\ ill cause the water to run off the ridge quicker during heavy rains. In warm dry situation sow a few* peas ; select the earliest kinds. Earth up all advancing crops. Thin out seedlings. Sweet potatoes or kumeias ought novr to be lifted and pitted : or a good uay to manage them is to put them in bo\es, packed with dry sand. They keep well in this manner, and you have the advantage of not needing to open the pit m hen they are wanted for use, thus not letting in the air to the otheis.

Flower Garden. | All new work in this depaitment should be completed as soon as possible now. The wet, dirty winter Mill soon bo in, when all new work can neither be so \\ ell nor cheaply done as it can in dry weatber. Shiubs, flowers, or trees will not thrive so well in soils which have been laboured in wet weather as in dry. Continue the digging and manuring of the ilower beds. Reduce the size of most of the herbaceous plants : subdivide and plant chew here some of the best of them, discarding otheis which you may find unsuitable. Put labels or stick.to mark the places where lilium or other bulbs are left in the borders for the winter months. Clear away all rubbish to the rot heap as it is taken from the plants. Collect all the leaves from the pleasure ground. Get a load or so of new stable manure and mix all together, adding a little salt and lime so as to kill vegetable and animal life. Continue the top-dressing and renovating of lawns. See that the new soil is well worked into the ground ; roll and sow fresh grass seed. Walks, where they are broken or become thin, give a slight dressing oi gravel, and apply a heavy roller. Greenhouse. — Wash and re-paint house, as directed last week. Azaleas, camellias, heath, and other hardy early winter and spring flowering plants in pot, remove from summer quarters into the house for the winter. Chrysanthemums, as they get past flowering, cut back and remove out of doors Change the w atering from night to morning. Vines : If the fruit is all cut off them, have the canes removed outside, if possible. If such can be done, they will ripen oft' their wood much better, thus giving a better chance of a good crop next season. Give the house a thorough overhaul, cleaning out J every crevice and corner, so as to destroy any lara? of insects which may have been deposited during last season. Mildew. — It is stated that an Italian experimenter named Giovanni Ga/.zoti has found that by drenching the vine leaves and fruit with a solution of soda in the proportion of two kilogiammes to each hectolitre of water the mildew was completely destroyed, and the leaves and fruit become healthy, and grow naturally. A kilogramme is a little more than two pounds, and a hectolitre is about two Imperial gallons.

The Orchard. All those who have broken up new gronnd for planting new or extending old orchard** should now try and give the ground another ploughing or re digging, so as still further to sweeten it. Immediately after it is ploughed or dug, have the places marked out where the trees are to be planted, and get the holes dug. Pig them about one foot six inches deep, and about three ieet in diameter. It is a good plan to have the soil thrown out for three weeks or a month before planting, as the hole gets well aired, and the trees succeed much better from it. There is another question that ought to be looked to at once, and that is the variety of trees which will suit your soils and situations best. Try to get as food an idea of this as possible. Also, find nd out where the best stock of trees is to be obtained. See that they are of a nice hardy growth, and healthy. Send in your orders to the nurserymen early, so that at the beginning of the season you can get the choice plants, and have them planted out as early as possible, as the earlier the trees are planted out the better they will succeed.

Growing Tomatoes from Cuttings. Tomatoes can be easily grown from cuttings ; the cuttings ought to be taken off the old plants just before the cold weather; cut back the old plants. Takeoff about; three inches of the stronger shoots. prepare some good sandy soil, put it into well-drained four-inch pots, dibble the cuttings into this, putting them about *ne and a-half inches into tie soil ; water, and place the pots into a cold frame near the glass, or better, in the greenhou&e. The cuttings will soon strike. When they are well established, re-pot singly into four-inch pots in a good fibrous loam, mixed one-third sand and one-third well-rotted manure. They will soon take in this when they get established. Put them in some place where they will not grow fast until the planting season comes round, then plant out the same as seedlings. There are a few advantages to be obtained through raising your young stock from cuttings instead of seed. In the cut-ting you already possess wood which has all the materials in its compositidn to produce fiuit whenever it begins to grow ; consequently, when planted out, the first or second joint will produce a bunch of flowers, which will in time ripen into fruit, thus giving you much earlier crops. This 3eason I had tomatoes three weeks earlier from cuttings than from seedlings. Both seedlings and cuttings were planted out the same day. The seedling had to grow for some time before it could produce flower. The cutting produced flower on the second joint, and a line bunch of fruit was the result. The after-growth was close-jointed, and nearly every joint produced a bunch of fruit, continuing on like this till the end of the season. Very little pinching had to be undertaken. It was almost all training up of fruiting shoots. The trellis almost looked like a wall of fruit where the cuttings were planted. The seedlings, on the other hand, continued growing plenty of strong wood, which needed constant pinching back. The fruit was very irregularly distributed over the aheots, not nearly so large or fine as such produced on the cuttings ; and as for bulk of crop, the cuttings produced threetimes the v> eight of fruit yielded by the seedlings. No .v those plants were grown under the feame conditions, on the same piece of ground, received the same attention, and the variety was the same ; they were what is called the large red, There is another

advantage in growing from cuttings over the seed, and that is, that in varieties of tomato growing together the different strains get mixed, and sometimes the seed produces a very inferior article from the parent plant. By growing your stock irom cuttings, if the start is made with a firstclass variety and the cuttings arc taken off strong, short-jointed, healthy "hoots, you "will bo able to continue growing a first-class variety without any danger of the quality being deteriorated through gotting crossed. The only danger would then be in growing the same- plants for a long period in the same soils and situation. To remedy this an occasional change of cuttings with some distant Mend would be ad visable. In conclusion, I would advise all those who iiavo the necessary accommodation to give the abo\e a trial. Tins is no new fad. Twenty yeai* ago in Britain 1 assisted to grow the tomatoes from cutting*, but thero we had to grow our plant* under glass all the season, but with about the same result as I have obtained heie.