MULCHING IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 225, 23 September 1898, Page 3

MULCHING IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN.

Last year I grew my melons and early potatoes without any cultivation, and we never had any better quality nor moro on the same amount of space. I mulched them, as I have done several times before within the last twenty-five years. We had plenty of old haystack bottoms, straw and other coarse wast© material on the farm that made very cheap mulch, and I used it on melons «n<l many other crops. I never knew it to prove otherwise than very profitable in that climate, where we often had very dry spells, especially in the late summer.

It would be a good plan to try mulching melon patches that are now planted, even though the vines are beginning to run. It will save al) further labour of cultivation, and keep the moisture inthe soil, so that dry spells will be almost without effect upon the crop. Another good point about mulching melons is that the vines remain undisturbed while growing. If the ground must be cultivated and hoed, the vines are moved more or less, and their tendrils released from anything to wlueli they may have been attached. The wind often rolls them over and iivjujres them. On mulch they are able to fasten the vines firmJy to it, and grow without hindrance.

For several years I have been mulching the tomatoes, and find that it not Only keeps the fruit clean and in some measure prevents rot, but it increases the crop. The matter of the best support for the vines has been a puzzle to me. After reading about the use. of brush for this purpose it came into my mind that pine brush would serve the double purpose of supporting the vines, also mulch the ground. Therefore, last year I. cut down a. lot of little pine bushes that were out of place and put them around the t.oma.to» plants just before they were ready to spread their branches and lop down. T put on enough to smother all weeds. The plan worked like a charm. Anyone who can easily get any kind of evergreen brush, or, for that matter, any kind of brush with the leaves attached, as they Avill be in summer time, may do as well. Almost anyone can get brush of sonrei sort, except the farmers on the treeless prairies. Perhaps some kinds of rank weeds would do there. In any ca.se, it pays to save labour, and have clean tomar toes up ofl! the ground, with no weeds growing- beneath or between them. The tomato plants will spread if planted in good soil over a space from four to more than six feet wide, arid the brush must cover that space to be fully effective.—'Rural New Yorker.'