GARDEN NOTES SEASONABLE WORK

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19462, 29 December 1934, Page 14 (Supplement)

GARDEN NOTES SEASONABLE WORK

WRITTEN AND COMPILED TO SUIT WAIKATO CONDITIONS.

(By Nikau)

HOLIDAY TIME Most of our readers will prefer to rest instead of working in the llery heat. Accordingly, in place of work to be done, a series of garden topics Is given this week.

DRY .CULTIVATION. Year after year readers of this column are advised to “keep the hoe going." v Some of them will perhaps think this Is a twentieth century idea, based on experiments with “dry farming” in Australia. To such people the following extract from an article published in 1861 will come as a surprise : ‘ “One of the causes of the unproductiveness of cold, clayey, adhesive soils, As Davy well remarked, is that the seed is coated with matter impermeable to’ air. The farmer can convince himself of these facts by the simplest of all experiments: Let him merely use his rake or his hoe on a portion of a bed of wheat, of turnips or of any other kind of cropland let him in the driest weather merely keep this portion of soil loose by his gentle stirring, and he will find that instead of prejudicing his crop by letting out the moisture, as is very ignorantly supposed, something is evidently let into the soil: for the portion thus tilled will be soon visibly increased in luxuriance by the mere manual labour thus bestowed, and in this experiment, which I have often tried, I am supposing that both the portions of the ground are equally free from weeds; and in every other respect the treatment of both the tilled and the undisturbed portions of the experimental plot Is exactly the same. To * very .great extent some of the best of the English farmers have long found' out 'these facts, and have acted upon the discovery. The horse-hoe of the east and south of England, in the driest days of summer, may he seen “at work in the large, sandy turnip fields* of Norfolk and Suffolk, with (unvaried regularity, not for the mere destruction of w“eeds, for these are not* the abounding tenants of such skilful' farmers’ lands', but for the chief and highly beneficial purpose of increasing the circulation of the gases and vapour of the air. ‘The •longer I keep stirring the soil betwepn my turnip drflls,” said Ldrd Leicester, sorqe years since, ‘in dry weather the better the turnips grow’.’’

Many Advantage*.

cultivator will derive many advantages from a careful investigation of the support'yielded by the vapour of. the atmosphere to his plants. He will perceive that its unvaried presence affords • an , additional reason why the air should he allowed to circulate freely through the well pulverised and loosened soil, to the roots of all growing crops. Let him, above all, avoid the very common erroneous conclusion that the atmosphere is ever dry, i.e., that it no lpnger contains water vapour; for the r.eal fact is, he will And the very opposite to this very common vulgar conclusion. The chemists’ laborious Investigations have clearly demonstrated that though the watery vapour varies in amount, yet it is never absent from tire atmosphere, hut that it happily always the more abounds •yyhere the cultivator’s crops need its assistance most, it is then the most able to furnish the roots of his corn with all the moisture they require, and If it Is unable to penetrate to them, the fault Is not in the wise economy of nature, but in the carelessness of the cultivator, who is either too inattentive to see the advantage which he might thus freely derive, or too Indolent to loosen the case-hardenel soil, which prevents the entrance of the requisite supply moisture." GROWING FOR SHOW,

This is a question whfoh has passed through the minds of most gardeners at some time or other, more particularly when they have been contemplating some of the excellent exhibits at large flower shows —exhibits, which, nevertheless, have failed to obtain any award. It is a question worthy of the most careful consideration, for gardeners owe a great deal to the Influence of exhibitors, and a falling-off in the numbers of the latter would inevitably react in a detrimental manner to horticulture as a whole. It is the exhibitor, more than any other class of gardener, who has stimulated the breeder to produce better, strains of flowers and vegetables, while in the equally important matter of culture, ids influence is no less apparent. Though the methods of the exhibitor may not be carried out in every detail by tho man who merely grows for his own pleasure, yet many of the tips which are discovered under the stimulus of teen competition aro turned to good account in everyday culture. Prom both .these standpoints the answer to the question whether exhibiting is worth while is most certainly “Yes.” It is not, however, our present purpose to consider it so much from the impersonal angle of gardening in general, as from that of tho possible gain or loss lo the exhibitor himself. 'From the purely financial standpoint, there can be little doubt that much exhibiting is carried on at a loss. On the oilier hand, it is just as certain that many been growers make their showing uay for Itself, and handsomely at that. These are the gardeners who know t licit - own strength, and do not attempt the impossible. They concentrate •upon competitions and classes in which they know they have a reasonable chance of success, and wijlch do not make undue demands upon their pockets. An Alluring Hobby. If gardening is considered as a pleasurable hobby nil her than as a matter of'hard cash, there cannot be the slightest doubt that exhibiting is well repaid, and adds greatly to Ihe gardener’s enjoyment. For some years It was rightly said that there were, not so many young exhibitors ns there used to lie. Fortunately for the. Waikato, there are many new exhibitors, mostly young people, coming forward lo eompele at I lie many flower shows of tho district. A proof of the new interest is found in the strong competition in Ihe novice classes, whether it lie a daffodil, a rose or a dahlia show. “Once an exhibitor, always an exhibitor" is, of course, only a partial ■truth This is fortunately so, otherwise the old gardener’s fate would he ns dreadful as that of the Ancient Mariner. We can Imagine the greybeard wandering from town lo town

and compellingly -accosting his victim with: ‘There was a show,’ or ‘There was a ju'dge.’ The first word of advice which one can offer to the aspiring exhibitor would be to learn to walk before attempting to run. Disappointment can often be traced to an attempt to compete in classes far beyond the ability of the cultivator. At almost every show there are special sections for the novice, and at some of the Hamilton shows there are what might be called ‘intermediate, classes,’ from which all competitors in the open classes, amateur as well as 'professional, are warned off. A common mistake is to enter in classes for a large number of specimens—l2, 18, or even 24 varieties. It may not be a difficult matter to find three or even six roses, for example, in first rate condition at the time of the show, but a class of nine or twelve different varieties takes a great deal of filling.

CATERPILLARS AND. (GRUBS.

Even at the risk of causing a creepy feeling, a note on this subject, should he given at this time, so many of these pests being in evidence.

Caterpillars, grubs and, maggots are three homely terms denoting two or perhaps three groups of crawling creatures. The first group is well defined, and their parents are butterflies, moths and sawlflies. The second class .is made up of caterpillars that live out -of sight, yet also spring from moths. The third group are legless, plump, whitish, and derived from files or beetles. The naturalist calls all these types, whether caterpillar's, maggots or grubs, by the one general term ‘larvae.’ A larvae is- the first stage of the life -cycle from the egg of the butterfly, moth, bettle or (fly concerned, and a very brief examination will serve to reveal to which of these groups a certain larva belongs. The larvae of butterflies and moths are, alike in that they consist of thirteen segments. The first Is the head, then follow three having a pair of horny legs each; of the remaining nine, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth may ( have stumpy sucker feet, and so may’ the ninth or tail-piece. Suoh caterpillars progress with ' a wavy motion.' Sometimes, however, the suoker feet are -reduced to two pairs, one at the tall and the other on the sixth segfnent. This shortage _of feet causes the creature to form an arch or loop when walking, and such are called ‘loopers’ or ‘land-mea-surers’; their parents are moths In every case.

If caterpillars are seen with six fore-legs and then twelve to sixteen sucker feet and with the body segments poorly marked, they can be taken to be those of a saw-fly. A further characteristic is that these creatures 1 form themselves into a spiral when resting. Sawfljes have four wings, and are classed with bees.

Legless maggots that can only roll about or contract or lenthen as do earthworms, and they have a pointed head and truncated, starlike tail, are the progeny of two-winged (files, and number among them some of the gardener’s worst foes —onion fly, cabbage -root fly, leather-jacket, eto. 'Beetles fall into many groups, and their larvae are even more variable. Some move freely from place 'to place, and (such have three pairs of legs behind the head; they have no -intermediate sucker-feef} but may have one foot only at the tail-end. Thoqe that live in galls or under-, .ground have no feet, or only rudimentary wrinkles behind the head, and often the body thickens at the tail end, while 'they are nearly always found curled round in a half-circle. THE INCINERATOR.

Though a great deal of rubbish should be dug in as green manure, there are many things which should be burnt. Such as perennial weeds (convolvulus, sorrel, couch grass, docks, etc), and plants which are likely to have disease in them —potato and tomato stalks, for example. Dry rubbish and hedge-clippings should also he burnt,; indeed, some kinds of coniferous trimmings aro positively harmful to the ground unless they are burnt.

•Granting then Ithe desirability of burning rubbish, we arc perhaps faced witli Ihe problem of keeping the Are going, particularly in winter and spring. A splendid incinerator can be made from the forty or fifty gallon drums used . nowadays as containers for benzine, tar, or lime-sul-phur. A little door (like that of a fire-box in a range) should be cut near the bottom, and on Ihe opposite side a.fair-sized hole should be made lo increase the draught. The cutting can he done with a cold chisel, or, better still, with an old axe or tomahawk. Such an incinerator will render unnecessary the use of old motoi’rtyres and other aids to flreraisers, hut nuisances to the neighbours, especially on washing days.