Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1891 — ORCHARD AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ORCHARD AND GARDEN.

A Good Marker. 1 To make a neat soil marker, says Popular Garden, take a piece of board an inch thick and two inches wide, and of any desired length; draw a

line down the center of each side and one edge, and with a plane or sharp knife pare it down to a sharp edge; fasten a handle of convenient size and length at center of strip on the upper edge and the device is com. pletc. Grasp tho handle firmly, press the sharp edge into the earth, and you have a straight, even drill of uniform depth for sowing. By marking and cross-marking, as in corn planting,

you have even spacing for pricking or transplanting. To mark off the distance to next row you might also put on a runner at one side, fastened to rod of iron passing through the marker, as shown in lower figure. This runner can be adjusted any distance and do perfect work. Of course handle and marking strips can be made any length from a few inches to several feet. After trying one you will probably make several of different sizes. Horticultural Bints. The Pearl tuberose, besides being dwarf and having larger flowers than the common one, is earlier blooming, the flowers opening a couple of weeks before the other. Dahlias are easily kept'in winter-by being placed in a cool Cellar, free from frost. The roots must not be allowed to become so dry as to shrivel up. The sweet gum is one of the handsomest of ornamental trees. Its starlike leaves are admired by all who see them; and when autumn comes they assume a scarlet color, rivaling the scarlet oak. Many of the earliest flowering herbaceous plants, if taken »p and potted in the fall, will bloom nicely indoors in the winter time. Columbines, violets, saxifrage, creeping phlox and blood root are among them. Hydrangea pariiculata grandi-jhra, Deutzia gracilis, Japan snowball, Spircea Thunbergii and Persian lilac are nice things to have in flower in pots in early spring. Dig up from the open ground and pot them before tho ground freezes.—Practical Farmer.