Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1914 — UNIQUE METHODS OF CHINESE GARDENER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNIQUE METHODS OF CHINESE GARDENER

(By M. F. RITTENHOUBE.) We number a Chinese market gardener among the residents of our little town, and although until three years ago he was a teacher in his native land, he has, because of bis financial success in his new occupation, converted the scoffers at his unique methods into humble imitators of the same. We have never ascertained the source of his agricultural lore, but content ourselves by observing his methods of procedure, then we go and do likewise, and for t the benefit of fellow truck-patchers I will tell of some of the tricks of this “Heathen Chinese.” He saves his ‘squash and pumpkin seeds for the next year’s planting by the simple process of keeping the squash or pumpkin that especially strikes his fancy in a cool, dry place until the next planting season. Then hO plents them with pieces of the pulp adhering, and they appear above ground with mushroom-like promptness. His muskmelon seed he ties up in a bag of coarse burlap, and covers this loosely with rich soil, allowing the seeds to sprout before planting them. He also preserves his cucumber seeds in the cucumber, which he coats carefully with paraffine as soon as pulled from the vine. Once, contrary to his advice, I set out some choice tomato plants in a

small plot where ashes had been dumped for several years. They grew to be enormous vines and had many blossoms, which dropped off, however, in a few days. One day my Chinese neighbor came over with a knife and cut the branches of the vineß almost off. So nearly in two did he sever them that they drooped to the ground, and although this occurred in the latter part of July, the blossoms ceaßed to fall and my plants bore more freely. When he irrigates his potatoes (and he raises two crops on the same land each year), he waters long and deeply; and his potatoes never grow near enough to the surface to get sunburned, as do those of the inexperienced gardfeners who slightly sprinkle the surface of their potato patch as scantily and as often as they do their lettuce beds. There is no question as to the superiority in Bize and quality of the deep-grown potato over those grown close to the surface. His beet seed <are soaked in water At least 48 hours before planting. He sets them to soak in warm water and during the daytime keeps the vessel containing them as much in the sunshine as possible. I have never yet seen him throw away a young plant of any description. He merely transplants them, and I do not believe it an exaggeration to say that nine-tenths of the plants survive and flourish, for he surely is a past master in the art — for it is an art—of transplanting. For example, when his lettuce plants grow to about the height of two inches he thins out the bed and clipping off about an inch of the root tip of each plant he pulls, he replants in' long rows, and the transplanted lettuce makes a more rapid and larger growth than the plants which he has left undisturbed. *

The replanted, or rather transplanted lettuce with its clipped roots, grows to such enormous that at a short distance they remind one of thrifty cabbage rows. He never uproots the head lettuce he markets. Instead, he leaves the stalks In the ground *and assiduously waters and cultivates them, whereupon they produce another head tn about half the time required for the first head to reach a marketable alee. His beet plants are transplanted with clipped roots In precisely the sarad manner as the lettuce. His onions,, which are invariably started frorii tne seedn (he refuses to use seta), are trahaplanted aft* having their roots clipped and grow to

be larger in circumference than the ordinary saucer. He also beheads his cabbage, leaving the stalk to grow. He cuts slight nicks or gashes in the growing which, watered and tended, produces a second growth that are in appearance fair imitations of brusselß sprouts and quite as good to eat. His faith in the forcing powers of warm water is sublime. I have known him to heat water for his radishes in the chill days of spring, testing its temperature as carefully as if preparing a baby’s bath, with incredible pa;tlence and perseverance. As soon as his radishes were well above. ground, he covered the bed with a layer of sawdust, perhaps an Inch in depth. Ha baker the soil la which he intends sowing his cabbage and tomato seeds sometime before using, then patiently breaks up and crumbles the dried, hardened mass before wetting it. For his late cabbage and tomatoes he plants the seed out in the open soil of the garden, leaving one plant standing in the hill and transplanting the others, which, under his persuasive skill, usually grow. While some of his “stunts” seem perfectly useless and absurd, yet there must be some method in his madness, for his vegetable crop, with its attendant crop of dollars, are not the result of chance. ——- . ■ ;

Tomato Vines Cut Back by the Chinese Method of Cultivation, Showing Flourishing Condition Later in the Season.

Crookneck Squash.