Standards for Climax baskets for grapes, other fruits and vegetables, and other types of baskets and containers used for small fruits, berries, and vegetables in interstate commerce, are fixed by an act approved by the President August 31, 1916. The law will become effective November 1, 1917.

The effect of the act will be to require the use of the standards in manufacturing, sale, or shipment for all interstate commerce, whether the containers are filled or unfilled. A large part of the traffic in fruits and vegetables in this country enters interstate commerce. The law relates only to the containers and will not affect local regulations in regard to heaped measure or other method of filling. A special exemption from the operations of the law is made for all containers manufactured, sold, or shipped, when intended for export to foreign countries, and when such containers accord with the specifications of the foreign purchasers, or comply with the laws of the country to which the shipment is destined.

Standards of three capacities are fixed for Climax baskets--2, 4 and 12 quarts, dry measure. These containers, often known as "grape baskets,"

have relatively narrow, flat bottoms, rounded at each end, and thin sides flaring slightly from the perpendicular. The handle is hooped over at the middle from side to side. In addition to fixing the capacities of these standard baskets of this type, the law also prescribes their dimensions.

The other standards are for "baskets or other containers for small fruits, berries, and vegetables." They are to have capacities only of one-half pint, 1 pint, 1 quart, or multiples of 1 quart, dry measure.

Such containers may be of any shape so long as their capacities accurately accord with the standard requirements.

The examination and test of containers to determine whether they comply with the provisions of the act are made duties of the department, and the Secretary of Agriculture is empowered to establish and promulgate rules and regulations allowing such reasonable tolerances and variations as may be found necessary.

Penalties are provided by the act for the manufacture for shipment, sale for shipment, or shipment in interstate commerce of Climax baskets, and containers for small fruits, berries, and vegetables, not in accord with the standards. It is provided, however:

That no dealer shall be prosecuted under the provisions of this act when he can establish a guaranty signed by the manufacturer, wholesaler, jobber, or other party residing within the United States from whom such Climax baskets, baskets, or other containers, as defined in this act, were purchased, to the effect that said Climax baskets, baskets, or other containers are correct within the meaning of this act. Said guaranty, to afford protection, shall contain the name and address of the party or parties making the sale of Climax baskets, baskets, or other containers, to such dealer, and in such case said party or parties shall be amenable to the prosecutions, fines, and other penalties which would attach in due course to the dealer under the provisions of this act.--Department of Agriculture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PLANT-CHIMERA: TWO VARIETIES OF APPLE IN ONE.

Golden Russet and Boston Stripe combined in the same fruit, as the result of a graft. Trees producing these apples bear only a few fruits of this combination; the rest of the crop belongs entirely to one or other of the two varieties concerned. The explanation of these chimeras is that the original buds of the scion failed to grow, after the graft was made, but an advent.i.tious bud arose exactly at the juncture of stock and scion, and included cells derived from both. These cells grow side by side but remain quite distinct in the same stem, each kind of cell reproducing its own sort. From "Journal of Heredity," May, 1914.

Published by the "American Genetic a.s.sociation," Washington, D. C.]

The Rhubarb Plant.

LUDVIG MOSBAEK, ASKOV.

Rhubarb, or pieplant, as it is more commonly called, is one of the hardiest and at the same time a most delicious fruit. When the stalks are used at the right stage and given the proper care by the cook, they are almost equal to fresh peaches.

Rhubarb can be transplanted every month in the year, but the best time is early spring or August. There are especially two things rhubarb will not stand, "wet feet and deep planting." Most beneficial is good natural or artificial drainage and rich soil, made so by a good coat of manure, plowed or spaded in, and a liberal top dressing every fall, cultivated or hoed in on the top soil the next spring. Fifty plants or divisions of a good tender variety planted 3 to 4 feet apart will supply an average household with more delicious fresh fruit and juice for six months of the year than five times the s.p.a.ce of ground devoted to currants, gooseberries or any other fruit, and if you have from 50 to 100 plants you can afford to pick the first stalk that sprouts up in April and still figure on having an abundance to keep you well supplied all summer.

Do you really know what a delicious beverage can be made from the juice of rhubarb mixed in cool water? Take it along in the hayfield a hot summer day. And even if you can not keep it cool the acid contained in the juice still makes it a delicious and stimulating drink where you would loathe the taste of a stale beer. There are about a hundred other ways to prepare rhubarb, not forgetting a well cooled rhubarb mush served with cool milk in the evening or for that matter three times a day; nothing cheaper, nor healthier. The fresh acid contained in the rhubarb purifies the blood and puts new vigor in your body and soul, is better and cheaper than any patent medicines, and from the growth of 50 to 100 plants you can eat every day for six months and preserve enough in fresh, cool water in airtight jars to last you all winter. But you can do still better with your rhubarb. You can add three months more and make it nine months of the year for fresh, crisp, delicious fruit. I will tell you how.

When your rhubarb gets 3-4 years old and very big and strong clumps of roots, divide some of the best and make a new planting and dig some of the balance before frost in the fall. Leave them on top of the ground until they have had a good freeze--this is very essential to success--then place the roots as you dug them in a dark corner in your cellar or in a barrel in your cellar, exclude all light, keep the soil moderately wet and after Christmas and until spring you will have an abundance of brittle, fine flavored stalks that are fully equal to and perhaps more tender than the outdoor grown. Years ago in Chicago I grew rhubarb in a dark house 3680 ft., built for that purpose, and the stalks generally commanded a price of 12 to 15c a pound in the right market in January, February and March.

It is better not to pull any stalks the summer you transplant, at least not until September. Next year in May and June you can have stalks from 1/2 to 1 pound and over. When you pull stalks don't take the outer two or three leaves but only the tender ones, and strip them off in succession so you do not come back to the same plants to pull for four to six weeks or more. Just as quick as the plant shows flower stems cut them off close to the ground and keep them off, never allow them to show their heads.

I have grown rhubarb for market and for domestic use for about forty years, having one time as much as five acres, and I will a.s.sure you if you will follow directions you will appreciate rhubarb more than before and get out of it all it is worth.

TREES PLANTED BY MACHINE.--A machine which plants from ten to fifteen thousand forest trees seedlings a day is now being used at the Letchworth Park Forest and Arboretum, in Wyoming County, N. Y., according to officials of the Forest Service who are acting as advisers in the work. Previously the planting had been done by hand at the rate of 1,200 to 1,500 trees each day per man.

The machine was designed to set out cabbage and tomato plants, but works equally well with trees. It is about the size of an ordinary mowing machine and is operated by three men and two horses. One man drives the team while the other two handle the seedlings. The machine makes a furrow in which the trees are set at any desired distance, and an automatic device indicates where they should be dropped. Two metal-tired wheels push and roll the dirt firmly down around the roots. This is a very desirable feature, it is said, because the trees are apt to die if this is not well done. Two attachments make it possible to place water and fertilizer at the roots of each seedling. Another attachment marks the line on which the next row of trees is to be planted.

No cost figures are available yet, but officials say that the cost will be much less than when the planting is done by hand. It is stated that the machine can be used on any land which has been cleared and is not too rough to plow and harrow.--U. S. Dept. Agri.

The Greenhouse versus Hotbeds.

FRANK H. GIBBS, MARKET GARDENER, ST. ANTHONY PARK.

In discussing the subject a.s.signed me, I will only speak of hotbeds and hothouses as used for the purpose of growing vegetables and early vegetable plants.

The hotbed is still very desirable where it is wanted on a small scale to grow early vegetables for the home or market, as the small cost for an outfit is very small as compared to hothouses. Sash 45 ft., which is the favorite size with market gardeners, can be purchased for about $2.00 each glazed, and a box 516 ft. to hold four sash can be made for $1.50, making an outlay less than $10.00 for 80 sq. ft. of bed. With good care sash and boxes will last eight years.

Where the beds are put down in early February two crops of lettuce and one crop of cuc.u.mbers can be grown, and when the spring is late three crops of lettuce before outdoor lettuce appears on the market, when the beds are given over entirely to the cuc.u.mber crop. Lettuce at that time generally sells for 25c per dozen, and cuc.u.mbers from 50c down to 15c per dozen, according to the season. From three to five hundred cabbage, cauliflower or lettuce plants can be grown under each sash, or from 150 to 300 tomatoes, peppers or egg plants can likewise be grown under each sash, or where lettuce is grown to maturity six dozen per sash.

The cost of the horse manure for the beds varies greatly, as some are situated where it can be secured very reasonably, while with others the cost would be prohibitive. The amount required also varies according to the season they are put down. When the beds are put down early in February, three cords of manure are necessary for each box. When they are put down March 1st, one-half that amount is needed. Where there is no desire to get the early market, and the beds are put down March 15th, one cord is plenty for each box. I have never tried to figure out just what the cost of putting down each box is, or what is the cost of ventilating and watering; but if they are neglected and the plants get burned or frozen, the cost is much more than if they were given proper attention, and, besides, much time is lost in getting another start, as they are generally left several days to see if the plants will recover, which they seldom do.

The cost of hothouses varies so greatly for the size of the house that it is hard to draw a comparison. A modern steel frame house containing 10,000 sq. ft. of gla.s.s can be built for about $4,000.00, or a house one-half that size can be built for $10,000.00 and is no better than its cheaper rival. A small house say 1680 ft., heated with a brick furnace and flue and hot water coil can be built for from $350.00 to $400.00, where one does not have to hire skilled labor. A hothouse of any size is very satisfactory, as in cold, stormy weather, when we can't even look into a hotbed, plants can be kept growing and there is always something we can do and be comfortable while we are doing it. It is impossible to use a hotbed all winter, as no matter how much manure is put into it in the fall it will cool out and be worthless long before spring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Showing hotbeds and greenhouse at F. H. Gibbs' market gardens.]

With a good hothouse four crops of lettuce can be raised during the fall and winter, and a crop of cuc.u.mbers in the spring and early summer.

Each crop of lettuce sells for from 20c to 25c per dozen; the plants are set six inches apart each way, making about four per square foot of bench room.

The cuc.u.mber crop generally pays as well as two crops of lettuce and is usually planted to come into bearing early in June and kept bearing through July, or until the outdoor cuc.u.mbers are on the market. In the so-called summer just pa.s.sed (1915), there were no outdoor cuc.u.mbers, and they were kept bearing through August and September. Cuc.u.mbers grown in hotbeds cannot be kept in bearing more than six weeks before the vines go to pieces and will not sell for as high a price as hothouse grown. With favorable weather I have always thought I could grow a crop of lettuce in less time in a hotbed than in a hothouse, but with cold, cloudy weather the advantage is on the side of the hothouse. Much less time is required to do the ventilating and watering in a hothouse than with beds, and the soil must be in the highest state of fertility for either one.

While hotbeds will always be desirable in many localities on account of the small first cost, the days of the large commercial hotbed yard is pa.s.sed, and there are now around Minneapolis 5,000 hotbed sash that will not be put down next spring, or if put down, used only on cold frames, all owing to the scarcity of fresh horse manure.

While it is a great satisfaction to have a hothouse or hotbeds and grow vegetables in winter, the life of the market gardener is not one continuous round of pleasure, as lice, white fly, red spider and thrip, mildew and fungous rot are always ready for a fight, and the gardener must always be on his guard and beat them to it at their first appearance, or the labor of weeks will be lost.

An Ideal Flower Garden for a Country Home.

M. H. WETHERBEE, FLORIST, CHARLES CITY, IOWA.

In laying out grounds for country homes or remodeling them, s.p.a.ce should be of the first importance, and where s.p.a.ce permits there is no better arrangement than a fine border on one side of the lawn with a driveway between the lawn and the border, leading from the street to the house and barns. The border should be wide enough to have a nice variety of shrubs for a background, and there should be s.p.a.ce for the hardy perennials and bulbs, which should not be planted solidly but placed in clumps and arranged according to height and blooming season and as to color effect.

I will mention a few of the hardy shrubs and plants that we can all grow with success. While the catalogues are filled with a large list of so-called hardy stock, we must remember that we live in a good sized country and what would be hardy in Southern Iowa, Missouri and Illinois, would not stand the winters of Northern Iowa or of Minnesota or other localities of the same lat.i.tude. In shrubs we can be sure of a variety of lilacs, s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and hydrangea paniculata. Some of the newer varieties are fine and bloom in August, when few other shrubs are flowering. Spirea Van Houttii, best known as Bridal Wreath, we might include and a few of the hardy vines if a trellis or other support was given for them, such as clematis paniculata, coccinea and jackmani, the large purple and white honeysuckle, Chinese matrimony vine, etc.

Among hardy roses, which are called the queen of all flowers, are the Rugosa type, which will stand the winters with no protection and continue to flower all summer. While the flowers of that type are single or semi-double, the bushes would be handsome without any flowers. This type also produces hips, which adds to their attractiveness, and these may be made into jelly in the fall if so desired. I would advise to plant some of the most hardy of the hybrid perpetual roses, such as General Jacqueminot, Magna Charta, Mrs. Chas. Wood, Mrs. John Lang, Mad.

Plantier, with some of the climbers, such as the Rambler in variety, Prairie Queen, Baltimore Belle and, perhaps, some others, with the understanding that the hybrids and climbers should have protection in some form for the winter months.

Then in hardy perennials there is such a variety to select from that one hardly knows where to begin or when to stop. Of course everyone wants a few peonies, and some of the hardy phlox, in such a variety of color.

Then the delphinium, or hardy larkspurs, are fine bloomers. The blue and white platycodon are sure to flower, while the German iris are good and the j.a.pan iris are fine flowers, but have to have good protection to stand our winters. For fine white flowers we have the showy achilleas in variety and gypsophila paniculata, called baby breath as a common name.

Then we must have plenty of s.p.a.ce for a variety of annuals, such as sweet peas, cosmos, pansies, verbenas, etc. Also, we would grow geraniums in variety, a few summer carnations, and the selection can be large or small, but almost every one will want some dahlia and gladiolus bulbs. Those that like yellow, or lemon, lilies can plant them and have a ma.s.s of flowers during June. The j.a.pan lilies, especially the rubrum variety, are good bloomers and quite hardy.