In the Garden If ever there was a year when
the curtailing of plants after they have flowered or fruited has brought dividends it is this year. A cottage neighbour has recently been enjoying an excellent crop of broad beans borne on a row that was cut down after the first crop. The books discourage this habit, but—according to local gardeners—not wisely. Pyrethrums at the moment are in almost as full flower as they were in June. Doubtless this sort of compulsion put on plants to produce two crops instead of one tends to exhaust both roots and soil. The frequent cuttings are no doubt part of the reason why spinach more obviously exhausts the soil than perhaps any other crop. Even abundant manuring does not always restore full fertility in the first year. Nevertheless, the practice of assuring a second flower- ing is not to be altogether excluded. Those who have grown sunflowers (for the sake of seeds as a hen-food) should be careful to shell the seeds out with little delay or they may be spoiled by moulds. Some of the field-crops have been left too late—with the result that the spilt food has attracted game birds from far and near! So oily a seed is quite irresistible.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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