PLAN No. 317. A RHUBARB BED THAT PAID
A grocer’s wife, with only a few square feet in the back yard of a city lot, cultivated a rhubarb bed that paid for itself hundreds of times over, and required but little care from the time it was started.
She obtained several pieces of old root stock from a variety she knew to be of the very best, and in the spring had the ground spaded up and pulverized until it was almost like powder, then she added some good fertilizer, and set out the roots in hills four feet apart each way, leaving the top or eye an inch or so below the level of the ground. These began to grow at once, and during the dry season were kept well watered, being frequently hoed to kill all the weeds.
A considerable number of edible stalks were pulled the first season, great care being taken to let none of them go to seed, by snapping off the seed stems as fast as they appeared.
The second season the growth began early and was remarkably rapid so that before any one else had rhubarb, she had a good display of it in her husband’s store where it sold readily at a very high price.
Ever since then this small rhubarb bed has kept her in pin money, and all the care it has required was to keep it free from weeds and to water it occasionally.