"How much will it cost to plant one-eighth of an acre?" One-eighth of an acre contains twenty square rods, and to set one square rod, in rows eighteen inches apart would take 363 plants, and twenty square rods would take 20 times 363 plants, or 7,260 plants, which at $10.00 per thousand, would cost $72.60. But I would advise the beginner to "make haste slowly" in trying new things. A thing may be all right and very profitable if we understand it and give it proper culture, while it is very easy to make sad failure by over doing a good thing. So let the beginner procure a thousand or so plants and start his garden on a small scale, and increase his plantation from his own seed bed as his knowledge of the plant and its culture increases. A very large garden may be set in a few years from 1,000 plants.
"Should the seed be sown broadcast?" To be successful with the seed requires great patience and pains. I make a large flat brush heap and burn it off in the fall. I then dig up the ground to the depth of three or four inches and place boards edgewise around this bed, letting them down into the ground two or three inches. These boards are to keep out mice and to prevent washing. I then sow the seeds in little trenches made with a hoe handle about six inches apart and pretty thick in the trenches and smooth over and tramp solid.
Then sow a few handfuls of bone dust mulched with forest leaves and cover with brush to keep the leaves from blowing away. You are done now until spring. In the early spring, after freezing weather is over, carefully remove the brush and the mulch of leaves. Remember this must be done early as the plant wants to come up early. Watch for your young plants and carefully pull up every weed as soon as it shows itself. Mulch again in the fall and remove as before the next spring. Keep down weeds as before, and by fall you will have a fine lot of No. 1 two-year-old plants, which may be transplanted to the garden at once or early the next spring.
I should have stated that Golden Seal seed should not be allowed to dry after gathering. They should be placed in layers of sand in a box and kept moist until planting time. They begin to germinate very early, and if you delay planting until spring you are nearly sure to lose them.
As to the "profits," I want it distinctly understood that I do not think that every one who starts a bed or patch of Golden Seal will be a millionaire in a few years. But I do think, and in fact I know, that considering the land in cultivation, the time and expense of its culture, it is one of the most profitable crops that can be grown in this latitude.
Lee S. Dick, Wayne County, W. Va.
CHAPTER XX.
GOLDEN SEAL — GOVERNMENT DESCRIPTION, ETC.
The following is from a bulletin issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture — Bureau of Plant Industry — and edited by Alice Henkel: