The club-root or stump-root is a fungous disease for which there is no good remedy. Use new land if the disease is present (p. 208).
Solanaceous group—Tomato, egg-plant, red pepper.
These are warm-weather plants, very impatient of frost. They are all natives of southern zones, and have not yet become so far acclimatized in the North as not to need the benefit of our longest seasons.
Plants should be started early, under glass. They should be “pricked off,” when the second leaves appear, 3 or 4 inches apart, into flats or boxes. These boxes should be kept in a coldframe, to which an abundance of light and air is admitted on warm, sunny days, in order to harden them off. After all danger of frost is past, and the garden soil is well warmed, the plants may be finally transplanted.
If the ground is too rich, these plants are likely to grow too late in the northern seasons.
Cucurbitaceous group—Cucumber, melon, squash, pumpkin.
All the members of this group are very tender to frost, and they must not be planted till the season is thoroughly open and settled. The plants are not transplanted, unless they are transferred from boxes or pots.
Seeds must be planted somewhat shallow from early spring to midsummer. For the earliest cucumbers and melons, seeds are planted in frames. That is, each hill is inclosed by a portable box frame about 3 feet square and usually having a movable sash cover. The cover is raised or removed in warm days, and the frame bodily taken away when all danger of frost is past. In field culture, seeds are planted an inch deep, four to six in a hill, with hills 4 by 6 feet apart, these distances being varied slightly, according to location and variety. Good cucumbers are sometimes grown in hills surrounding a barrel in which manure is placed to be leached out by successive waterings.
The omnipresent enemies of all the cucurbitaceous crops are the little cucumber beetle and the large black “stink bug.” Ashes, lime, or tobacco dust occasionally seem to show some efficiency in preventing the ravages of these insects, but the only reasonably sure immunity is in the use of covers over the hills (Fig. 229) and in hand-picking (p. 202). Covers may also be made by stretching mosquito netting over arcs of barrel hoops or bent wires. If by some such means the plants are kept insect-free till they outgrow the protection, they will usually escape serious damage from insects thereafter. It is well to plant trap or decoy hills of cucumbers, squashes, or melons in advance of the regular planting, on which the bugs may be harvested.
Leguminous crops—Peas and beans.