, making about four per square foot of
bench room.

The cucumber 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 cucumbers are on the market. In the
so-called summer just passed (1915), there were no outdoor cucumbers,
and they were kept bearing through August and September. Cucumbers 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
passed, 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, space should
be of the first importance, and where space 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 space 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