The garden is in its glory during the iris season.  At a conservative estimate we have about twenty-five hundred of them in our little garden, ranging through all the colors of the rainbow and blooming from April until late June.  They may easily make such an increase that it is baffling to cope with, but they are so beautiful and so amenable to the experimenting of an amateur that we feel as though we couldn’t get enough of them.  Last summer a wonderful effect was achieved by putting dark blue and mahogany-colored pansies beside Jacquesiana and Othello iris, this repeating the color and texture in different plants.

[Illustration:  Rocky Mountain columbine against the willow hedge, with perennial candytuft as edging.]

We leave the garden through a wooden arch.  Climbing over one side of this is a Thousandschon rose, and on the other side a Dr. Van Fleet grows rank.  A wild clematis is planted beside each rose and fills the top of the arch.  I am rather dubious about the combination, for I fear the clematis may grow so heavy that it will choke out the roses, but this summer at least it was beautiful, and another summer will come to try other combinations.

Truck Crop and Garden Insects.

AN EXERCISE LED BY PROF.  WM. MOORE, ENTOMOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY
FARM, ST. PAUL.

There is one insect that probably all those who are in the market garden business are very much interested in, and that is the cabbage maggot.  As you all know, in the spring of the year, after cabbages are put out, frequently you will find the cabbages slowly dying, one dying one day and two or three the next day, and so on until sometimes fifty per cent or more of the cabbages die.  At first it is not exactly apparent what is killing the cabbages, but when one is pulled up it will be noticed that a little maggot is working in the root of the cabbage.  This insect is commonly known as the cabbage maggot.

For a number of years work has been carried on with the cabbage maggot, and all sorts of treatments have been tried, many without any great success.  The unfortunate part is that usually the market gardener don’t take much thought of this maggot until it is actually doing the injury, and at that time they are mighty difficult to handle.

There have been several different treatments advised, one of which is fresh hellebore, about two ounces steeped in a quart of boiling water and then diluted to a gallon and poured upon the base of the plant.  It will destroy the maggots, but hellebore is very expensive and, as probably most of you know, there isn’t a great amount of profit in cabbage; so any treatment will have to be a cheap treatment, or you will use up your profit.