This antique volume contains a detailed guide to growing vegetables and flowering plants under glass. It includes details of construction, heating and operation of small greenhouses, sash-houses, hotbeds, cold frames, etc., for the benefit of the amateur and commercial grower. The text will be of much interest to modern growers, and is a book not to be missed by collectors of such literature. It includes practical recommendations on plant growing structures, saving labour, control of insects and diseases, plant bed construction, and other information of use to those engaged in plant growing. The chapters of this text include: 'Main Features of the Problem', 'Cold Frames', 'Soils for Plant Growing', 'Seed Sowing and the Care of Young Plants', 'Transplanting and 'Hardening Off' Young Plants', 'Common Diseases and Their Control', etcetera. We are proud to republish this antiquarian text now complete with a new introduction on vegetable growing at home.

In an economic study of the Netherlands East Indies a distinction was made between absolute and relative deficiency in prosperity. Of the indigenous population 80 % was engaged in agriculture. Material economic development had lagged behind non-material development.To raise the prosperity of the rural population further encouragement of the farmers was needed to intensify and rationalize their farms, and raise their production and efficiency in food and cash crops, especially in view of their rising needs and the growing population. Circumstances and conditions were then favourable for larger exports. The shift from subsistence agriculture towards export agriculture should however be gradual to allow an increase in economic resilience of the farmers.

In an economic study of the Netherlands East Indies a distinction was made between absolute and relative deficiency in prosperity. Of the indigenous population 80 % was engaged in agriculture. Material economic development had lagged behind non-material development.To raise the prosperity of the rural population further encouragement of the farmers was needed to intensify and rationalize their farms, and raise their production and efficiency in food and cash crops, especially in view of their rising needs and the growing population. Circumstances and conditions were then favourable for larger exports. The shift from subsistence agriculture towards export agriculture should however be gradual to allow an increase in economic resilience of the farmers.

A preliminary study of methods for determining easily soluble calcium is reported. The use of carbonated water as a solvent possesses theoretical significance, but has disadvantages by reason of its instability. Leaching soils with saturated carbonated water in a closed system proved a satisfactory means of using this reagent. A slight modification of the NH1Cl method for determining exchangeable calcium is given. Utilization of the seedling method, advanced by Neubauer, for determining the availability of soil constituents was found useful in indicating the amounts of easily soluble calcium a soil may contain. The chief points of interest brought out by this study are as follows: 1. All the methods show in general a higher calcium extraction from soils growing good alfalfa than from those growing poor alfalfa. The exceptions are probably due to the influence of other fertility conditions. 2. The total amounts of calcium leached out by carbonated water were found to approximate closely the exchange calcium in the soils. While the determination of such total amounts is important in indicating something as to the potential supply of usable calcium a soil may contain, it does not furnish evidence as to that portion which must be available to enable a plant to maintain normal growth. 3. The calcium leached out by the first liter of saturated carbonated water shows something as to potential supply, represents the more easily soluble calcium, and shows considerable correlation to field results with alfalfa. Leaching with saturated carbonated water in a closed system is more accurate than shaking given quantities of soil and N/25 H2CO3 and determining the calcium dissolved. The former procedure approaches more nearly to the hypothecated mechanism of plant feeding and possesses, therefore, more significance as a method for determining so-called available calcium. 4. The extraction of calcium by means of plant seedlings offers interesting possibilities in determining the relative amount of easily soluble constituents in a soil. Used in conjunction with chemical methods, it enhances their significance in determining that portion of an element which is available. Not as wide a range of calcium could be removed from the soil by buckwheat seedlings as by carbonated water, but the results obtained were in somewhat the same order and amounts.

Analyses were made to determine the potassium content of grown in soil, sand, and solution cultures which had received applications of different amounts of potassium. A theory for the utilization of potassium is developed from the data presented. The application of the theory to fertilizer practices is discussed. The results may be summarized as follows: 1. Plants absorb considerable more potassium during the early periods of growth than is necessary for the normal processes of growth. This applied to the crops studied, including alfalfa, Hubam clover, cowpeas, soybeans, oats, wheat, Sudan grass, corn, cotton, and tomatoes. 2. The potassium in the tomato plant is practically all water soluble. 3. Potassium can be translocated within the plant and reutilized to prevent starvation when the supply of available potassium is insufficient to supply the needs of the growing regions. 4. It is suggested that the luxury consumption of potassium followed by translocation and reutilization of the potassium in the plant is an important process in the assimilation of potassium by plants.

1. At the Kansas Experiment Station soil moisture determinations to a depth of 10 feet have been made during the seasons of 1926 to 1928 on upland that has been in alfalfa since 1910 and also on land in a 16-year rotation including 4 years of alfalfa. 2. When alfalfa was on the land the moisture content of the deep subsoil was reduced to a low point and remained almost constant. 3. With most of the rainfall coming during the growing season, the moisture penetrated very slightly below a depth of 6 feet. The crop used the moisture about as fast as it came. 4. When alfalfa land in the 16-year rotation was broken and kept in corn and wheat for 10 years, the deep subsoil failed to gain materially in moisture. 5. When a field in alfalfa for 18 years was broken out June 6, 1928, and fallowed until August, both the soil and the deep subsoil gained rapidly in moisture, whereas other land carrying a crop made no gain during this period. This would tend to emphasize the value of at least a short period of fallowing to conserve moisture for getting alfalfa started.

The bulked-population method of handling cereal hybrids consists essentially of creating populations by hybridization, growing the hybrids in bulk for six or eight generations until they have become homozygous or nearly so, and then making head or plant selections for comparative testing in the usual way. Nineteen crosses were handled by this method in an experiment at University Farm, Davis, Calif., in all or part of the years from 1923 to 1926, inclusive. Two generations were grown in each year. Head selections were made in 1926 and were grown in head rows in 1927. The best head rows were sown in replicated 16-foot triple rows in 1928. The average yields of 33 of the 45 selections grown in 1928, or 73.3% of the total number, were above the average yield of all (33) check rows. As a group the selections showed marked resistance to lodging and shattering. Hard-kerneled types predominated. The number of generations required before selection depends on the number of character differences involved. Ordinarily, seven or eight generations are sufficient. The area used for a bulk population should be large enough so that, at the rate of seeding employed, all combinations expected in a cross maybe included. On the average, wheat contains 10,500 kernels per pound. From 1 to 2 pounds should be sown when dealing with crosses of ordinary complexity. The method is adapted for the development of strains possessing such characters as winterhardiness, rust resistance, smut resistance, etc., in the close-fertilized cereals.