he plants
seems to prevent the blight for one season on some soils.

At the approach of frost in the fall, green tomatoes can easily be
preserved by wrapping them in paper. Gather them carefully and wrap each
separately. Pack them in boxes and store in a cellar that is close
enough to prevent the freezing of the fruit. A few days before the
tomatoes are wanted for the table unpack as many as are needed, remove
the paper, and allow them to ripen in a warm room.

Tomatoes require a rich soil. Scattering a small quantity of nitrate of
soda around their roots promotes rapid growth.

=Watermelons.= As watermelons need more room than can usually be spared
in a garden, they are commonly grown as a field crop.

A very light, sandy soil suits watermelons best. They can be grown on
very poor soil if a good supply of compost be placed in each hill. The
land for the melons should be laid off in about ten-foot checks; that
is, the furrows should cross one another at right angles about every ten
feet. A wide hole should be dug where the furrows cross, and into this
composted manure should be put.

The best manure for watermelons is a compost of stable manure and
wood-mold from the forest. Pile the manure and wood-mold in alternate
layers for some time before the planting season. During the winter cut
through the pile several times until the two are thoroughly mixed and
finely pulverized. Be sure to keep the compost heap under shelter.
Compost will lose in value if it is exposed to rains.

At planting-time, put two or three shovelfuls of this compost into each
of the prepared holes, and over the top of the manure scatter a handful
of any high-grade complete fertilizer. Then cover fertilizer and manure
with soil, and plant the seeds in this soil. In cultivating, plow both
ways of the checked rows and throw the earth toward the plants.

Some growers pinch off the vines when they have grown about three feet
long. This is done to make them branch more freely, but the pinching is
not necessary.

A serious disease, the watermelon wilt, is rapidly spreading through
melon-growing sections. This disease is caused by germs in the soil, and
the germs are hard to kill. If the wilt should appear in your
neighborhood, do not allow any stable manure to be used on your melon
land, for the germs are easily scattered by means of stable manure. The
germs also cling to the seeds of diseased melons, and these seeds bear
the disease to other field