The household (of the Detroit free press)

To kill white worms in the soil, also fish worm, tie soot in a rag, as the old-fashioned way of putting indigo in water on wash days, and dip and squeeze until the water is black. Give your plants some of this twice a week. It is a valuable fertilizer as well as an insect destroyer. This is another way : Stick three or four common matches down into the soil, also one or two up into the drain opening. The phosphorus on the match is certain death to animal life and a powerful fertilizer for plants. FERTILIZERS. Plants which are cultivated in pots or tubs require a great deal of water, and if they thrive well, should have stimulating fertilizers. For hard-wooded, slow-growing plants, very fine bone — flour of bone — sold by seedsmen for the purpose, is perhaps the best ; a few tablespoonfuls being forked into the soil of the pot. For soft-wooded, quick-growers, a liquid fertilizer may be used. This may be guano, a teaspoonful to a gallon of water ; soot, two tablespoonfuls to a gallon, or the water of ammonia (liquid hartshorn) of the drug stores, an ounce to the gallon. Water the plants with either of these instead of clear water once or twice a week, as the condition of the plant requires. No invariable rule can be given. Another, and one readily procured is this : Put one bushel of the clippings from horses' hoofs into a barrel, and fill it up with water. Let CONSER VA TOR Y CHA T. 121 it stand for a week, when it is ready for use. Apply with a watering pot. All bedding plants can be watered with this liquid every other day, if they are not pot-bound ; re-potted plants should be watered once a week until they have plenty of working roots to take up the manure. It will also be found excellent for hard-wooded plants if used once or twice a week. Two or three weeks after the plants have been watered with the manure, the foliage generally changes from a green to a golden yellow, moving from the stem down to a point of the leaf, which, however, lasts only for a few weeks, when it changes to a dark, glossy green. Plants under this watering grow very strong ; the flowers are very large and bright in color. Plants thus treated can be kept in very small pots for a long time without being transplanted. Flowers watered with this liquid manure will bring twenty-five per cent more than otherwise ; besides, being in small pots, they are lighter, can be packed closer, and are easier to be handled. The fertilizer is not a stimulant, but a plant food, and plants that are watered with it, if planted out, will continue growing and keep in good growth, which cannot be said of guano. It is as powerful as guano, as quick in action, and more lasting. It will not do the slightest harm to the foliage ; most other liquid manures spoil the foliage when they come in contact with it. It forms no crust on the pots or soil. It is cheaper than any other good fertilizer which is used in liquid form. The chips need to be renewed or replaced only twice a year, while the water can be withdrawn every day. When liquid guano is used too strong it will cause the plants to drop all their leaves. This liquid will not, even if used once or twice a day for a short time.