The Agricultural Calendar

October is the month in which the families come down to Beirut and feel, for a while, the remnants of the summer heat.

How, one wonders, shall we find our gardens and orchards after the holiday? Perhaps in a sorry state. We must therefore bestir ourselves and hasten to tend the soil and its fruits, seizing the opportunity of our presence in Beirut for useful garden work.

In the Flower Gardens

The plains: You must set into the ground the seedlings sown in August and potted in September. If this chance passes without your planting, you can go to the nurseries, where all the potted flowers are to be found for sale. Before this operation it is essential to turn the soil over and manure it. Most gardeners favor goat manure, whereas the soil in Beirut is sandy and needs cow manure or horse manure more than goat manure.

Seedlings sown in the ground in October flower in early spring, and you can then plant anew and obtain the late flowers.

In laying out the garden one should observe the principle of placing the small seedlings first, at the edge of the beds, then the seedlings of middling height, and finally the tall or large seedlings.

Keep watering these seedlings between two and four times a week. Tend the carnations, for autumn in Beirut is damp; pinch — that is, trim back — the chrysanthemums (Chrysanthènes).

The mountains: The garden will remain neglected until spring. But before going down to Beirut the leaves of the trees should be gathered and used as soil for the flowers. The seedlings must also be watered from time to time, as need arises.

In the Vegetable Gardens

The plains: As you do in the flower garden with the flowers, so should you do in the vegetable garden. If the seedlings or seeds are not ready to hand, you can buy some in the market or at the nurseries. Plant from now on tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, radishes, etc. And do not forget to manure the ground with cow manure or horse manure.

Water the ground between two and four times a week, and hoe it to pull out the harmful weeds.

The mountains: Follow what was said above concerning the flower gardens; hoe the ground and water it from time to time.

Among the Fruit Trees

The plains: Continue the watering, hoe the ground for the last time before winter, and treat the trees with sulphur and nicotine as a precaution against aphids and the white disease. Treat the lemon trees by spraying with white oil at the rate of one and a half percent, as a precaution against black spot and the worm.

The mountains: Stop the irrigation, hoe the ground, and keep up the treatment against aphids and the white disease. In winter nothing more will be needed but a few tasks which we shall mention in due course.

A final remark: The cultivation of fruit trees has taken an important place in Lebanon, and on most of the heights it has replaced the growing of mulberries and the silk industry. Lebanon is the only country in this East that possesses the conditions enabling it to produce fruits of every kind, from bananas to cherries.

There is no excuse for us if we neglect this side of our countryside. Let us keep at the work and preserve the traditions of our forefathers, who built the many terraces on the mountain slopes and planted their soil with the vine and the mulberry — those mighty works which won the admiration of strangers. Let us plant, without slackening, the fruit trees which even now count among the riches of Lebanon.