Thyme (Thymus rulgaris, Linn.). Lsbiahr. (G. F. Klugh.) A low, shrub-like perennial, eight inches to one and one-half feet high, forming a dense clump of slender upright stems, bearing many small, sessile, ovate to oblong, entire, pale leaves with many oil bearing glands; flowers small, lavender-colored, in short, spike-like terminal groups. It is a common plant of kitchen-gardens used for flavoring pur poses. The herb is distilled for oil, from which the disinfectant " thymol" is obtained.
It likes a mellow, loamy soil, and grows well from seed. Planting is done about the first of March in three-foot rows, at the rate of about one or two pounds per acre ; the plants are left thick in the drill. The grower should cultivate thoroughly, and cut the plants at the end of the growing sea son for distillation. An acre should yield five or six tons of green herb the first year, which will give about twenty pounds of oil. Plantings in Washing ton, D. C., have been winter-killed after being cut down to the ground, while bushes left uncut lived over.
Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Linn.). Valerianacetr. (S. C. Hood.) Fig. 2632, Cyclopedia of Ameri can Horticulture.
Valerian is a perennial herb with a stout, hori zontal or ascending rootstock, bearing fibrous roots ; stem one and one-half to three feet high, somewhat branching above, with a few short hairs ; lower stem-leaves pinnately divided or lobed into many lanceolate or oblong leaflets ; flowers small, closely crowded into terminal clusters, lilac or lavender in color, fragrant. It is a common ornamental known as "garden heliotrope." The underground parts are dug, sliced and dried to form the valerian of the crude drug market.
Valerian root has been grown in certain sections of New York and New England, and as this is the form known as English valerian the quality is very fine.
The soil should be light and well dressed with stable manure. Soil not well drained or having much clay should be avoided, because the plant does not do well, and also because of the difficulty in cleaning roots grown on this soil. The land shonld be plowed in the fall, and very early in the spring should be harrowed until very fine. In some sections it is the custom to spade the soil by hand with a fork and pick out all lumps.
The plant is propagated by root-divisions of the previous year. The plants left in the ground until wanted, when they are dug and the divisions made. A good plant should give six to eight divi sions. These divisions should be planted in rows
two feet apart, and ten inches apart in the row. They should root at once and send up a rosette of leaves in two weeks. The crop must be well culti vated throughout the entire summer and kept free from weeds.
The roots are ready to be dug about October 1. The masses of roots are usually washed in running water to remove the soil. They are then cut so that drying will be even. The drying is done in a specially constructed kiln with artificial heat, usu ally at 125° to 150° Fahr. When well dried the root may be packed in barrels for market. The yield should be about 2,000 pounds of dry root per acre.
Wormseed, American (Chenopodium anthelminti cum, Linn.). Chenopodiacece. (T. B. Young.) An annual, branching, unsightly weed character istic of waste grounds, having a large fibrous root system (which under favorable conditions may live over winter in the South) and a stout, straggling, smooth stem, two to four feet high, bearing smooth leaves, various sinuately cut and lobed or almost entire, and long, dense, nearly leafless spikes of inconspicuous flowers, followed by small, shining black seeds enclosed in a green calyx. It occurs wild in eastern and southern United States. It has long been used in medicine for its anthelmintic properties, a quality due to the volatile oil which is distilled from the tops and fruits. Its cultivation has been practiced experimentally in South Carolina by the United States Department of Agriculture. The center of wormseed production in this country, of oil as well as seed, has been Westminster, Mary land.
Loamy soils are best suited to the plant, but it grows well on any type of soil, and develops an abundant crop of herbage and fruit in the fall. Fertilizers with a liberal amount of phosphates, nitrate, and organic nitrogen and potash, are the most satisfactory to the plant.
The seeds are sown directly in the field in rows three to four feet apart. When the plants are up they are thinned out with a hoe to a distance of about eighteen inches. The cultivation is not un like that given to other crops of a similar kind. A flat cultivation is best, as the crop has to be mowed. About July, before the seeds begin to turn brown ish, the plants are cut with a mower and allowed to remain in the field a day to dry, and are then housed. Then the seeds are threshed, sieved clean and sacked, ready for market.