MARCM 16, 1SS9. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review, 



375 



Platycerium Grande. 



Habit of plant good. Scored 75 

 points." I leave it to the reader to 

 draw his own conclusions. 



The exhibition of new varieties is 

 the life and spice of the Carnation So- 

 ciety, and the interest taken in these 

 exhibitions shows plainly that the 

 work of the society is appreciated; it 

 shows that new varieties are the im- 

 petus of the carnation trade, and in 

 this light a society's certificate should 

 not be underestimated; but it is also 

 true that in the past undue promi- 

 nence has been given to a certificate. 

 The judges judge the product as it is 

 put before them, and not as to how it 

 is produced, or whether its production 

 will be profitable. This is outside of 

 their scope of judging, and anybody 

 who relies on more than the judges 

 can give, has only to blame himself 

 when disappointment is the outcome. 



For this reason I believe the revi- 

 sion of the scale of points for judging 

 new varieties is a step in the right di- 

 rection and gives a certificate its true 

 value. Too much has been expected 

 in the past, and the efforts to material- 

 ize these expectations have been mis- 

 leading. In my next I will give my 

 opinion on the revised scale. 



FRED DORNER. 



AND 



COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS 

 THEIR RELATION TO 

 CARNATIONS. 



Bv Prof. \V. E. Britton of the New Haven (Con- 

 necticut), Experiment Station. 

 [Read before the Philadelphia Meeting of the 

 .American Carnation Society.] 



[Continued from last week.] 



Dr. Jenkins has made a few tests at 

 the Connecticut Experiment Station 

 which are extremely interesting, and 

 it may be profitable to note them here. 

 He obtained equal quantities, by 

 weight, each of surface soil from the 



garden (Which is dressed each year 

 with a liberal quantity of mixed horse 

 and cow manure and with fertilizer 

 chemicals) and of fresh cow manure 

 and fresh horse manure. A water ex- 

 tract was made from each separately 

 and in equal quantities. A small quan- 

 tity of nitrate of soda was added equ- 

 ally to each liquid and the nitrogen 

 immediately determined. These three 

 liquids were put in tightly stoppered 

 flasks and kept in a eloset nearly dark. 

 From March 23 to the 28th of the fol- 

 lowing January seven nitrogen deter- 

 minations were made at intervals, to 

 ascertain the rate of loss of nitrogen. 

 Less than 5 per cent of nitrogen was 

 expelled from the extract of garden 

 soil during ten months, while the ex- 

 tract from fresh horse dung had lost 

 over 12, and the fresh cow manure ex- 

 tract over 15 per cent of the nitrogen 

 originally contained in each. 



A similar test was made with an ex- 

 tract of fresh horse manure and an ex- 

 tract of compost, such as I have al- 

 ready described and such as we have 

 used in our forcing house benches. The 

 turf and manure were mixed together 

 in the Summer of 1S94 and stood in a 

 compact conical heap until the Fall of 

 1895. 



Soil from which the extract was 

 made came from the interior of this 

 pile, at a depth of between two and 

 three feet. From November 23 to 

 January 28 the compost extract had 

 lost 7% per cent of its total nitrogen, 

 while from the extract of fresh horse 

 manure there had been a loss of 18 

 per cent. It will be noticed that a 

 much greater proportion of nitrogen 

 was lost from the compost than from 

 the garden soil. The latter nearly al- 

 ways contains the nitrifying organ- 

 isms and these were doubtless abund- 



ant on the exterior of the compost 

 heap, while the interior contained the 

 denitrifying ones. It is, therefore, 

 better to keep the compost in shallow 

 heaps and to stir it frequently. If it 

 can be kept under cover, it is all the 

 better. 



It our compost contains the denitri- 

 fying organisms, it is unquestionably 

 better to add our fertilizers in small 

 quantities and frequently, rather than 

 to mix them all with the soil at start- 

 ing. It would seem, too, that watering 

 with liquid manure made from fresh 

 horse or cow manure would be a 

 dangerous practice, thougli I do not 

 know that any experiments have been 

 made to determine this point. 



Many liquid fertilizer preparations 

 have been used upon the carnation 

 crop, to keep the flowers up to the 

 standard in number and quality dur- 

 ing the latter part of the season. I 

 have not tried all of these and cannot 

 say which is the most satisfactory. The 

 preparation recommended oy Profes- 

 sor Wagner has been used at our Sta- 

 tion with good results and may be 

 compounded as follows: 



Phosphate of ammonia 2 oz. 



Nitrate of soda , 1^ " 



Nitrate of potash 1^ " 



Sulphate oi ammonia I'/i " 



Water 5U gallons 



A light application each week is 

 probably as often as it should be given 

 to carnation plants, and perhaps once 

 a fortnight would be still better. The 

 amount depends a good deal on the 

 variety and the soil. 



The carnation does not seem to re- 

 quire an abundance of humus or veg- 

 etable matter in the soil. Plants 

 grown in coal ashe.= with chemicals 

 yielded about as well as where the 

 soil contained 3 per cent, of peat moss. 

 It seems, too, that the carnation does 

 not need to be very highly fertilized. 

 Last winter plants were set in two 

 plots filled with coal ashes and peat 

 moss, to which no fertilizers had been 

 added. For the first three months 

 these plants bloomed about as freely 

 as the fertilized ones and the blooms 

 were of fair quality. Toward the lat- 

 ter part of the season, however, the 

 flowers were inferior. The plant food 

 stored in the plants had become near- 

 ly exhausted. Finally, the number of 

 blooms produced by these unfed 

 plants was about four-fifths of that 

 from the fertilized ones, but about 

 half of them were too poor to be of 

 any value. 



In some pot experiments conducted 

 luore than five years ago, where a few 

 carnation plants were fed with a solu- 

 tion of fertilizer chemicals, a positive 

 injury resulted and the plants receiv- 

 ing little or none of the solution were 

 more thrifty in every way. These 

 plants were grown in a sandy loam, 

 moderately enriched with stable ma-^ 

 nure. 



So that, while we must be sure that 

 plenty of plant food is in reach of our 

 plants, we must not over-fertilize 



