May 19, 1904. 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



1379 



gets more room to grow and they are 

 easier to work among. Plant the center 

 row first as a guide, then the outer rows 

 need no measuring to set each plant ex- 

 actly the same distance apart. The dis- 

 tance apart to set the plants for 

 this early planting should be not 

 less than six inches one way by 

 nine the other for single stem plants, anl 

 it may with profit be as much as ten 

 inches each way if jou want to raise 

 only the very best. It may look wide at 

 planting time, but one must think of the 

 future, and in September, when a forest 

 of growth has sprung up, things will look 

 very different. 



After your bench is planted make the 

 soil around the plants solid, the quickest 

 way to accomplish this being to put a 

 man with reasonably small feet to tramp 

 it down, finishing the odd corners with a 

 brick. This firming of the soil I always 

 considered important and the soil can 

 hardly be made too solid, unless it is 

 wet, and wet soil should never be worked 

 in at all. The idea of making the soil 

 firm is to cause the plant to make a 

 hard, short-jointed growth, which it will 

 not do if allowed to ramble at will in a 

 bed of loose soil. 



Once the beds are planted the doors 

 and ventilators should be opened and kept 

 so night and day, excepting, of course, 

 during ' storms or heavy gales. Once a 

 week the beds should be scratched over 

 to kill the weeds as they germinate and 

 keep the soil from getting sour. Do not 

 neglect this simple job, for while the 

 chrysanthemum needs lots of water when 

 established, it does object to a sour, 

 sticky soil and will show it by a yellow- 

 ing of the foliage and a generally un- 

 healthy appearance. ^ 



Some of the kinds will run to bud, 

 perhaps, after planting, Viviand-Morel. 

 W. E. Church and several other fine vari- 

 eties showing this peculiarity. In such 

 cases keep the buds picked closely off 

 and in a short time a sucker will come 

 up out of the soil, when the hard, old 

 growth can be cut away and let the suck- 

 er run up to make the plant. This is in- 

 variably better than trying to coax thi> 

 older, hard growth to make a good 

 shoot. 



It occasionally happens that all of the 

 varieties will run to bud with some flor- 

 ists, but this is due to neglect in water- 

 ing. When young plants are allowed to 

 dry out a few times they get hard and 

 woody, and while they often recover on 

 being planted out, I have seen plants 

 that absolutelv refused to come away 

 and make good growth. The obvious 

 moral of this is, never let the plants re- 

 ceive a check of any kind. The culture 

 of the mum is today well understood and 

 the most snecessful exhibitors are those 

 who devote the most time to their plants 

 and watch them carefully from the dav 

 the cutting is put into the sand until 

 the flower has expanded. 



After planting do not shade the house, 

 but on hot days keep a plentiful supply 

 of moisture in the atmosphere by copious 

 spraying and the plants will be all the 

 better for it. If the house is shaded tha 

 growth is liable to be too soft, particu- 

 larly if we get a few days of dull 

 weather, and the thing to aim for dur- 

 ing the summer months is a healthy, 

 short-jointed, stocky growth, from which 

 will come the future prize winner. 



Brian Bokit. 



Pes iloiXES. Ia. — Oswald Qnaas has 

 bought thfi greenhouses and the business 

 of the Bes Moines Plant Co. 



Laelio-Cattleya Charlesworthi. 



LAELIO-CATTLEYAS. 



Xo great effort of memory is required 

 to recall the time when flowering ex- 

 amples of laelias or cattleyas were scant- 

 ilj' represented in our orchid houses 

 during the gloomy winter period, for, 

 with the exception of Cattleya Triano', 

 on the one hand, and Laelia aneeps on 

 the other, there are few commendable 

 species that bloom in winter. Now, how- 

 ever, the great blank has beeti filled, 

 but the hybridists tell us that they have 

 only just commenced, as until recently 

 only the species which, in the case of the 

 small jellow and cinnabar-red flowered 

 members of the laelia family, are not 

 very attractive, were to hand to prac- 

 tice upon. But now, with the resultant 

 hybrids, greater scope, and maybe bet- 

 ter results are anticipated. Even if noth- 

 ing better than the gorgeously colored 

 Laelio-cattleya Charlesworthi, herewith 

 so well figured, had been produced, wo 

 should have no just cause for complaint. 



Laelio-cattleya Charlesworthi undoubt- 

 edlj- ranks first at present by reason of 

 its floriferous nature, size and color of 

 bloom, freedom of growth and probably 

 too. it baring been exhibited in such gen- 

 erous quantities. It is the result of 

 crossing a good form of C. Dowiana 

 aurea with L. cinnabarina, and was 

 raised and flowered by Charlesworth & 

 Co. at Bradford some four years ago. 

 The plant is compact and erect grow- 

 ing, furnished, when in bloom, with a 

 stout scape, bearing from six to ten 



shapely flowers, which are almost wholly 

 of a deep, rich orange-red, the lip rosy- 

 crimson, prettily veined with yellow. 

 When shown at the Drill Hall on Jan- 

 uary 23, 1900, it was voted an award 

 of merit. — Gardeners' Magazine. 



TULIPS. 



I wish v-ou or some other wise man of 

 the craft would tell me what to do for 

 blight on tulips. It appeared first on 

 one bed last year. This year it is on 

 other beds. The leaves appear as if 

 scalded with greasy water; they wilt 

 down and seem to be rotten. It comes 

 on when the leaves are about grown and 

 buds formed. Shall I try Bordeaux mix- 

 ture or other fungicide?" S. J. G. 



Here is another question to which I 

 have to reply, briefly, "I don't know." 

 We have been looking up the best mod- 

 ern authorities on this long known and 

 cultivated garden flower and cannot find 

 any reference to any disease that is pe- 

 culiar to it. And with a good many 

 years of experience with the tulip, both 

 for outdoor beds and forcing during 

 winter and spring, we cannot remember 

 ever seeing the leaves in the condition 

 described above. 



Good authorities say that tulips should 

 not be planted year after year in the 

 same soil, Eotation of crops, as in most 

 of our garden products, is proper, yet 

 that alludes chiefly to producing Ijulbs 

 for flowering the succeeding year, or 



