March 17, 1900 



HORTICULTURE 



317 



At the present time the market is well supplied with 

 cut bloom. Heavy consignments of daffodils are com- 

 ing to hand from Guernsey and the Scilly Islands. In- 

 creased attention is being paid to carnation culture, and 

 there is now a tendency to overdo this branch. The 

 blooms have never been so plentiful as at the present 

 time. The most popular lines include Enchantress, 

 Mrs. T. W. Lawson and Governor Roosevelt. The first 

 named has been making the top price, averaging from 

 4s. to 5s. a dozen blooms, whilst the others make from 

 3s. to 4s. a dozen. Florists report that the American 

 tree carnation is steadily growing in favor, the merito- 

 rious displays made at the Royal Horticultural Society 

 shows having done a greal deal to popularize the bloom. 



>t*/. GM*&. 



London, Eng., March 3, '06. 



Some Interesting Results in Rose 

 Hybridization 



Hybridizers are working industriously to get a race 

 of hardy roses. Rosa rugosa seems to be a favorite to 

 work upon and we are promised a fine set of this cross- 

 ing from that tireless hybridizer, Dr. Mullcr, of Ger- 

 many. He also has some of the Persian Yellow type 

 which will be, however, sent out by the firm of J. Grav- 

 ereaux-L'Hay, in France Now. why not try the Rosa 

 multiflora and, instead of using it as a seed bearer, use 

 it as the pollen bearer. Some six years ago I crossed 

 the Caserta with the pollen of the multiflora and I got 

 three seedlings out of it which proved extra strong 

 growers, more like the Caserta than the multiflora, and 

 perfectly hardy. The flowers were pure white, fully 

 four times as large as the multiflora, blooming in clus- 

 ters of three and four flowers. I have no doubt, if this 

 rose had been recrossed with one of the hardiest hybrid 

 tea roses, some good results might have come out of it. 

 I was not working then in the direction of hardy roses. 

 I grew them a few years, and then as the bushes be- 

 came too large I grubbed them out, for which I am 

 Sorry now. 



Our native Rosa setigera is one which I think would 

 produce better results than Rosa rugosa. It may be ob- 

 jected that this is a climbing rose: well, I've had climb- 

 ers from dwarfs, why wouldn't it bo possible to get 

 dwarfs from climbers? I have two seedlings now, a 

 cross between Billard et Banc and Marechal Niel, both 

 climbers. One of the seedlings is all growth and no" 

 flowers ; the other grows about five inches and then 

 makes a bud. It took twenty flowers of the Marechal 

 Niel to produce enough pollen to fertilize one flower. 

 I also fertilized Billard et Barre with Persian Yellow. 

 The seedlings had the same habit as the Persian Yel- 

 low; the lower leaves would always ripen up and drop. 

 In trying to keep them growing through the winter they 

 became sick and died. They should have been kept dor- 

 mant through the winter. I could cite many other in- 

 stances of climbers producing dwarfs. It will very like- 

 ly take a good many years in crossing and recrossing. 

 besides patience and perseverance to get something 

 nearer to what we are seeking. 



Damping off of Seedlings 



This disastrous disease to young seedlings is common 

 enough to every gardener, and that it is caused by a 

 parasitic fungus, has been known for many years. This 

 fungus is botanically called pythium, and the most 

 common species is baryanum. The hypha of the fungus 

 makes its way into the tiny stem of the seedling, by way 

 of the stomata, or by boring its way through the deli- 

 cate cuticle. 



Some botanists affirm that the tips of the hypha 

 secrete a ferment which dissolves the cell wall of the 

 plant it comes in contact with, and so enables it to 

 enter; while other ferments bring the organic sub- 

 stances of the host into a condition in which the para- 

 site can assimilate them. It usually enters the plant 

 just at the surface of the ground. After it once gets 

 in it goes on growing and branching through the whole 

 system of the plant. The stem of the young seedling 

 soon tumbles over because the tissues become so much 

 damaged and decayed that the tiny stem has not the 

 .. strength to stand upright. Once the plants fall they 

 soon rot entirely away. The only cure for this dis- 

 ease is to change the atmospheric conditions at once and 

 also to keep the seed bed drier. Where damping off 

 is in evidence, at some time or other there has been a 

 ''too close atmosphere and too much moisture. 



Pythium, although a fungus is closely allied to the 

 algae, and requires moisture for its normal reproductive 

 process to go on. If a check is not given to the fungus 

 by a change of conditions, it will very soon destroy all 

 the seedlings in the seed box. The best way to save any 

 seedlings out of an infested box is to transplant all that 

 are unaffected into fresh soil. 



T 



Begonia Gloire de Sceaux 



We doubt if one would be able to find this begonia 

 in six commercial places in this country if one wanted 

 to buy a small stock of it. Yet we have had the pleas- 

 ure of seeing it growing to perfection in two private 

 places in the vicinity of Philadelphia this season. We 

 do not recall when it was sent out, but ean remember 

 growing it in England once ten years ago. We believe 

 there is a great future before this plant and can safely 

 say that if properly handled it would make an excellent 

 plant for the Christmas season. The foliage is of a 

 bronzy metallic lustre, crimson beneath. The flowers 

 are freely produced during the winter months; color, 

 a bright rose pink after the style of the light pink 

 Lorraine, but the flowers are much larger in size. 



The culture of this plant varies little from that given 

 to the Lorraine family, with the exception that it will 

 not stand quite as much sunlight and that the foliage 

 should never be wet. If wet, the foliage soon gets 

 rusty. We believe it would propagate as freely as the 

 Lorraine family as one-year-old plants produce cuttings 

 freely from the base during the month of March. The 

 temperature to grow it in is from 60 degrees to 65 

 degrees at night during the winter months; pot in a 

 rather light soil. 



