April 21, i: 



H ORT1 CULTURE 



521 



■MECHANICAL WATERING" AP- 

 PROVED. 



Editor HORTICULTURE: — 



Dear Sir: — The discussion appearing 

 in your columns on "Mechanical 

 Watering" is interesting, and I com- 

 pliment " HORTICULTURE upon its 

 sagacity in allowing free discussion 

 upon the subject to appear in print. 



Vim also show good judgment in 

 printing the letters of Messrs. Finlay- 

 son and Ingram, under the heading 

 "Old Fogies," and I will bet a large 

 apple that neither of these gentlemen 

 have ever seen Mr. Wlttbold's water- 

 ing device in operation. 



Your correspondents apparently base 

 their criticisms upon what they have 

 seen in England and European coun- 

 tries. I spent some years in England, 

 and go there now almost every sum- 

 mer and, having seen Mr. Wittbold's 

 device in operation at his firm's es- 

 tablishment in Chicago, I want to tell 

 these gentlemen that they remind me 

 of a person not having seen anything 

 more modern than an old-fashioned 

 dumb waiter, passing an opinion upon 

 a modern elevator, as used in our 

 "sky-scrapers." 



Many old-fashioned English garden- 

 ers in this year of grace 1906, would 

 not allow a hose to be used in their 

 greenhouses, while here the prejudice 

 has been overcome and hoses are now 

 universally used. Even our friend Mc- 

 Gorum uses one. 



Mr. Louis Wittbold is one of the five 

 sons of George Wittbold, the veteran 

 florist of Chicago, who has during his 

 life-time built up one of the largest 

 businesses in the west, and who has 

 handed down to his sons some of his 

 energy and initiative. It will not be 

 necessary for your "old fogie" corre- 

 spondents to go so far away from 

 home as Chicago to see the device in 

 operation. It will probably be in- 

 stalled in the near future in their 

 midst, then they will know more about 

 it than they do at present. 



I consider that Mr. Wittbold's device 

 has much merit. As he says, "it is not 

 a panacea for all business ills." neither 

 is a lawn sprinkler or the ordinary 

 hose, yet they are "watering devices" 

 and have been made adaptable, and the 

 new device will ultimately find its 

 own peculiar sphere of usefulness in 

 like manner. 



Mr. Wittbold should send informa- 

 tion to our above mentioned friends 

 regarding his device and look up fu- 

 ture numbers of HORTICULTURE for 

 a record of their conversion. 



J. McHUTCHISON. 



MECHANICAL WATERING SATIS- 

 FACTORY. 



Editor HORTICULTURE: — 



Dear Sir: — I notice in your columns 

 some controversy on watering ma- 

 chines and mechanical watering, 

 which subject seems to be up for dis- 

 cussion by the trade. While I have 

 no desire to mix in the debate, I wish 

 to say that I think few readers have 

 the correct idea, hence are not suffi- 

 ciently informed or interested to in- 

 telligently discuss the situation. After 

 several months study and experiment- 

 ing with watering machines, I am 

 positive that same are a grand success, 

 and that the trade will soon see it the 

 same way. 



We have our entire establishment 



equipped with an improved system, 

 and we are more than pleased with it. 

 Our houses are 200x27 feet: we water 

 with two runs of pipe in each house: 

 these pipes are fed from the end and 

 decrease in size from 1 1-4 in. down 

 as they approach the farther end. The 

 nozzles are placed 10 ft. apart, screwed 

 m 1-2 in. tees. They throw a fiat spray 

 similar to a gas jet, making a perfect 

 even shower the full length of the 

 house and not more than 4 inches wide 

 where it strikes the bench. The spray 

 can be directed to either bench or any 

 angle by turning the pipe. A pi 

 ( an form little idea of the perfect 

 winking of the system without seeing 

 it in operation or a photo of it. I do 

 our watering now in one hour (all 

 seven houses) ; formerly took two men 

 all morning, and I can do it better at 

 that. Did you ever think of it before, 

 that you do not get the same amount 

 of water on all parts of the bench 

 when watering with the hose? I might 

 add that we are not growing anything 

 this season but vegetables, but would 

 use the same system whatever the 

 crop, and make it work perfectly. 

 While I would not advise a grower to 

 let the boys experiment with one on 

 a house of Farleyense or Lorraines 

 I would advise all greenhouse men to 

 try one length in some house and see 

 for themselves. 



Of course there will be obstacles to 

 overcome with some crops, but they 

 will be overcome, and the watering 

 machine will soon be installed in most 

 up-to-date places. W. B. DAVIS. 



PERSONAL. 



James Hutchinson, formerly gar- 

 dener for Oakes Ames at North Easton, 

 Mass., has taken a position with Dr. 

 Shafer at Pittsburg, Pa. 



CLEANING DODDER-INFESTED 

 ALFALFA SEED. 



F. C. Stewart ;ind H. J. Eustace. N. Y. 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. 



Recent experiments show that al- 

 most any alfalfa seed on the market 

 may be made practically free from 

 dodder and sate to sow by careful hand 

 sifting through a wire sieve having 

 twenty meshes to the inch. A cheap 

 serviceable sieve for the purpose may- 

 be made by constructing a light. 

 wooden frame about 12 inches square 

 by three inches deep and tacking over 

 the bottom of it twenty-mesh wire 

 screen made of No. 32 (English gauge) 

 round wire. 



One-fourth to one-half pound of seed 

 should be put in the sieve at a time 

 and vigorously shaken during one- 

 half minute. A man should be able 

 to clean from five to ten bushels of 

 seed per day. 



Dealers in alfalfa seed should either 

 sift all the seed they sell or else pro- 

 vide their customers with the means 

 of doing the work themselves. Dodder 

 is so troublesome a weed that no one 

 can afford to take the risk of sowing 

 unsifted seed. 



The Station will furnish free sam- 

 ples of dodder seed upon request 



"DID MOST SATISFACTORY BUSI- 

 NESS." 

 Editor HORTICULTURE: — 



Concerning our advertising for this 

 year we are glad to state that just 

 as soon as we have looked over our 

 stock of bulbs you shall certainly 

 hear from us, as we did most satis- 

 factory business through you last sea- 

 son. Very truly, 



POAT BROS. 



E. W. Pierce, of A. H. Hews & Co., 

 Cambridge. Mass., who has been ill for 

 two weeks, is now all right again and 

 at the post of duty. 



Clarence M. Stark, the wealthy 

 nursery man of Missouri, whose dis- 

 appearance at San Antonio, Texas, 

 April 1, caused a sensation, and who 

 was traced to a boarding house, is 

 now in a private sanitarium, an in- 

 stitution where he was being treated 

 prior to his disappearance. He was 

 examined in the county court as to his 

 mental condition, and it was found 

 upon the testimony of the county phy- 

 sician and other medical experts that 

 he was unsound. His wife, who is 

 with him. states that she expects to 

 remain with him until the summer 

 months, w : hen she may take him to 

 Wisconsin, where he was under treat- 

 ment before coming to San Antonio. 



NEW MANAGEMENT. 

 Philip Breitmeyer was, on April 10, 

 appointed park commissioner for the 

 city of Detroit by Mayor Codd. Wil- 

 liam Dilger was promptly appointed 

 superintendent by Mr. Breitmeyer. 

 This is a significant move in park 

 management, and should Commissioner 

 Breitmeyer, the successful florist and 

 business man, and Mr. Dilger, the 

 practical gardener, make a notable 

 success in their new field, as we have 

 every reason to believe they will, a 

 point of inestimable value to the flor- 

 ist interests of the country will have 

 been gained. We congratulate De- 

 troit. 



OBITUARY. 



James Coke, private gardener, died 

 at his home in Maynard, Mass., on 

 April 7 of heart failure, from which 

 he has been suffering for a number of 

 years. Mr. Coke learned his trade in 

 England, his father having been also 

 a gardener. He was in charge of the 

 Kennedy estate in Cambridge, Mass., 

 for a number of years and also the 

 Leavitt place, Cambridge, for six 

 years thereafter. He was a man of 

 fine character and excellent gardening 

 ability. His age was 55 years. 



Count Oswald de Kerchove died in 

 Ghent, Belgium, on March 20, aged 82 

 years. Count Kerchove had been since 

 1878 president of the great Ghent So- 

 ciety for Agriculture and Botany, 

 which gives an exhibition once every 

 five years, and it was when engrossed 

 in the work of preparation for the ex- 

 hibition of 190S— the 100th anniversary 

 of the society's birth— that he was 

 called away. He was a well-known 

 writer on horticultural subjects and 

 author of two books on orchids and 

 palms. Every plant grower in Amer- 

 ica is familiar with the beautiful pink 

 and white azalea which bears his 

 name. 



