November 30, 1S07 



HORTICULTURE 



697 



Sedum spectabile 





Situated far away from the large niamif;ict\iring and 

 business centers, the month of September, ior the north- 

 ern part of the Xcw l^ngland States, brings those days 

 of marvellous atmosjjheric clarity, wiiich indicate the 

 near approach of autumn. The light, graceful leafage 

 of the birches begins to turn yellow and with the white 

 hark of their smooth, i-lender trunks stands out in vivid 

 contrast against the dark, soniltre greon of iiiassive 

 clumps of arlwr vitac. Now and then one of tb.e early 

 ■easterly and noiiiiea^terly rainstorms sweeps along our 

 spruce and pine girdled coa^t. playing havoc on the 

 panicles of late pliloxes and the liost of summer annu- 

 al^:. which U], tn this time, uninterruptedly cunslitutetl 

 the keynotes for tln' jubilant color-symphony o[ oui' 

 gariiiiis. 'I o the most resistable pennniaU at 11. is ad 

 vanced reason belongs, alongside the tritomas and moiu- 

 brctias, doulitless, Sednm spectabile. tlie best known rep- 

 resentative of a plant genus, comprising over one hun- 

 dred lifFerent species. Tts usefulness as a bordej' plant 

 and its high value for the planting of rockgardens is 

 unquestioned- Tender cover Sedum spectabib> ha- 

 proven perfectly hardy as far north as Oana'la. It 

 prefers an open sunny space and seems to thrive best in 

 a ligiit sandv loam. In Mount Desert Island gardens, 

 amid huge granite ledges, its flat topped, large cymes 

 frequently continue for several weeks to form a perfect 

 sheet of bright pinkish-carmine hues. 



I admit we have at present a host of pretty things 

 well adaptofl for rockeries, especially among small 

 shrubs and vine=. Of flowering herbaceous plants for 

 sunny, dry positions, however, few have proven equally 

 resistable during heavy rainfalls and few are equally 

 hardv and in a floral respect nearly, as, oi- mere effec- 

 tive than Sedum spectabile. 



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Throw Away the Mole Traps 



We talk much about our bird friends and wish them 

 protected, Init we often neglect or Irill our animal 

 friends. ,\mong these, by far the best, is the mole. 



The white grul) or "cut worm" is one of the most 

 expensive and destructive pests we have and unless 

 their number can be reduced, they threaten to take 

 the eartli. '^I'liey are the progeny of the June-bug which 

 comes th. limping against your windows on summer ev- 

 ■enin£rs. They will take possession of a piece of ground 

 and destroy everything on it. Sometimes large patches 

 ■of corn, in the richest crroimds, will be destroyed. Thev 



often infest sod grounds and lawns. You have seen 

 grass lands where the hogs were turned in and they 

 ripped up the sod like torn blankets, to get the grubs 

 which they destroyed by the thousand. Sometimes they 

 get into the nurseries and they never stop to count the 

 cost, hut destroy plants by the thousand. One year 

 they killed a thousand dollars' worth of evergreens for 

 me and every year they inflict more or less damage. 



THI-; .WENGEU HAS COME 



Xow, 1 am ambitious to have one of the. finest col- 

 lections of perennials in the country. I raise thousands 

 of phloxes and am engaged in raising new 'varieties 

 which are the joy of my life. I noticed that some of 

 my choicest ones were being killed by the grulis. It 

 is next to impossible to dig them out. They would 

 take a row of the best, where the plants were fifty 

 cents apiece ; when they killed one, a sort of blind in- 

 stinct told them to keep right on in the same row, and 

 so plant after plant was destroyed. It would often 

 cost a dollar or two to keep one of these pests. Pres- 

 ently. T noticed those little ridges thro\vn up which 

 indicated the presence of moles and I said, "Xow the 

 avenger has come." You could see how they ;5ig7,agged 

 around and caught the destroyers. It is supposed that 

 moles eat the roots of plants. ISTo, they are after grubs 

 anil worms. They do not eat the roots at all, but are 

 after the rascals that do and they do love the white 

 grubs. When I came to dig the phloxes, I found grubp 

 in the rows unmolested by moles. The most diligent 

 search failed to find one in. the rows wdiere they had 

 made their blind furrows. A friend called on jne while 

 1 was digging. He 'iiw a mole at work. ''Here, quick. 

 dig him out and kill him!"' He had the prevailing 

 spirit wliich savs. "Kill bin;, kill liim!" — the spirit 

 which invents mole trajis. I said. "No. that little fellow 

 is one of mv best friends. He is worth a five dollar 

 bill." Complaint is made against him that he ridges 

 up the lawns and destroys young plants, but he never 

 goes where there are no worms or grubs. First, he 

 prefers wliite grubs: and next, he takes the . angle 

 worms. 



THE ANGLL WOfcM A PKST 



Xow". naturalists may say what they will regarding 

 the angle worm and how much good he does in passing 

 great volumes of earth through his maw, but in the 

 Keliraska prairies, he is one of our worst pests. Our 

 soil is generally light and friable and a.fter he has 

 vorked in it a while it becomes like tough and heavy 

 adobe. Wien dry, your hoe will ring on it as if you 

 were strdving a i)rick-bat. Such land dries out very 

 ra})idlv and its value is reduced one-half. Whatever 

 good he may do to other soils, please keep him out of 

 ours and wdien we sec the moles after him I say, 

 ''sie-em '" Sometimes moles will damage young plants 

 by lifting them up so they dry out, but it does not take 

 long to follow the ridges and tread them down. 



In dis-.iing the phloxes. I could not see that they had 

 injuredthe roots any. I noticed several places where 

 the gi'ubs had begun to work and T was fearful of 

 their" depredations next year, but lately I liave seen 

 ridaes which show that their enemy is on their track 

 and thev will clear the ground so that it will be safe 

 to plant in the «i>ring. What birds are above ground, 

 the mole is to the Iddden cnennes in the earth. 



C S^ ^fR/r^-^-^twi 



Su]it. Xehraska Experiment Station, York, Nebraska. 



