7 30 



HORTICULTURE 



Decemb er 



190T 



Dahlias In France 



1 was going to liead my few notes '"French Dahlias/' 

 but remembered that many of those I saw in France 

 were not purely of French origin but were raised in 

 other countries. In spite of our long autumn without 

 frost it is only fair to say that early November is not 

 the period at which the dahlia may be expected to be 

 seen in its highest state of development and yet when- 

 ever it has been my privilege to visit that country it 

 has always struck me that as a show flower the culture 

 of the dahlia is far behind that generally practiced in 

 Great Britain. 



Some day iierhaps France will have its "Dahlia 

 Society," but it is not the country of special societies 

 and it was many years before the French ever thought 

 of starting a Chrysanthemum Society. Since they have 

 done so the popular autumn flower lias advanced by 

 leaps and bounds and the blooms now shown there are 

 as fine or nearly so as the very best in a first-class 

 English show. Xowhere in Europe can such a show be 

 found as that held every year in Paris, which was 

 described and illustrated in last week's Horticulture, 

 and in spite of having the charge levelled at me of a 

 want of patriotism I do not hesitate to make the asser- 

 tion. 



But it is the dahlia that occupies attention for the 

 present. In the point of view of setting up the flowers 

 our English raisers adopt a much more effective and to 

 my mind artistic method of staging their blooms. They 

 are usually set up on long tables with the bunches of 

 flowers in flat kind of pyramids or else in tasteful 

 groups on the ground in branched bamboo supports and 

 vases. The French, on the other hand, generally place 

 them on the gi%uM- ilev^el J&^bed^.- The blooms are 

 placed in bottles" with a base of light powdery material 

 resembling soil or else o!f-'m6ss. They are sometimes 

 set up in big banks of bloom but the colors are all inter- 

 mingled and no great decorative effect is obtained. 



Individually the blooms are poor, denoting no special 

 intensive culture and are often staged with huge unde- 

 veloped green eyes that would of a certainty ensure 

 their banTshment from any leading English dahlia show. 

 I have seen this season at C'annell's and at our autumn 

 show fine examples of the big decorative and peony- 

 flowered varieties in grand form; without exaggeration 

 I should think Souvenir de Gustave Dawson measured 

 close on a foot across at Cannell's and yet a fortnight 

 later I saw some blooms in an exhibit at the Paris show 

 not five inches across. So, too, with the cactus dahlia. 

 Of the old show and fancy type not many are seen for 

 they, like the old incurved chrysanthemum, are too stiff 

 and formal in appearance to please the Freneb taste. 

 Pompons^-perha])S for the same reason, although 

 smaller — are less frequent than cactus. 



Taking large decorative varieties my notes include 

 among the best, Jeanne Charmet, Keine Emma, Bea- 

 trice, Prest. A^ermoell and Mme. Van den Daele, while 

 the cactus although extremely numerous only find men- 

 tion of the following kinds as noteworthy examples: 

 Eene Caveux, Thuringia, Lucifer, Cinnamon, Mirifique 

 Ada. Robt. Sallier. Firebrand, Eadiance. Cornucopia, 

 Eubv, Baden Powell. Florence, Prince of Yellows, Eev'd 

 Williamson, Butterflv. Norfolk Hero, Eva, Dainty, Cor- 

 onation, Loyalty, Winsome, Mrs. Rooney, Sweet Nell 

 and Osprey. 



San Jose Scale 



Although the San Jose Scale is well known to many 

 horticulturists, it is a subject of so much universal im- 

 portance that I feel justified in writing a few lines 

 regarding it. 



The San Jose Scale was imported to America about 

 1879. It is a native of northern China, although its 

 origin was somewhat of a speculation until 1901-2. 

 The scale was introduced into California and first 

 found ini a town which bears the same name. It was 

 not until 1893 that it was thought to be a very serious 

 pest; at this time, it was found in Virginia. These 

 infested trees were bought from a nursery whose stock 

 came from California. Investigations were now begun 

 in earnest and in less than four years, its presence was 

 noted in twenty States east of the Mississippi Eiver. 



The San jTose Scale (Aspidiotus pernicious) has been 

 called by several different names. (1) The Chinese 

 scale; probably because it is a native of China. (3) 

 The Pernicious Scale; Professor J. H. Comstock, the 

 discoverer of the scale said, "it was the most pernicious 

 scale" known to him. (3) The San Jose Scale; be- 

 cause it was first discovered in the vicinity of the City 

 of San Jose. This latter is the common name it gener- 

 ally goes by. 



THE LIFE HISTORY 



The life history of the .scale is particularly interest- 

 ing. The young insects which are born alive are pro- 

 vided with legs, thus enabling them to crawl out from 

 beneath the scale under which they were born and search 

 for a place to settle. This takes a very short time. At 

 this stage they are so small that it is difficult to see 

 them without the aid of a strong glass or microscope. 

 They are yellow in color while in this stage of develop- 

 ment. 



When they have selected a suitable place, they begin 

 to work their sucking tubes (which are remarkably long 

 for the size of the scale) into the bark, leaf or fruit 

 wherever they have situated and begin to suck the sap 

 from the tree. The insect now loses all power of 

 locomotion and the scale is slowly formed over its back. 

 At first, this scale is composed merely of a waxy secre- 

 tion which exudes from the back of the young insect. 

 As the insect beneath the scale grows, it molts or sheds 

 its skin and this forms another layer to the scale itself. 

 As this becomes older, it turns to a distinctly darker 

 color, due to the weather and the addition of the molted 

 skin from the insect beneath it. 



It is very easy to distinguish between the male and 

 female insect. The former makes a scale which is oval 

 or elongated in form, while the latter makes a circular 

 one. Although the female loses her legs, wings and 

 eyes, she retains her sucking tube and still continues 

 to suck the sap from the tree and all her vitality is 

 ^iven up to producing young. The male insect is not 

 so hopelessly fastened'beneath its scale, but soon devel- 

 ops verv small lace-like wings, legs, two pair of eyes 

 and feelers or antennae. The male insect lives but a 

 short time and takes no food. 



To show how rapidlv the female multiplies, I will 

 give the following quotation from Dr. H. T. Fernald's 

 bulletin on the "San Jose Scale." Dr. Fernald states 

 "that estimates on this point show that an average of 

 1.608.040.200 females would be produced from a single 

 female in one season, with probably at least an equal 

 number of males, a total starting from a single female 

 of 3.316.080.400 individuals !" It is very fortunate that 

 all of these do not reach maturity, for a great many are 



