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HORTICULTUKE 



March 8, 1913 



Amherst Revisited 



During one of my annual peregrinations of a few 

 weeks past I revisited this beautiful spot where nature 

 seems to have done her best. Beautiful surroundings 

 undoubtedly have an effect for good upon all men and 

 the students as well as the faculty must be inspired to 

 achieve gi-eat things by the sublime beauty of their en- 

 vironment. Eeaders of Horticulture will hardly need 

 to be informed that Amherst is the home of the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural College and Experiment Station 

 as well as that ancient seat of learning — Amherst Col- 

 lege. The Agricultural College, familiarly known as 

 the "Aggie," was the object of my visit. To see what 

 was being done and how it was done and to talk with the 

 men who are doing it. My first call was upon Professor 

 G. E. Stone, the Botanist, who was kind enough to give 

 me nearly two hours of his valuable time, wherein I was 

 enabled "to drink deep of the Pierian spring." It is im- 

 possible for me to give my readers the whole of the val- 

 uable suggestions that Professor Stone threw out during 

 our talk, but will in brief state a few of them. 



The rationale of fumigating in the evening is that 

 the stomata are then closed, and as the stomata are the 

 breathing pores of plants the liability of injury is 

 lessened. This suggested to the writer that in fumigat- 

 ing with hydrocyanic gas our practice of having the 

 plants and air as dry as possible is along the same lines, 

 for, given a certain degree of dryness the stomata will 

 close during the day even, and consequently danger of 

 absorption of the poisonous gas is lessened. From fumi- 

 gating we jumpedjo sunlight, and Professor Stone gave 

 it as his opinion that the value of eastern or morning 

 light was greater to plants than western or afternoon 

 light, and further that it is desirable to place rosehouses 

 so that they face several degrees east of south, thus get- 

 ting the morning sun earlier and enabling the grower 

 to syringe his roses earlier, which is very important in 

 winter when the time for drying after syringing is all too 

 short. 



Next we took up the prevention of the clogging of 

 drain tiles by roots of trees, and the result of their ex- 

 periments along these lines have shown that sawdust or 

 excelsior thoroughly impregnated with creosote and 

 caulked in the flanges of Akron pipe or bound tightly 

 around the joints of ordinary land tile will prevent tree 

 roots entering the drains for a number of years. Just 

 how long is of course a matter for further investigation. 

 Professor Stone here took me to his museum and showed 

 me a single root of a pear tree 6 feet long but the hun- 

 dreds of branch roots aggregated over two miles in 

 length, and this same pear root had stopped a twelve- 

 inch drain tile completely in five years, thus showing 

 the immense growth roots make when they enter a drain, 

 and the importance of devising means to keep them out 

 if possible. The root above referred to was dug up at 

 Belmont, Mass., in 1909. Testing seeds not only for 

 germination but grading them so that every plant would 

 be almost equal in strength and would mature at the 



same time seems possible according to Professor Stone. 

 Were this done we should gradually work up a stronger 

 strain of plants of all kinds which are raised from seed, 

 and the matter of getting seeds which would come to 

 maturity at the same time would be very valuable to 

 market gardeners who wish to market their crops in 

 quantity, though this feature would be a detriment to 

 the private gardener or amateur who would rather have 

 a crop of, say radishes or lettuces, come gradually to 

 maturity, thereby giving a longer period of use. Cer- 

 tainly the elimination of a larger percentage of the 

 smaller inferior seeds from all the seed stocks would be 

 a boon to all concerned. 



We next took up the subject of burning of the leaves 

 of Muscat of Alexandria and Madresfield Court grape 

 vines. Professor Stone had had no direct experience with 

 this trouble but from what I told him about it he was of 

 tiie opinion that it was exactly the same as bronzing of 

 maple trees which is a functional trouble which is caused 

 by the inability of the plant to get sufficient water to 

 those spots under conditions of profuse transpiration. 

 Therefore the only remedy is a light shade, as syringing 

 is out of the question when the fruit is ripening. Ex- 

 periments in treating manures and soils with formalde- 

 hyde for the eradication of weed seeds and fungoid dis- 

 eases were being conducted but were not finished. 

 Another experiment was growing plants under varying 

 degrees of shade and testing their susceptibility to injury 

 by fumigation. Others were the stimulation of plant 

 growth by electricity and by irrigation and studies in the 

 development of the chestnut blight and the white pine 

 disease, and still others too numerous to mention. Pro- 

 fessor Stone has a complete collection of spraying nozzles 

 and some very ingenious ones of his own make. 



From Professor Stone's laboratory to the greenhouse 

 is but a step and here we found Mr. Whiting in the rose 

 house. Mr. Whiting learned rose growing under the 

 great master at Waban Conservatories, Natick, and the 

 roses do him credit; the carnations, violets, cucumbers 

 and tomatoes all looked well. A certain amount of bed- 

 ding plants are grown for decorating the college grounds 

 but the main purpose is with these as well as the other 

 plants mentioned to show the student how these plants 

 are grown, propagated and marketed. Incidentally some 

 few experiments are carried on here but not nearly 

 enough. There should be at least one or two men en- 

 gaged in pure research work at all times, but I believe 

 this is up to the authorities in Boston and not in the 

 power of the college management. The splendid new 

 dairy building, the poultry building, the cattle barns, 

 the bureau of entomology were all visited but to do jus- 

 tice to them would require another page at least. To 

 all the citizens of Massachusetts who are interested in 

 any branch of horticulture or agriculture I would say, 

 visit the college; you can't help but learn something 

 (unless you are determined not to) and by your interest 

 you will help those who are trying to solve your many 

 perplexing problems, and I can assure you that you will 

 meet with unfailing kindness and courtesy at every turn. 



Another question for the wise ones : Many of our 

 horticulturists received their early training in Great 

 Britain. Can any of them tell why gardeners there 

 tliink it harmful to syringe plants in the greenhouse 

 while the sun is shining on the plants ? 



Lenox, Mass. 



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