July 25, 190S 



HORTICULTURE 



105 



SOME PEONY OBSERVATIONS. 



The season has been a very good one 

 with most growers. The demand is 

 more and more for the very finest 

 sorts. The ordinary stuff will be a 

 very heavy glut in a few seasons. 

 There are far too many sorts that pos- 

 sess little merit; this refers just as 

 much to some "novelties" as the old 

 timers. Again there are many old 

 timers that possess such exceptional 

 merit that I cannot understand why 

 the older growers have overlooked 

 them. 



Some growers have not had a good 

 crop for three seasons. Quite a few 

 causes contribute to this end. The 

 peony in a great degree is a bi-annually 

 perennial, that is, it will store up capa- 

 bility to produce a full crop, the next 

 season it is disappointing. In old 

 clumps this does not seem so much 

 the case as with smaller ones, some 

 sorts more than others, others appar- 

 ently not at all. Many sorts can be cut 

 almost devoid of foliage and the next 

 season they are very fine; others under 

 such treatment almost perish. 



Many of our sorts were planted in 

 1902, 1903 and 1904; some had grand 

 blooms the following spring; in some 

 cases we have not had typical ones 

 until this season but this season they 

 have repaid us for our patient wait 

 with IS to 36 giant blooms with 7 to 

 9 inch diameters, surprising magnifi- 

 cence, very well worth all the time 

 and patience waiting. This leads me 

 to believe that many sorts have been 

 passed as of no merit because although 

 established not developed. 



Quite a few sorts are variable in 

 their colorings and marking annually, 

 thus adding some to the confusion in 

 nomenclature and descriptions. Far 

 too many sorts have no particular 

 merit, especially from the cut flower 

 or landscape viewpoint; many are poor 

 color, lack freedom, etc. Some seem- 

 ingly will come blind through quite a 

 number of causes. I feel that many 

 failures are brought about by one not 

 understanding some details of culture. 

 1 have noticed plants of W'hittleyii to 

 come into full bloom annually whilst 

 other plants apparently just as large 

 or larger, in the very best of soil, are 

 a failure. On my own grounds I have 

 noticed the same thing but by asking 

 many customers how they cared for 

 their plants then reviewing my own 

 cull ure, etc., I found out that in nearly 

 every instance of failure, we all had 

 committed the same crime. Coupled 

 with this several critical growers have 

 had a failure for the past three sea- 

 sons, all laid at the door of the Frost 

 King. I cannot believe that frost has 

 had much to do with it as in each of 

 the past three seasons we have had 

 very fine bloom on most of our sorts. 

 One season we had a severe two-day 

 freeze with drying winds: the stems 

 were IS inches or more high and very 

 soft, while many stems were split 

 open from the effects of the 10 degrees 

 of frost. When June came we had a 

 very fine crop of bloom. Some other 

 growers with much less cold had a 

 complete failure. From all these 

 causes and the various experiments 

 and observations I am fully convinced 

 that wrong methods of culture is the 

 cause of the failures generally attri- 

 buted to 'late frosts." Some sorts 

 seemingly stand any sort of ill treat- 



A CAULIFLOWER SEED PLANTATION. 

 Island of Auinccr, War <'opculi.igt.'ii. 



nient; others are exceedingly sensitive 

 to the least wrong feature. The Lady 

 Bramwell type seemingly is more sen- 

 sitive to wrong treatment than others, 

 but from my observations in hybridiz- 

 ing I think this type is the product 

 of Whittieyii parentage so that point 

 may more than ever endorse my obser- 

 vations as to wrong treatment, etc. 



Quite a few of my customers were 

 dissatisfied with some sorts that I ad- 

 vised them to buy but after asking cer- 

 tain questions and advising my meth- 

 ods of culture they invariable write 

 "they are grand," etc. The past sea- 

 son nearly every one of our 1200 sorts 

 gave us grand blooms on plants with 

 3 2 to 36 blooms, in good soil, good 

 culture, but out of the list we have 

 selected about 200 that we consider 

 worthy of iucrease; the other sorts 

 we shall discard all but two plants 

 of each for testplot purposes. Out of 

 about 300 newer sorts I will retain 

 not over 25 a? being AA1 in every way. 

 Some foreign growers do not send 

 the same sort for a variety. We know 

 of one case with at least eight im- 

 portations with eight different ones re- 

 ceived. Out of about 100 sorts, new 

 and old, we have received Andre Latins 

 under ten different names, Charita as 

 many, and older sorts under new 

 names, but I may add that this is also 

 the case in other items. This season 

 we imported a lot of gladioli and got 

 one sort under three names, Brench- 

 leyensis for Hollandia, etc.; dahlias 

 and other items all just as badly mixed 

 and wrongly named. This same condi- 

 tion also exists with a number of grow- 

 ers on this side. I paid $10 for a rod 

 of Milton Hill which proved Poiisit 

 Alba, §5 per root for John Richardson 

 which is Andre Lauris, etc. One 

 trouble with many growers is that they 

 are not up on nomenclature except on 

 a very small list of sorts and luive 

 little matter of an authoritative nature 

 on peonies. 



As a few incidents: Sara Bernhardt 

 (Dessert 1S95); this is La France 

 (Polman-Moov about 1S70). Mr. Des- 



sert found this in Dessert & Mechin's 

 collection. It is our very earliest 

 Chinese sort. Last season we cut it with 

 the first officinalis sorts; usually we 

 cut it about the third day after the 

 first opening officinalis blooms, but be- 

 fore we have the officinalis cleaned up 

 La France is done. Reine des Fran- 

 caise often brings this sort but this 

 is a very different thing under its 

 correct name. 



I rind that many growers striving for 

 the limit oi capability of development 

 are overfeeding their peonies. A peony, 

 « hile verj vigorous, is also very sensi- 

 tive and cannot stand overfeeding. 

 "Rosette" is symptomic of overfeeding; 

 the "wilt" disease is the same thing 

 in the "last stages." Remove the cause 

 and it disappears. When this disease 

 appears the best remedy is to remove 

 as much of the over-rich soil and re- 

 place with very poor soil; also give 

 each plant a good sprinkling of slacked 

 lime or remove the plant entirely into 

 poor soil. Remove any damaged root 

 and lime the root, then plant into 

 poor soil but keep the plants well 

 watered for a week. Thus they may 

 be dug up at any time without harm. 



We plant our peony ground to pota- 

 toes or corn, previous to planting 

 peonies, first preparing the ground and 

 sowing to rye early in the fall. We 

 then manure it very heavily in Decem- 

 ber with fresh manure; by plowing 

 early and planting to corn it gets the 

 plot in the very best of shape so that 

 there is very little loss by plants dy- 

 ing or getting diseased and any plants 

 that are bought that have any trace of 

 disease eet a good dusting of lime 

 which helps to eliminate it. After the 

 plants have been growing for two or 

 three years we give a very good dress- 

 ing of manure over the soil about 

 December or during the growing sea- 

 son earlier. Where a large tract is 

 planted fur cutting it will be good to 

 sow oats about August 15, then put 

 the manure on during January; this 

 will put the ground in excellent con- 

 dition in the spring. C. BETSCHER. 



