November 28, 1908 



HORTICULTURE 



705 



Early Flowering Chrysanthemums 



The readers of Horticulture and myself in particu- 

 lar, are much indebted to Mr. Totty for the further 

 information regarding the possibilities of the English 

 early-flowering chrysanthemums. These plants, I am 

 fully convinced, are going to be grown more widely in 

 the future than they have been in the past, and for this 

 reason any information we can get regarding their cul- 

 ture in this country will be warmly welcomed. 



Mr. Totty in the second paragraph of his communica- 

 tion made much of an alleged mistake which I made in 

 reading his original article in the Florists' Eeview. I 

 take it that he means to convey that early-flowering sin- 

 gles on the one hand and the double varieties on the 

 other belong to separate classes and cannot by any means 

 be classed together under the one heading, i. e., early 

 flowering chrysanthemums. Does Mr. Totty mean to 

 say that the so-called new branch of early singles men- 

 tioned by him would do better than the doubles in this 

 country? If this is the drift of his argument, then I 

 must ask him to tell us how he has arrived at this para- 

 doxical i-onclusion. 



In the fourth paragraph of Mr. Totty's reply I find 

 tlic following: "Mr. Wells lias a new strain of early 

 singles that are not yet on the market, and it is to 

 these singles that I was referring as possible useful 

 border plants for us." Xow, Mr. Totty, so far as I am 

 ■concerned your explanation does not alter the case one 

 little bit. In the first place I would like to state here 

 that early flowering singles have been on the market, to 

 my knowledge for at least seven or eight years. I my- 

 self have grown quite a number of them, as far back as 

 five years ago. I have also kept in touch with Mr. 

 Wells' introductions in this class, and I cannot honestly 

 say that I have ever noticed one point in the habit, 

 growth, or constitution of an early single, which would 

 entitle them to be classed as being more suitable than 

 the double for use as border plants in this country. It 

 may be possible, of course, that Mr. Wells has a batch of 

 seedling singles on trial, for the purpose of adding to 

 the splendid list of border singles which he lias already 

 put on the market. 



I was greatly pleased to learn that Mr. Totty was in 

 sympathy with all I had said in favor of the early flow- 

 ering varieties. I was also pleased to have him say that 

 their usefulness was unquestioned, but I cannot agree 

 with him, thai there is not much money to be made on 

 them. If their usefulness is unquestioned, then I say, 

 ■so is their profitableness. The public buy asters and 

 ■such like for the simple reason (hat they have no choice 

 in the matter, as that class of flower is about all there 

 is to be had at that time of the year. Give them some- 

 thing new, something out of the usual year-after-year 

 tuu and then you will see what will happen. 



Mr. Totty is looking for a flood of Golden Glow next 

 fall, and I rather think he is about right. If any one 

 wishes to hedge a little, to use a sporting expression, I 

 will give the tip. Try a batch of White Quintus ; keep 

 them well pinched at the start, then let them go, puckers 

 and all, and when the fall comes round they will run 

 the Golden Glows right out of the market, and make 

 them look like a two-cent bunch of dandelions. 



A very common fault with the early flowering 

 "mums," both singles and doubles, is their habit of run- 

 ning straight into flower, when we get them into their 

 flowering pots. People are apt to get discouraged at 

 this, and dump them straight away, but even in Eng- 

 land we will find that the earlies behave in this man- 

 ner. The best plan is to get your cuttings rooted rather 

 early, and keep them growing in a rather cool house, 

 taking care never to allow them to become pot bound. 

 With most varieties of this class we depend on the 

 suckers and shoots near the base to make the future 

 plant. The plant proper may be cut off after they are 

 potted into their finals. 



It is also a good plan to grow them where they will 

 be just a trifle shaded during the hottest part of the day. 

 In most places we can find a situation such as this. If 

 one takes just a little care with them, and makes an 

 effort to keep them growing, plants may be had, the 

 equal, yes, and even superior to those grown in England. 



North Easton, 

 Mass. 



^gji^> 



Chrysanthemum Anna 



Our cover illustration for this issue attractively sets 

 forth the merits of the single flowered chrysanthemums. 

 Grown to the neat, symmetrica], free-flowered speci- 

 mens to which many of them are naturally adapted they 

 make an object of beauty and in the exhibition hall sup- 

 ply the needed contrast with the massive effects of the 

 huge flowered Japanese section. This class of chrys- 

 anthemums can hardly be improved by increasing the 

 size of the individual blooms. Rather should the raiser 

 of new varieties strive for richness of foliage, floriferous- 

 aess and where required in plant form, compact sym- 

 metrical habit. For cut flower purposes there are many 

 ways in which long arching sprays may be effectively 

 used. In tin latter case the lowers should be produced 

 under glass, as the colors are much clearer than when 

 exposed to the open air and wide extremes of tem- 

 perature. 



The variety illustrated is an introduction of Elmer 

 D. Smith & Co. Edwin Jenkins, to whom we are 

 indebted for the photograph, was awarded a certificate 

 for it at the exhibition of the Lenox Horticultural 

 Society. 



