i8g6. 



GARDENING. 



235 



palmetto are easily raised from seed, but 

 must have glass protection; while most 

 of the conifers are 01 the simplest produc- 

 tion, provided the seed he fresh and well 

 selected. The California varieties of thuja, 

 cj'press and retinospora are grown by 

 the thousand from seed ripened in their 

 native climate, and sometimes from seed 

 produced on Long Island, while the Cali- 

 fornia buckeye,! grevillea, pepper tree, 

 eucalyptus, persimmon, and even the 

 Pacific live oak prove readily responsive, 

 and in their infantile stage are plants of 

 great novelty and interest, and well repay 

 study. 



The improved varieties of our own 

 native nut trees — as is well known — are 

 all the result of careful selection and seed 

 sowing, the only precaution needed being 

 to select the finest nuts, which are per- 

 fectly fresh and have never been allowed 

 to dry. This latter precaution is indis- 

 pensable in all nut planting, as, indeed, I 

 may add, with all hardwood trees and 

 shrubs. The walnut family is an interest- 

 ing one ior experiments of this kind. I 

 have raised very successfully the butter- 

 nut, black walnut, Madeira nut (Juglans 

 regia), pecan (which proves hardy on 

 Long Island if protected for its first four 

 winters); while hickories, nearly all the 

 northern and western varieties, can be as 

 easily grown from seed as nasturtiums or 

 beans. Filberts, English and French, are 

 not difficult to grow from the nut, but 

 will scarcely bear fruit before the sixth 

 year. If we could cross the English 

 filbert with ourownnativecoiylus( hazel 

 nut) it might give a very valuable pro- 

 duct. Perhaps Mr. Fuller has already 

 tried the experiment. I have never been 

 able to do so. Chestnuts are of easiest 

 culture and new hybrids are now offered by 

 nurserymen. The chinquapin germinates 

 readily if the nuts are sound and is well 

 worth cultivating. 



The leguminous shrubs apd trees are 

 quite sure to succeed, though the 

 seed must be carefully chosen. I have 

 raised many fine laburnums from French 

 seed gathered in Marie Antoinette's 

 garden at Versailles, which proved 

 superior to the Scotch variety both in 

 foliage and flower. The virgilia also, 

 and wistaria and red bud(Cercis) both 

 native and Japanese, are all easily grown 

 from sted and well repay the few years of 

 waiting. 



With magnolias I have never failed. 

 The M. glauca blooms in three years and 

 the grandiflora proves hardy on Long 

 Island with careful protection during the 

 first few years of its infancy, though it 

 has not as yet shown a flower. 



[It has lived out of doors at Dosoris 

 for several years, blooming beautifully 

 everj- summer. At first we used to tie in 

 the branches and set headless and bottom- 

 less barrels over the tree, bracing them 

 between long hickory poles, then we 

 wrapped it in sacking or matting, and 

 twice we left it entirely unprotected, and 

 it has lived over winte* and bloomed in 

 summer, no matter how treated. But it 

 becomes almost leafless in spring. — Ed.] 

 There is no special science in this de- 

 partment of gardening, but there cer- 

 tainly is much satisfaction and much also 

 to belearned as well as enjoyed. Amateurs 

 are oftentimes as successful as profes- 

 sionals in developing new varieties of 

 plant growth, and nature — the bounteous 

 mother that she is— stands ever ready to 

 assist the patient cultivator and to re- 

 ward his honest labor. J. W. B. 

 Long Island, March, 1896. 



Gardeni.sg is a gem. 



Conn. Mrs. Cleme.nt S. Hubbard. 



FBRTILIZERS AND THEIR flFPLICflTlON. 



[Condensed from a paper read by Robt. Simpson 

 Cromwell, Conn, ^before the Society of American 

 Florists at Atlantic City.] 



The Best Soil.— What can be consid- 

 ered the best soil for such crops as roses, 

 carnations, chrysanthemums, etc? My 

 choice would be two inches from the top 

 of an old rich pasture, where the soil is in- 

 clined to be a heavy loam and the land is 

 low enough to catch the deposit from 

 the continual washings, yet not low 

 enough to be sour and wet; this cut in the 

 spring as early as the land is dry and laid 

 up with good cow manure of the previous 

 season in thin layers in the proportion of 

 four parts soil to one of manure; if the 

 soil is naturally very rich less manure will 

 answer, and if very poor a larger quan- 

 tity should be used. 



Horse Manure I would never mix with 

 the soil for roses under any consideration; 

 it may when thoroughly decomposed be 

 used as a top dressing, but its action in 

 the soil is often pernicious. I have seen it 

 fill the beds full of white fungus and toad- 

 stools. 



Sheep Ma.nure I consider one of the 

 very best fertilizers we have, used either 

 in liquid form or mixed with the soil at 

 the time of planting; ; but I have never 

 dared to mix it in the compost heap, for 

 too much of it in one place is certain 

 death to all vegetable life. I know of one 

 large grower who declares he will n^ver 

 use another shovelful of it as long as the 

 world stands; upon enquiring how much 

 he mixed with his soil I found he used 

 somewhere about one part sheep «ianure 

 and three parts soil. I know of nothing 

 in the way of animal manure that can 

 equal it as a crop producer, but we must 

 use it cautiously; 200 pounds to a 100- 

 foot house of roses or carnations will not 

 be too much if it is pulverized and evenly 

 mixed with the soil, or the same amount 

 can be used as a top dressing. Having 

 secured good soil and good manure and 

 planted therein good plants the most 

 natural thing in the world is that they 

 should grow, providing of course that ail 

 other conditions are favorable. 



The essential food for plants.— 

 When we undertake to furnish food to a 

 plant or a number of plants it is reason- 

 able to suppose we will underttand the 

 particular requirements of the plants and 

 the nature of the food we propose to sup- 

 ply. Searching for information on this 

 subject I addressed several inquiries to 

 Prof. Halsted. My first question was 

 "To properly develop such plants as 

 roses, violets, carnations and chrysanthe- 

 mum, what chemical properties should 

 the soil possess?" Here is the answer: 

 "The soil for growing roses, carnations, 

 violets, etc., should contain among the 

 leading ingredients of plant food, potash, 

 phosphoric acid and nitrogen, these three 

 being the elements that are most usually 

 absent, one or all, in a soil that is unfit for 

 such plants. In addition to these three sub- 

 stances there needs to be lime and a small 

 amount of iron and other substances; but 

 as these with rare exceptions are present 

 in sufficient quantity nothing further need 

 be said of them. Clay and sand make up 

 the bulk of ordinary soil in connection 

 with the decaying vegetable matter, and 

 this latter furnishes nitrogen." What 

 elements of plant food are found in un- 

 leached wood ashes, in nitrate of soda, in 

 sulphate of ammonia, and in kainit? I 

 received this reply: "The leading food 

 element in wood ashes is potash, but as 

 it is the residue after the burning of a 

 vegetable substance, it contains all of the 

 mineral substances which the plant takes 

 from the soil, and the list would be a long 



one, including lime, magnesia, iron and 

 not to forget phosphoric acid in combina- 

 tion with lime and so on Nitrate of soda 

 contains nitrogen in combination with 

 sodium, and is a very satisfactory source 

 of nitrogen; and applied in small quanti- 

 ties the plant quickly responds to the 

 nitrogen that is thus received. Sulphate 

 of ammonia also contains nitrogen, and 

 one of the elements of ammonia which is 

 united with sulphuric acid. Kainit is a 

 mixture of very many substances, as 

 potash, common salt, salts of magnesia, 

 and other substances." 



All these elements or substances may be 

 in the soil in sufficient quantity at the 

 time we fill our benches and plant our 

 roses, etc., and as a result the plants make 

 beautiful growth, but after a time we 

 fancy they are not doing so well, they 

 haven't the same vigor, the same beauti- 

 ful glossy foliage, the flowers are not 

 quite as large perhaps, and we think 

 something is wrorg; and so it is, the sup- 

 ply of food is giving out, the soil is being 

 exhausted probably ten times as fast as 

 it would be out of doors; the growth is 

 much more rapid, and while it only rains 

 once a week, or once a month in the gar- 

 den or fitld, it rains every day in the 

 greenhouse, washing down through the 

 benches each time in solution all the dif- 

 fisrent kinds of plant food. 



As a general thing when rose foliage has 

 a pale, yellowish, sickly look, it is a sign 

 the plants lack potash, in which case I 

 should use wood ashes at the rate of one 

 barrel to a 100-foot long house of the 

 regulation width. About a month ago 

 we found a house of Pedes planted for 

 the summer trade that had just this look, 

 but after a liberal dose of wood ashes 

 they are to-day as thrifty and well 

 colored as could be desired. 



Nitrogen is usually present in sufficient 

 quantity I think where an abundance of 

 manure is incorporated with the soil, but 

 this is not always the case; and I have 

 come to the conclusion that when plants 

 in a greenhouse bench present a stunted 

 appearance without any apparent cause, 

 the roots being in a healthy state, and all 

 other conditions being favorable, that 

 the soil does not possess nitrogen in suffi- 

 cient quantity, or else what it does con- 

 tain is locked up and is not available for 

 the use of the plant. I had an illustration 

 of this last fall in a house of Mermet and 

 Bridesmaid roses. The house was not 

 completed until sometime in August, 

 hence was planted rather late, but the 

 plants were large and vigorous, and the 

 soil as far as we could tell fairly good; the 

 house itself was all that could'be desired, 

 yet somehow the plants did not grow, 

 but immediately after planting took on 

 that hard look which none of us like to see. 

 We waited as patiently as possible until 

 a little ahead of Christmas, and then con- 

 eluded something must be done, or we 

 would never cut enough to pay for heat- 

 ing the house. We accordingly com- 

 menced a systematic feeding from a couple 

 of barrels brought into the house, using 

 sulphate of ammonia and fresh cow 

 manure one week, and alternating with 

 nitrate of soda and sheep manure. The 

 animal manure was used in verj- small 

 quantities, and the salts at the rate of a 

 3 inch potful to a barrel of water. Thfy 

 were watered with one of these liquids 

 once a week for about two months. The 

 change was almost instantani ous, and 

 was most remarkable; they at once began 

 throwing up strong shoots from the root, 

 and while they never grew as large as 

 some of the plants in the other houses, 

 yet they produced large crops of flowers, 

 the individual blooms were large, the 



