1896. 



GARDENING. 



265 



No Spring Flowers.— Suppose that 

 you love flowers, and know them, and 

 have all your lifetime been brought up 

 anion^ tliciii, and had f^atncred around 

 vou an almost endless variclv of them, 

 iind that they pros])ere(I amazingly under 

 your hands; yon couldn't help admiring 

 llieni, and loving them, and being happy 

 among them. But it is not till you be- 

 lome separated from them that j'ou can 

 appreciate how much you really loved 

 them; how lonely j'ou can be without 

 them, how inseparable they are from 

 your being, and ho^ you again ache for 

 their societ}'. From Uosoristo Schenley, 

 this is our feeling exactly. All the gor- 

 geous thousands of tulips and hyacinths 

 that fill our flower beds can never com- 

 pensate for the host of vernal beauties we 

 kfl at Glen Cove; but we are determined 

 this shall not continue, and that next 

 s|)ring shall again find us rolling in the 

 lap of Flora's many treasures.— We are 

 now noting the absentees and reaching 

 out after them. No bold, big. stiff bed of 

 Dutch bulbs of any kind can ever compare 

 with a well-filled rockery or border teem- 

 ing with the scores of little vernal beau- 

 t es now in their jewelled glory. Go thou 

 and do likewise. 



Lawn mowings— What are they good 

 I'OR? — If gathered fresh and given to pigs 

 or sheep these animals will eat them, if 

 cut by the scythe cows will eat the grass 

 but il cut by_an oily machine cows don't 

 like it. If the mowings are at all wilted 

 don't feed them to cither cows or horses, 

 for these animals the mowings should be 

 either quite fresh, or quite dry. Grass 

 mowings are a good nndching to place 

 over the roots of currant and raspberry 

 bushes, grape vines, and other vigorous 

 shrubs, young trees and plants, and to a 

 certain degree over plants generally, but 

 you must use a good deal of discretion. 

 While the grass mulching may keep the 

 earth cool and conserve moisture, when 

 it is used green and heavy it is apt to 

 form a dense leather-like mat a'lmost im- 

 jiervious to air, hence not very desirable 

 for fine rooted plants. In moderation, 

 however, it is good for mulching most 

 anything. Its manurial virtue is very 

 little, and this is best secured when the 

 grass is thrown into the hogpens, when 

 thrown into a heap outside to rot it is 

 apt to heat and be rendered of little 

 worth, but dumped out among other 

 rubbish in the rot pile it adds considera- 

 bly to the humous deposit. In the case of 

 ordinary sized lawns, however, the clip- 

 pings we get from them are so small that 

 saving them is hardly worth considering, 

 aside from an article for mulching. 



BE flONEST AND PROMPT. 



CJne of our western readers writes: 

 "What ads the business honor and 

 integrity of some of the eastern nursery- 

 men? Early in February I sent an order 



to (or one Clematis hrevicordata, 



the result of an answer to an inquiry in 

 Gardening regarding it. There was one 

 jjcrennial in the order also. I enclosed 

 my check with the order, paying $1 for 

 the clematis, and requested shipment 

 April 15. I-ately, without any other 

 information, I received a letter from them, 

 saying "we have shipped Clematis panic- 

 iilata instead of C. hrevicordata." Along 

 came two plants of Clematis paniculata, 

 and express charges of 70 cents. As I 

 have seven old plants of C. paniculata on 

 my place and eight young plants in my 

 surplus bed, and only ordered the C. hrev- 

 icordata to grow and know it, you can 

 imagine my disgust. They had two 

 months in which to notify me that thev 



did not have what I ordered. Why didn't 

 they send me some started cabljage 

 plants? 



"In February 1 ordered four VitisCoign- 

 etiee and two field grown Riihus sorhi- 

 folia, remitting with the indcr reijuesting 

 shipment April 1,"). The check sent has 

 been used, as I find it in my checks 

 returned at the bank. I can't get them 

 either to ship or return the money. 



"In strong contrast is a letter I received 

 to-day from John Saul, Washington, D. 

 C, frum whom I bought a large Hydran- 

 gea Otaksa. He wrote to inquire if he 

 had sent me an injured plant, as for the 

 first time in years he found his hydran- 

 geas injured in the cold frame, the injury 

 not showing at the time of shipment, if 

 the plant was injured he wants to make 

 it good." 



[Dear old John Saul— he is and always 

 has been the soul of honor. We cannot 

 excuse the other firms. In the case of the 

 last one referred to, however, we may 

 say they have no dishonest intention at all, 

 far from it; one of these days they will prob- 

 ably write you a long apologetic letter 

 to compensate you for the long delay and 

 annoyance they have caused you. They 

 are slow in tlieir ofiice work. But jog 

 their n,emorv.-Hi..] 



ANDREW S. FULLER. 



Andrew S. Fuller is dead. It was a 

 cruel flash of electricity that heralded this 

 sad intelligence throughout the world on 

 May 0. It will cause many a pang of 

 sorrow and regret, not only to personal 

 acquaintances, where to know him was 

 to love him, but to friends his writings 

 and correspondence had made. His genial, 

 kindly nature pervaded his every action, 

 and he made warm loving friendships 

 even among those who never had the 

 pleasure of meeting him personally. The 

 pleasure of others was always uppermost 

 in his heart At his beautiful home in 

 Kidgewood, N. J., he had gathered all the 

 plants that would thrive in his soil and 

 climate, and cultivated and studied them 

 intelligently, not forgetting the useful in 

 his adiiiration for the beautiful. He set 

 aside a plot ofground in which he put his 

 surplus plants and grew and cared for 

 them that he might always have stock 

 to send to his friends. Any one could go 

 and help himself. When strangers or 

 friends wrote him for information regard- 

 ing any plant the chances were that not 

 only was the desired information ob- 

 tained but the plant in question sent. 

 Mr. Fuller was not a man ot theories, 

 but of facts. When his publishers desired 

 him to write a book on garden fruits he 

 replied, "Yes, if you will let me write for 

 those who have never seen a strawberry, 

 raspberry or currant plant." Obtaining 

 that permission he filled his garden with 

 all the varieties, grew them, made his 

 notes, originated the term now in use of 

 "small fruits' as referring to the straw- 

 berry, etc., in contradistinction to larger 

 apples- pears, etc., and in his writings 

 detailed all the stages of development 

 from the seed to maturity. He had the 

 unusual gift of conveying to his readers 

 in simple language the ideas he desired to 

 express, and his works stand to-day as 

 the leading authority on the subjects 

 treated. 



Mr. Fuller was entirely a self-made 

 man. Starting active life as a carpenter 

 in Mdwaukee, Wis., his natural taste for 

 horticulture changed the current of his 

 life and in time he became foreman for a 

 prominent eastern nursery. For (piite a 

 number of 3'ears past he was editor of the 

 horticultural department of the Weekly 



Aew York Sun and has also edited 

 Practical Forestry, The Strawherry 

 Culturist, and several other similar 

 works. 



An honest loving soul has gone. He 

 loved nature in all her moods. He wooed 

 and won from her many of her mysteries. 

 He was all heart, always doingfor others, 

 loving all things animate and inanimate. 

 Unselfish, generous to a fault, a man 

 among men, one that has left this world 

 brighter and purer bv his presence in it. 



Highland Park, 111. W. C. Egan. 



The Greenhouse. 



OTflflEITBORflNGB flS fl HOUSE PLANT. 



I never have received so much pleasure 

 from any house plant as I have from an 

 Otaheite orange, which I bought two 

 years ago, thanks quite considerably to 

 your generous response to inquiries in 

 Gardening and Mr. G. Drobisch. Now I 

 would like to ask a little more. I don't 

 want my tree to stop doing well. It is 

 in the same pot (an 11-inch one) asit has 

 been in since I received it; and I am in- 

 clined to think I should put it into a 

 larger one, although it looks very thrifty 

 now. I have given it a little fertilizer 

 during the last two months, fine ground 

 bone and some Bowker's food in water, 

 but will it not ref|uire more root room 

 and fresh soil soon? is what I would like 

 to know. F. C. D. 



Madison, Conn. 



An 11-inch pot is a pretty big one and 

 should hold a pretty big Otaheite orange 

 plant. Examine the plant and see if the 

 roots are good and the drainage clean; if 

 the roots are potbound by all means re- 

 pot the plant or use a small tub for it, 

 but if it is not potbound then have the 

 drainage seen to, pick out anv earth- 

 worms that may have got into the soil, 

 and pick out all the loose top soil you can 

 remove easily without hurting the roots, 

 and replace it with rich loam mixed with 

 leaf soil and a sprinkling of bone meal. 

 Pot very firmly. 



IXIflS-HOW I GROW TflEIM. 



For the past two winters we have 

 grown a lot of these South .\frican bulbs 

 in a cool greenhouse, and they have 

 proved eminently satisfactory, producing 

 beautiful flowers of many shades on slen- 

 der stems. The leaves are long, narrow 

 and grass-like. I pot the bulbs in Octo- 

 ber, putting eight or ten of them into a 

 6-inch pot, using a compost of sand, 

 loam and leaf-soil, and potting firmly. 

 The pots are then placed in a cool, shady 

 place and watered only very moderately; 

 after their flower buds appear give a lit- 

 tle more water. After blooming give 

 them water and keep them growing as 

 long as the leaves will stay green, but 

 when they begin to get yellow give no 

 rnore water, then lay the pots on their 

 sides under the bench or elsewhere and 

 keep quite dry till autumn, when the 

 earth should be turned out of them and 

 the bulbs picked up and repotted after the 



3ftl 



■ of the previous year. 



Wm. McRobert. 

 Cambridge, Mass. 



Won't turn the plants in the con- 

 servatory.— A N. J. reader has a conser- 

 vatory, but is afraid to turn the plants 

 around in it lest when by reason of long 

 standing they assumea one-sided position 



