40 



• GARDENING. 



Oct IS, 



trace of the leaf miner in the foliage of the 

 marguerites pick off the infested leaves 

 and bum them. Both cut back old plants, 

 also young stock of show pelargoniums, 

 should be kept a little on the dry side at 

 the root and perfectly drv overhead, and 

 somewhat cool; we don"'t want them to 

 bloom before next April so there is no need 

 of hurrying their growth and taking up 

 room needed for other plants. 



Although we have some fine achimenes 

 m bloom yet, room is so precious that 

 we are cutting them over, also gloxinias, 

 tuberous begonias, gesneras, tydzeas, 

 caladiums, and the like that we grow for 

 summer display, and storing them dry 

 under the benches. 



Look out for insects. Soon after the 

 plants are housed in comfortable quarters 

 mealy bugs often appear in quantitv; in 

 fact many are puzzled to know where 

 they come from. In the case of plants 

 that have been plunged out of doors in 

 summer, for instance poinsettias, bou- 

 vardias, cacti, the bugs in summer leave 

 the stem and branches and take shelter 

 about their necks and roots, but as soon 

 as they are transferred to the more genial 

 atmosphere of the greenhouse, they leave 

 their hiding place in the ground, climb up 

 the stems, spin nests for themselves about 

 the axils, buds and points of the plants 

 and multiply exceedinglv. Thev must be 

 brushed off and bruised "to death, washed 

 off, or sprayed with kerosene emujsion; on 

 account of their powdery almost w ater 

 proof coats, however, we find it better to 

 brush and wash them off, us-ing Fir Tree 

 Oil or Little's insecticide in the washing, 

 and afterwards by hosing, syringing and 

 close watching keep them off. But a very 

 badly infested plant unless it be a very 

 valuable one isn't worth cleaning, better 

 dump both plant and bugs into the rot 

 pile than waste time cleaning it or run 

 the risk of contaminating vour other 

 flowers. 



C«RYSflNT«EMUMS. 



Do all you can to have flowers and 

 foliage and fine plants. Potted plants 

 should be securely staked and tied, but 

 neatly and unobtrusively. Give the plants 

 plenty of room, if you crowd them the 

 inner and lower body leaves will be 

 destroyed. Never let them wilt for want 

 of water. If they are well rooted and in- 

 chncd to be pot bound, give them liquid 

 manure now and again. If they are 

 newly potted and inclined to flag a little 

 sprinkle them over head twice a dav with 

 water to save them from wilting. If they 

 are still out of doors on the piazza or 

 under a tree be careful to keep them out 

 of the sweep of the wind or the draught- 

 ifindoors, although thev like to be kept 

 cool and have free ventilation they dis- 

 like draughts or hot sunshine. In a cool 

 greenhouse they need no shade, but in a 

 very hot one (there are great differences 

 in greenhouses) a slight shade does them 

 good Attend to disbudding. No mat- 

 ter how closely you disbudded them be- 

 fore, go over them again and remove 

 every flower bud and side shoot you see 

 Far better have one good flower to a 

 branch, than several poor ones. In dis- 

 budding be careful to leave perfectly 

 formed buds only, for onesided or im- 

 perfect give imperfect flowers. It often hap- 

 pens that the biggest, terminal bud is im- 

 perfect, if it is remove it and in its place 

 leave a perfect one. 



We hear and read a good deal about 

 summer and other early blooming chrys- 

 santhemums, but among over 200 varie- 

 ties grown at Dosoris we have nothing in 

 bloom worth noticing. The few varieties 

 whose flowers arc now opening out of 



doors are too poor in quality to mention. 

 Ten days from now, however, we should 

 have several good kinds in bloom. In the 

 greenhouse, with a little timely manipu- 

 lation one can have good flowers before 

 this time. 



Mushrooms, 



ORCHIDS. 



As the colder season approaches it will 

 be best to gather together from among 

 the different genera the plants that are 

 showing forward scapes and place them 

 in a little higher temperature, say 75° by 

 day and 60° at night; this is to hasten 

 their coming and encourage their perfec- 

 tion. After the flowers are cut remove 

 the plants to cooler quarters. 



There is always a brisk demand for or- 

 chid blossoms at this time of year. Dur- 

 ing the past few weeks we have had a fine 

 show of Odontoglossum grande, a sprink- 

 ling of O. crispum, O. Pescatorei and O. 

 Harryana; also Oncidium varicosum, 

 Dendrobiuw Phalaenopsis and D. tormo- 

 sum; Cattleya labiata vera, Burlingtonia 

 alba and Vanda tricolor and V. sua vis. 



Utica, N. Y. William Mathews. 



fllLfllWflNDfl ORflNDIFLORfl AND BOUOfllN- 

 VILLEflGLflBRfl. 



Both have been flowering on a porch 

 here all summer. The pots are plunged 

 to their rims in the border at the foot of 

 the veranda. The bougainvillea is starved 

 in a 9-inch pot, yet it keeps up its flowei- 

 iiip- James MacPiierson. 



Trenton, N. T. 



Scale on Palms and Ferns.— L. F. ].. 

 Rochester, writes: I enclose herewith the 

 leaf of a palm with some insects on it; 

 some ofmy ferns have the same pest on 

 them. It hurts the ferns getting the in- 

 sects off. What is the best wav to kill 



The insects are common greenhouse 

 plant scale. Tedious although it may 

 se m the only way to remove them with- 

 out injuring the plants is to rub and wash 

 them off. Use a little soft soap in the 

 water to make it run smooth, also to 

 make the surface distasteful to scales. 

 Weak kerosene emulsion washed over the 

 infested surface will help in destroying 

 them, but be careful in using it. Fir tree 

 oil, an insecticide you can buy at the seed 

 store, if used according to directions ac- 

 companying it is good, so is Little's anti- 

 pest. Dip the plants— the tops, not the 

 roots— in water ata temperatureof 130°, 

 this will kill a good many of the young 

 scales but not the old ones. The fact is, 

 however, that the only safe way of get- 

 ting rid of the scale is to brush and wash 

 it off, cutting off the more infested parts. 

 If we injure the leaves in cleaning them, 

 the fault is ours. 



Three Palms for house decoration. 

 —In answer to A. D. M.: We dis'ike to 

 restrict ourselves to the three "best" be- 

 cause, taste, purpose and con'^itions may 

 differ. We like Livistona Cbinensis (La- 

 tania Borbonica), as a fan palm; and 

 what the florists call Kentia Belmoreana 

 and Areca lutescens in the way of feather 

 palms. These three are too big for table 

 decoration, howev r; for this purpose we 

 have the elegant Cocas Weddeliaim as a 

 feather palm, and Livistona rotundilhlia 

 as a dwarl fan palm. 



We have been taking Gardening from 

 the first and are well pleased with it. We 

 find something helpful in everv number 

 (Rev.)S. II."McNeel." 



Ontario Canada. 



STRflNOB BEHHVIOR OF fl MUSHROOM CROP. 



In 1802 I purchased some English 

 spawn and spawned a bed fifteen feet 

 square in a new barn where there was 

 never any mushroom grown, nor had I 

 ever seen any fungus of any kind. The 

 manure was thoroughly fermented, after 

 which a small part, about one-third, of 

 clean loam was added. I was careful not 

 to have it on the dry side This bed was 

 spawned in September, and in thecourse of 

 eight or nine days I slightly dampened it 

 and cased it, also covered it with straw. I 

 waited for results and they never came. 

 In October 1893 quite a number of mush- 

 rooms came up along one side from under 

 the boards, some of which were nine 

 inches in diameter. This spring, '94, I 

 thought I would haul the bed out, but 

 found that two or three inches of the bot- 

 tom of the bed was a mass of fine spawn, 

 so I saved it and in May and June I made 

 up some beds and spawned them with 

 this spawn. It took at once and in a 

 short time the beds wereamassof spawn; 

 they were duly cased with about two to 

 two and one-half inches of loam and well 

 beaten dcwn and covered with straw, 

 but as I did not wish them to come up be- 

 fore August or September I did not water 

 any after casing them. In July (latter 

 part) I gave them a thorough watering, 

 as I had perceived that pin head mush- 

 room were showing up bv the thousand 

 in every crevice and el!ewhere. In a few 

 days there were at least 1000 mush- 

 rooms from one-eighth to one-third of an 

 inch in s-ize. Some hens got into the build- 

 ing and scratched among the straw and 

 destroyed all on the surface, so I let the 

 beds go for a week and they got quite dry 

 but a new crop had come up equally as 

 numerous, I dampened the beds but did 

 not give very much water as I was afraid 

 it would hurt them or the spawn; a few 

 developed, but I am certain that there 

 were milllions that got flabby and turned 

 brown, which I scraped off. I cleaned all 

 I could see but to tell the truth I did not 

 get one-thii d of them out. as when I would 

 examine any portion of the casing it was 

 studded with them in clusters of fifteen or 

 twenty to bunches of a diameter of one 

 foot and the thickness of the casing or 

 more, as they would heave up in some 

 bunches several inches above the level of 

 casing. In these bunches it would be hard 

 to tell how many there were as they were 

 about one-eighth of an inch in size, look- 

 ing like a mass of white fish eggs. 



After I had got all I could out I gave a 

 watering that sent them up thicker than 

 ever, but only a small part of them devel- 

 oped. The majority remain pinheads 

 while a few get one-half inch in diameter 

 and about an inch high, large enough to 

 show the formation of thecaps. The beds 

 have been moist enough I think since the 

 last mentioned watering. If all of them 

 would come to maturity the beds would 

 average twenty pounds" of mushrooms to 

 a square foot. 



I believe the spawn I saved was virgin 

 spawn, for I was unable to find a single 

 piece of the spawn that I put in that 

 showed a trace of havinggrown. It was 

 too dry in the beds to start it into 

 growth. The mushrooms are of the 

 brownish variety the same as the Eng- 

 lish one, and not the white cap and vivid 

 pink gilled ones of the meadow. 



For some time past since the fall rains 

 have begun I have been finding quite a 

 number of the meadow mushrooms near 



