i3« 



GARDENING. 



Jan. 15, 



William Falconer, Editor. 



Ppblishei) the ] 



THE GARDENING COMPANY, 



Monon Building, CHICAGO. 



SubBCrtptlon Price. $2. OU a 



1 communications relating t 

 and other ' 



ChlCHiTO. 



trtment c 



xjrof GAHDENING. Glen Cove. . 



QDscrlptlons. 



J readers and 1 



flowers, fruits, vegetables or other practical gardening 



matters. We will lake pleasure In answering them. 



Send us Notes of your experience In gardening l: 



. tell 





tethers may be 



enlightened and 

 perhaps we can help you. 



Send us Photographs or Sketches of yo 

 flowers, gardens, greenhouses, fruits, vegetables, 

 horticultural appliances that we may have them t 

 graved for Gardexing. 



Tie up your evergreens so that snow 

 cannot spread and injure them. This 

 applies to yews, retinosporas,arborvitcEs 

 and any others growing in a bush rather 

 than upright single stemrhed form like a 

 spruce or a fir tree. You may do this with 

 a piece of lath cord or marline, tying up 

 the main branches from the inside that a 

 weight of snow cannot break them down 

 or take a long piece of the same material 

 <jr hay rope and run it around on the out- 

 side of the bushes from the bottom to the 

 top, tying in all the branches from the 

 outside. Of course, in this last named way 

 it is necessary to run one cord in the op- 

 posite direction, knotting it to the other 

 here and there to prevent it from slipping. 



The Article "How to make a Con- 

 crete walk" page 137, differs from most 

 other articles you will find written on 

 this subject, in being a plain, matter-of- 

 fact, detailed statement of how to do the 

 work. 



California's superior mushrooms.— 

 J. B. W., Kensington, Cal., writes: lam 

 a mushroom grower for San Francisco. 

 California mushrooms are superior to 

 English or French. Imported spawn sold 

 in San Francisco isn't worth planting. I 

 make my own spawn, using it both in 

 virgin and brick form. 



Send for every catalogue you may 

 find mentioned in (Gardening; we believe 

 tHey are free to you forthe asking. With- 

 out having a good selection of new cata- 

 logues one can not very well keep posted 

 to date in matter of flowers, fruits, veg- 

 etables and other plants. Study them 

 carefully, there is much that is interest- 

 ing and profitable to be gleaned from 

 their pages. 



The Horticultural Trade Journal 

 is the name of a new 16-page monthly 

 "trade" paper whose first number ap- 

 peared this month. It is gotten up bv 

 the Mayflower Publishing Co., Floral 

 Park, N. Y. The paper before us is really 

 spicy and interesting, but not technical. 

 If the powers behind that paper would 

 keep on telling us all they know it would 

 continue spicy. 



A Begonia Alma.nack. The Gardeners' 

 Magazine issued a handsome sheet 

 almanack with itsChrisimas number, the 

 decoration being the flowers of tuberous 

 rooted begonias, in their natural colors. 

 The flowers are large and fine, but to be 

 frank they are nothing like as beautiful as 

 the blossoms we saw last September at 

 Mr. Griffin's place at Westbury Station, 

 Long Island. And they don'tshow any 

 of the frilled and fringed varieties Mr G. 

 has got. 



To STOP POINSETTIAS FROM WILTING 



WHEN CUT.— Place the stems to a depth 

 of about an inch in boiling water for 

 about a coupleof minutes. This will pre- 

 vent the sap from flowing out. By this 

 method the foliage will remain perfectly 

 fresh for a week or more and the bracts 

 much longer. It is a good plan to cut 

 the stems to the desired length at first. 

 If by chance the stems are afterwards 

 shortened do not omit placing in hot 

 water again.— ionc/on Garden. 



Good Putty. — If you wantgood putty, 

 make it 3'ourself, using linseed oil and 

 whiting. You can buy putty ready made 

 for much less than you can buy the oil 

 and whiting. This being so, what is the 

 putty made of? If you have much to do 

 with hotbed sashes and repairing them 

 you must have a pretty good idea of how 

 the putty lasts. Mr. Ernst Asmus of 

 Hoboken, N. J., one of the largest and 

 most prosperous greenhouse florists in the 

 country, has his greenhouse glass all 

 bedded in putty, but he told us the other 

 day he makes every bit of the putty he 

 uses, he couldn't afford to use store putty. 



Dr. Hexamer, editor of the American 

 Agriculturist, is going to California to 

 attend the biennial meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Pomological Society which is to be 

 held at Sacramento this month. But be- 

 fore going he wants to make sure that he 

 shall not lose a number of Gardening. 

 Under date of January The writes: "With 

 our immense paper mail here every little 

 while I lose a number of Gardening. I 

 am very anxious to keep the entire set 

 and as particularly during my absence 

 some may get astray will you not please 

 have it sent to my private address?" 

 Knowing the man and that he is living 

 in a sea of literature we regard this as a 

 very high compliment to Gardening. 



In the death of Mrs. W. W. Astor 

 horticulture has lost an eminent patron. 

 A few years ago Mr. and Mrs. Astor re- 

 moved from America and settled in Eng- 

 land, where they purchased the Duke of 

 Westminster's magnificent estate of Clive- 

 den in Berkshire. The gardens there were 

 among the finest and most extensive in 

 Europe, especially the outdoor flower 

 gardening, both artificial and naturalized. 

 But this was not enough for Mr. and 

 Mrs. Astor. They called to their aid a 

 gardener who has done more to purify 

 gardening, and make it lovelier, sweeter, 

 more natural and ennobling than any 

 other man who ever lived. He doesn't 

 plant his flowers in beds or borders but 

 spreads them broadcast among the grass 

 like narcissus in an alpine meadow, blood- 

 root and anemones by the bubbling brook, 

 golden corydalis, saxifrages and gentians 

 among the rocks. He preserves nature 

 and beautifies it, and this is true gar- 

 dening. 



A novelty in flowers, fruits or vegeta- 

 bles may be a new species, or a new 

 variety, or it may be an improved selec- 

 tion of an already popular sort; and in 

 many cases it is something that was in 

 cultivation long ago, but only in a lim- 

 ited way. By booming an "old" but 

 little known plant as a novelty is the 

 only nay to make it popular quickly; if 

 it is a good thing it will sell better the 

 second year than it did the first, and still 

 more of it will be sold the third year, and 

 so on. A poor novelty soon dies, no mat- 

 ter how superlative have been the adjec- 

 tives and bright the paint used in intro- 

 ducing it. And this is the case in Europe 

 as well as in America. It sometimes hap- 

 pens that the dealers themselves have to 

 drop a sterling novelty, simply because 

 they can not get up a stock of it quick 

 enough or cheap enough to supply the 

 demand created by advertising it promi- 

 nently, at paying rates. After the bulk 

 of the catalogues have been sent out we 

 may have something to say about a lot 

 of the novelties, several of which we have 

 had experience with. 



The flood of catalogues is a little 

 later this year than usual, but we can 

 not expect them in quantity till after the 

 middle of this month. We are always 

 glad to see them and look through them 

 carefully. We enjoy the lists of novelties 

 as much as an^- one, and they are the first 

 things in the books we look for. That 

 other people do the same is shown in the 

 effort made bj- the nurserymen, florists 

 and seedsmen to get up a goid and at- 

 tractive list of them. It is rather a long- 

 eared trait to ridicule or condemn novel- 

 ties we know nothing about. It is per- 

 fectly natural that the dealer should 

 portray his flowers and plants in the 

 most attractive way, just as the dry 

 goods man does his wares, and select the 

 finest and most perfect samples for illus- 

 tration, the same as the cattle raiser and 

 farmershowus pictures of model animals, 

 and never of scrub stock, except for com- 

 parison's sake, to give us a chance to see 

 the difference between perfection and in- 

 feriority. But did we ever see a tomato 

 so perfect, an apple so big, a plant so 

 loaded with flowers, a field so full of 

 melons, or as many potatoes to a drill 

 as some catalogues show? Well, exag- 

 geration creeps into some lists, but others 

 again are strictly true, and if we should 

 be deceived by preposterous statements 

 and outrageous pictures our common 

 sense must be at a discount. The readers 

 of Gardening are too intelligent and dis- 

 criminating to need any advice in this 

 matter. For our main stock of flower 



