HORTICULTUEE 



July 6, 1918 



HORTICULTURE 



VOL. XXVIll 



JULY 6, 1918 



NO. 1 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BT 



HORTICULTVRE PUBLISHING CO- 

 1^7 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. 



WM. J. STEWART, Editor and Manager 

 Telephone, Beach 293 



ADVERTISING RATES: 



Per inch. 30 Inches to page $1.25 



Disconnt on Contracts for consecutive insertions, as follows: 



One month (4 times), 5 per cent.; three months (13 times), 10 

 per cent.; six months (26 times), 20 per cent.; one year (5!J times), 

 30 per cent. 



Page and lialf page space, not consecutive, rates on application. 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 



One Year, in advance, $1.00; To Foreign Countries, $2.00; To 

 Canada, $1.60. 



Entered as second-class matter December 8, 1904, at the Post Office 

 at Boston. Mass., under the Act of Congress of March 3. IbTJ. 



CONTENTS 



Page 



COVER ILLUSTRATION — Peony Mary Woodbury 

 Shaylor 



VEGETABLE CULTURE— Turnips— Aphis— Late Sow- 

 ings—Melons—Strawberry Bed— John Johnson 5 



A PULL ALL TOGETHER— (7?ior2es H. Totty 7 



PEONY MARY WOODBURY SHAYLOR — William 

 RoUins '^ 



SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FLORISTS — The St. Louis 

 Convention— The Pulilicity Campaign— Optimism and 

 Skepticism ^~^ 



CLUBS AND SOCIETIES — American Association of 

 Nurserymen — Ladies' Auxiliary American Association 

 of Nurserymen — American Dahlia Society — Syracuse 

 Rose Society 10-11 



OBITUARY— Mrs. John Zech 11 



OP INTEREST TO RETAIL FLORISTS: 



"Say It With Flowers" 11 



A Model Cheque • 14 



WINTER FLOWERING SWEET PEA TRIALS AT 

 CORNELL— Pro/. A. C. Beal 12 



THE GINGER JAR—Georoe C. Watson 13 



FLOWER MARKET REPORTS: 



Boston. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, 



Rochester, St. Louis : 17 



Washington 19 



LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS: 



New York. Washington 19 



Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, J. B. Shea, portrait, 

 Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Rochester, Knoxville 20-21 



DURING RECESS— A Successful Outing 22 



MISCELLANEOUS : 



Part of the Peony Show at Boston — Illustration 9 



Encourage the Middlemen 9 



Massachusetts Agricultural College 9 



Narcissus Mrs. Langtry Naturalized Among Hem- 

 locks — Illustration 11 



Catalogues Received 13 



Visitors' Register 15 



Patent Granted 22 



Too many varieties 

 of peonies 



The disinclination of the horti- 

 culturist to discard inferior or 

 olisolete varieties may be in 

 many instances pardonable, yet 

 the hahit of keeping them trreatly retards progress and 

 encnmbers his efforts very much as weeds cumber the 

 ground With the many hundreds of varieties of peonies 

 which are offered todnv why shonld we not select tlie 



best forms of each color or distinct shade of color and 

 of early and later flowering types. It is true that many 

 grower.* incline to those of easiest propagation, but this 

 consideration should not count. We _ should have the 

 best sorts; and we affirm that most of them being of 

 vigorous growth propagate readily. 



The inopportune advance in railroad 



The fares and elimination of excursion and 



conventions party tickets does not seem to have 



dampened materially the desire to as- 

 semble as in years past in the two conventions of 

 national importance that have thus far been held — the 

 seedsmen and the nurserymen — and this is a good 

 augury for the other big one yet to come — the Society 

 of American Florists, in August. However, not so 

 much on numbers does the well-being of a convention 

 under present conditions depend. There was a time — a 

 free and easy time, when the more numerous the at- 

 tendance at a convention the greater the success it 

 was considered to be. Everybody had a glorious time 

 and "wouldn't have missed it for anything." But con- 

 ventions nowadays are a more serious matter. Business 

 is the key note and the promotion and protection of 

 business interests is the slogan. So the big men, the 

 thoughtful men, the earnest men, so indispensable to- 

 day, if a business is to escape spoliation and grievance, 

 have a serious purpose in attending these meetings and 

 in the results of the useful work that they do we are all 

 beneficiaries. The seedsmen's and the nurserymen's 

 meetings were both good examples of earnestness, 

 ]n-ogressiveness and patriotism and cannot fail to make 

 a good impression nnd influence where such is most 

 needed. 



This year as never before hedges have 

 Privet hedges ])een destroyed by winter-killing. Those 

 planted along walls have suffered the 

 most and when planted in double row form, the row 

 nearest to the wall has generally been killed root and 

 branch, while in tlie row farthest from the wall the 

 branches have been killed but the ro(3ts remain alive. 

 From this experience we see that it is reasonable to 

 plant hedges along walls when the plants are set two 

 feet or more from the wall, and that we run great risk 

 in planting nearer to it. Of hedge material the Cali- 

 fornia privet Lifjustrum ovalifolium is unquestionably 

 the most largely used — it is also that most frequently 

 winter-killed. The Chinese privet Ligistrum ihota is 

 preferred by many as being hardier and more to be de- 

 pended upon to live ; it is, however, of rather loose strag- 

 gly habit and requires more frequent trimming to make 

 it dense and shapely — yet even this variety has suc- 

 cumbed in many places during the past winter. We seem 

 to have forgotten the old English privet Ligiisfrum vul- 

 gare, brought here by the Pilgrims and used by them and 

 their descendants fur generations, which has proved so 

 hardy that in many localities it has become naturalized. 

 It is of close upright growth, free from the straggliness 

 of L. ibota and having smooth, glossy foliage while that 

 of L. ibota is rough. There are a few growers, who now 

 consider L. vulgare the most satisfactory privet for 

 hedge purposes. 



