338 



rtORTlCULTURE. 



September 4, 1909 



ness of growth, size and brilliant coloring of the flow- 

 ers leave but little to be desired. Colors are to be met 

 with among the varieties brought out by these special- 

 ists that range from white, rose, brilliant scarlet, to deep 

 lilac, and other minor tints. 



Among the best of Faiss' last year's novelties are 

 Grossherrogin, Hilda von Baden, Deutscher Ruhm, 

 Schiller, Goethe and W. Hauff. A fine variety of the 

 present year has appeared in Graf Ferdinand von Zep- 

 pelin ; and Michael Buchner is not less beautiful. The 

 color of the Graf Zeppelin is salmon-red, and it has 

 equal-sized reddish blotches, bordered with scarlet. The 

 flowers are of fine form, semi-double, and they form gi- 

 gantic trusses. The habit is compact, and the flower 

 trusses are raised well above the leaves. Illustrations 

 taken from photographs which appear in "Die Garten- 

 welt" for August 7 of this and other varieties, attord 

 good ideas of the value of these German varieties of the 

 Pelargonium for decorative purposes. What is really 

 required is a remontant habit of flowering, such as has 

 really been obtained in Faiss' variety Ostergruss, which 

 was shown at Mannheim horticultural show last year 

 as a group plant, and was in bloom continually till late 

 autumn. Another equally good perpetual flowering va- 

 riety has yet to be raised, and caution is necessary to 

 buyers, if they would escape disappointment ; the more 

 so, as Ostergruss is difficult to obtain seeds from, how- 

 ever carefully the flowers are pollinated. 



4?%«^-xry^ 



Manganese in the Soil 



Let no one confuse Manganese with Magnesium, the 

 latter of which is found in Epsom Salts as we have ex- 

 plained before. These two have little in common except 

 that they are both common as dirt, although in small 

 quantities. Manganese is even less heard of than Mag- 

 nesium although in a Norway spruce it forms forty per 

 cent, of the ash of the bark. It is an element not unhke 

 iron, a large use of it being in the manufacture of steel. 

 A common compound is "Black Oxide of Manganese," 

 costing a few cents per pound while other combinations 

 are boiled with oil to make a quick dryer, hence "raw' 

 and "boiled" linseed oil. Found in the soil usually m 

 a not greater proportion than one or two parts per 

 thousand. 



From time to time many and various experiments 

 have been worked with Manganese. Like many chem- 

 icals if is a stimulus in minute quantities and its re- 

 semblance to iron makes interesting chemical possibili- 

 ties, although it has been shown to be injurious in cer- 

 tain amounts also. The combinations that this ele- 

 ment makes are usually hard to dissolve in water which 

 is quite diflierent from "the combinations of Soda or Pot- 

 ash or Magnesium. The excuse for further considera- 

 tion at this time of Manganese is the newly erected land 

 mark — the Manganese Monument, a recent stride in the 

 chemistry of soils. 



To see our monument wc will have to ship across to 

 Hawaii where Mr. Kelley will take us in hand. Out 

 there towards the setting sun they raise pineapples — or 

 "Pines," as they call them. Ask California or Florida 

 if they don't. If the pines won't raise, or get a bilious 

 yellow instead of a bright green, there is trouble, lots of 



it, and the place is full of Japs, ChinlvS and Brownies. 

 Then they go around looking for a soil doctor and they 

 get sent to Kelley as representing the paternal Uncle 

 Sam, and he takes the trouble, the pineapple, and the 

 soil into the laboratory and slams the door so that he can 

 remove his outer garments, for the climate is warm. 

 Then he does what any chemist "or other fellow" does 

 in parlous time, he tries to flnd out by the printed 

 word what all other chemists, all over the world, ever, 

 ever said, did or thought about yellow pines or soil, yel- 

 low pines and soil, good pines and all kinds of soil, 

 and bad soil and all kinds of pines. What did they 

 say ? and what did he find ? Nothing, except. Ah ! yes 

 —and here's where Kelley comes in. Out there soils 

 are good or bad for pines as they are red or black. 

 "Why?" says Kelley, and no one knows, so he whoops 

 up the cookery, gets the smells acoming, and finds out 

 that both soils have all the plant food and the pines 

 should get all the good that their hard sweet hearts could 

 possibly desire. What ails the soil? They have been 

 limed, cultivated and molly coddled in all known ways 

 to make them fertile, but the pines still go yellow on 

 the black soil. Feminine-like, perhaps, they don't care 

 for mourning colors. If so, why do they love the red? 

 No answer forthcoming. Kelley puts on the kettle once 

 more, and this time he finds from ten to fifty times as 

 much of a certain element in one soil as in the other. 

 That element is Manganese. The black soils— bad for 

 the pines— have five per cent, of the Oxide, and so down 

 to the good soils which have one-third of one per cent. 

 People in the United States need not worry much about 

 Manganese, for Hawaii is a land of volcanic origin and 

 such soils are very rare on the mainland of this country. 

 Do you now see the monument growing up ? 



Kelley has had hundreds of analyses made, he has 

 looked up various experiments with Manganese, down 

 from the rice paddies of Japan to the fair waving wheat 

 plots in Woburn, Old England, but he has not yet quite 

 finished the monument. Those pines still have a lap on 

 him. They still have a few secrets, but not for long . 



Here's to Kelley and his likes ; would we had hundreds 

 of his kind right here at home, yes, and under warm 

 glass in the winter time if it's only a question of climate. 



View in Flower Garden 



Estate of Mrs. B. B. Tnttle, Naugatuck, Conn. 



The cover shows a partial view of the flower garden 

 of Mrs. B. B. Tuttle in Naugatuck, Conn., the center of 

 attraction being two nice specimen rhododendrons, the 

 one to the left standing nine feet high and having a 

 diameter of from twelve to fourteen feet, the one to the 

 riglit standing six feet high by nine feet in diameter. 



^Vhile the rhododendrons in themselves are beautiful, 

 it is to be regretted that they are very much out of place, 

 being planted in formal flower beds. Wlioever planted 

 them evidently did not think that they would ever attain 

 such a size, and now it would be foolish to attempt to 

 move them, at least the larger of the two. 



