For June, 1920 



217 



GOLD MEDAL TO GEORGE F. STEWART 



THE gold medal of the National Association of Gar- 

 deners has been awarded for the first time to George 

 1'. Stewart, gardener to Arthur Lyman of Wal- 

 tham, Mass., for a collection of nine plants of Calceo- 

 larias, which were exliibited at Horticultural Hall, Bos- 

 ton, on May 15. 



The committee 

 appointed by Pres- 

 ident Jensen to 

 to judge the ex- 

 hibit, \V m . N. 

 Craig, Duncan 

 Finlavson, and 

 Walter H. Colby, 

 reported that it 

 deemed the exhibit 

 well worth the 

 highest award of 

 the national asso- 

 ciation. 



Mr. Stewart, the 

 grower of the 

 plants, writes of 

 them as follows : 

 ' ' S o m e w h ere 

 around 19 06, I 

 crossed Calceolaria 

 hyhrhla with Cal. 

 rugosa, V a r i e t }■ 

 Golden Gem. The 

 last named was the 

 female, or seed 

 bearing parent. 

 The male, or pollen 

 parent, was a yel- 

 low hybrida with brown spots, a plant of compact, short- 

 jointed growth, of the well-known James' Strain. I do 

 not now remember how many plants I raised and flowered 

 of that cross, but there were quite a number, and I flow- 

 ered them all in two and a half inch ])ots. AIv aim was 



One of the I'Uints of the 



Exhibit of Calc 

 of Gardeners' 



111 .l;^I a Lalceolaiia wi.ii j);i.e _\cllow flowers of .some- 

 what freer growth than either m-osa or hybrida, which 

 could be raised freely from cuttings. Any one who has 

 raised Calceolarias from seed, knows how hard it is to 

 get them safely through the hot months of Summer. 

 There were a number of dift"erent and interesting plants 



among the plants 

 flowered from the 

 above cross, but 

 not knowing any- 

 thing of •■Mendel's 

 Laws" or plant 

 breeding of any 

 kind, I threw them 

 all away except the 

 yellow one. now 

 k n o w n as Cal. 

 Steivartii, which I 

 then thought came 

 nearest what I was 

 after. The other 

 three varieties, 

 -Med ford Gem, 

 Bailcri, and L\- 

 luaiiii, are the same 

 cross, using a dif- 

 ferent color of the 

 same strain of 

 liybrida. The last 

 named variety has, 

 1 consider, the 

 most compact and 

 freest growing 

 habit of any I 

 have y e t ra'ised 

 . , , and was most ad- 



mired on that account at the exhibition. As to the 

 difl:erent shades of color, that is a matter of taste " 



Sometime in the near future, Mr. Stewart vvill' con- 

 tribute some notes to the columns of the G.^rdeners' 

 CiiROXTCLE on the culture of these plants. 



•olarius oicarded llie \alioiial .issoeidtioii 

 Gold Medal. 



MANURING ORCHARDS 

 Arthur Smith 



GENERALLY speaking apple orchards last year 

 yielded heavy crops of fruit, and the strain of a 

 load of fruit is undoubtedly felt by the trees, which 

 is often shown by lack of growth and early falling of 

 the leaves. It is obvious, therefore, that such trees should 

 be manured during the ^^'inter, or early Spring. 



Fruit-growers do not always find it easy to decide 

 whether their orchards need manuring. It has been 

 laid down as a rough guide that feeding is required when 

 trees make less than a foot of young growth besides 

 bearing a crop of fruit ; but this would hardly apply to 

 old trees which cannot be expected to make so much 

 growth. At the same time it is the older trees which re- 

 quire, and which will give good returns for mantiring, 

 and these returns are most apparent in the increased size 

 and quality of fruit. W'hile some advocate manuring 

 orchards only once in three years, the writer has found 

 it pays to manure comparatively old orchards every year. 

 Of course the trees were all healthy and the previous 

 want of results had been caused by want of food, but 

 naturally it would not be desirable to manure trees with 

 decaying trunks that are dying from extreme old age. 



Farmyard or stable manure undoubtedly gives the 

 most satisfactory results, indeed, on manv soils chemical 



fertilizers give little benefit which can be traced, although 

 one can hardly imagine that they have no influence. 



\\hile fruit trees are young, manures should be ap- 

 plied to a space under each tree a couple of feet beyond 

 the spread of the branches, and in the case of an orchard 

 that has done at all well for fifteen years the entire sur- 

 face of the ground should be manured all over. Manure 

 for fruit trees should be allowed to remain upon the 

 surface and never spaded or plowed under, so as to 

 keep the roots near the top and to discourage them from 

 penetrating too deeply into the subsoil, as the latter 

 results in the production of unfruitful w'ood. 



While the starving of fruit trees is a mistake which is 

 clearly shown by poor crops and small fruit, it is, how- 

 ever, quite possible to give too much manure — especially 

 in the case of young trees — the result being rank growth 

 rather than fruit. Trees that are growing too fast and 

 failing to bear .should certainly not be manured, no mat- 

 ter how long since they received the last application. 

 In thi.s connection, when considering the manuring of 

 an entire orchard, it will sometimes be advisable to leave 

 some varieties, or even trees of the same variety, un- 

 manured, or to give some a much lighter application 

 than others : in these respects the value of expert knowl- 

 edge will be apparent, and also a knowledge of the 

 trees' behavior in the past. 



