HORTICULTURE 



November 4, 1905 



horticulture: 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 

 DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephone, Oxford 292, 



WM. J. STEWART, Editor and Manager. 



Whether for the gratification of a love 

 Plant bulbs for floral beaiity or for the strictly com- 

 mercial purpose of spring cut-flower 

 sales every one of our readers should take time now to 

 plant at least a few spring-flowering bulbs. The cost of 

 bulbs and the labor are alike trifling and one never 

 regrets it in the springtime. The florist with a little 

 area in front of his office will find a most effective adver- 

 tisement in filling it with tulips and daffodils and it 

 cannot fail to draw orders for next season's planting. 

 A few rows of Narcissus poeticus, ornatus poeticus, and 

 double poeticus, will come in handy for spring cut 

 flowers, the double variety blooming just when needed 

 for Decoration Day work. 



The best 

 reading matter 



our readers witli 



Frequent congratulatory letters come 

 to us on the increasing excellence of 

 Horticulture's contents from week 

 to week. It is our aim to provide 

 instructive, practical matter from the 

 highest sources. Our columns are open to all for this 

 purpose. What we prefer and what we know our read- 

 ers prefer are short, crisp communications, direct to 

 the point and practical. Of verbose articles in which 

 ten lines are used to tell what could be told in one we 

 have a supply. Instructive readable matter in concise 

 form is always welcome and equally so on whatever 

 phase of horticulture it may touch. Those who talk 

 through Horticulture's columns are assured of an 

 intelligent and appreciative audience. 



Chrysanthemum fanciers are 

 making devoted and persistent 

 efforts to give us each year new- 

 varieties better in some respect 

 than any hitherto offered. The 

 quality of early-blooming is especially souglit and every 



A promising field 



for chrysanthemurr 



development 



es the introduction of varieties that show an 

 advance in this direction. While we should be and are 

 fully appreciative of the hybridizers' efforts, yet it seems 

 that an opening for greater usefulness and a field for 

 more novel and interesting results lie in the line of 

 develojMnent of a race, sturdy, dwarf-growing and free- 

 fiowering, that will respond readily to garden culture 

 and endure the vicissitudes of pot-plant existence. This 

 class offers the material and the incentive for a break- 

 ing-away from the uninteresting monotony that has 

 come to characterize the typical chrysanthemum show 

 and its development means the- introduction of a much- 

 needed artistic decorative element in our exhibition. 

 We are pleased to note a wide-spread rapidly-growing 

 appreciation among the chrysanthemum enthusiasts for 

 this early-flowering hardy type. As our foreign cor- 

 respondence indicates, our cousins across the Atlantic 

 are thoroughly awakened on this line and there is plenty 

 of evidence that the people on this side are in the mood 

 to follow them. 



The rose has one great advan- 

 The carnation (age over the carnation in the 



in the exhibition hall exhibition hall, in that the con- 

 ditions which cause the carna- 

 tion to close up and shrivel into a repulsive object induce 

 the rose bud to unfold and assume a new beauty. We 

 note a comment in the Journal of Horticulture (Lon- 

 don) wherein attention is called to the unfortunate lack 

 of keeping-quality in the American carnation as com- 

 ])ared with the typical English varieties. The need for 

 improvement in this direction has been apparent to all 

 friends of the carnation and the subject has received 

 much attention year after year in the sessions of the 

 American Carnation Society, but thus far progress ap- 

 pears to have been backward instead of forward, for the 

 failing seems to increase in prevalence as fancy breed- 

 ing advances. Comparisons of the staying-powers of 

 the high-bred vai-ieties of the present day with the older 

 sorts are often made and generally to the disadvantage 

 of the former. Modern methods of cultivation with a 

 view to excessive development of robustness of plant. 

 stem, and bloom are not calculated to reduce the 

 trouble. Persistent experimenting as to time of pick- 

 ing and methods and temperatures in the storing of 

 blooms seems to have demonstrated but little of practical 

 value thus far, and the carnation exhibitor who has to 

 ship his flowers five hundred or a thousand miles to the 

 show thus stands at a great di,sadvantage in competition 

 with nearby growers. It has always seemed to us that 

 it was a great mistake to allow sleepy carnation flowers 

 to remain on the exhibition table. Their prompt re- 

 moval would be to the advantage of the exhibitor, the 

 variety, the show as a whole and the carnation as a 

 flower. True there have been occasions when the 

 enforcement of this- rule on the closing day w-ould have 

 well-nigh dismantled the hall, but there should be 

 sufficient generosity and pride among the local people 

 to keep the tables filled with fresh material till the 

 close. 



