742 



HORTICULTURE 



May 20, 1911 



Mendel's law, the theory of which 

 would call for just this result. 



Crossing parents which are different 

 in three characters each, makes the 

 thing more complicated still, as the 

 three pairs of character dispositions 

 form eight different sorts of germ 

 cells and these, crossed among them- 

 selves, extend the number of possibili- 

 ties to 64. Among the offsprings of 

 any such crossings, there will natur- 

 ally be many sorts which would be 

 classed as novelties. Self-evidently 

 they are not really new animals or 

 plants; they represent only new ar- 

 rangement or grouping of characters 

 which had existed before. The breeder 

 can not produce any animal or plant 

 which is really new; he can only com- 

 bine or rearrange certain observed 

 and differing characteristics and quali- 

 ties, so that they will reappear in the 

 offspring in such combinations as to 

 meet his desires and expectations. 

 Working in accordance with Mendel's 

 law, he can moreover establish the 

 permanency of many sorts in the 

 shortest time. Any seed or plant 

 catalog will convince us that no new 

 plants are ever produced. In all these 

 highly praised new creations we only 

 find a monotonous repetition of well- 

 known characters and qualities, com- 

 bined in a way not before seen. 

 (To be continued.) 



FEDERAL NURSERY INSPECTION 

 BILL. 



Representative Jas. S. Simmons, of 

 Niagara Falls, N. Y., has introduced In 

 Congress a bill "to regulate the impor- 

 tation and interstate transportation of 

 nursery stock, to enable the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture to establish and 

 maintain quarantine districts for plant 

 diseases and insect pests, to permit 

 and regulate the movement of fruits, 

 plants, and vegetables therefrom, and 

 for other purposes." 



This bill forbids anyone to import 

 or offer for entry into the United 

 States from any foreign country any 

 nursery stock unless and until a per- 

 mit shall have been issued therefor 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture, and 

 unless such nursery stock shall be 

 accompanied by a certificate of in- 

 spection from the proper official of 

 the country from which the importa- 

 tion is made to the effect that the 

 stock has been inspected and found 

 free from injurious plant diseases and 

 insect pests. 



Section 7 authorizes the Secretary 

 of Agriculture and directs him to quar- 

 antine any state or territory of the 

 District of Columbia, or any portion 

 of them, when he shall determine that 

 a dangerous plant disease or insect 

 Infestation exists there, and to give 

 notice of such quarantine to common 

 carriers passing through such quaran- 

 tined areas, and to publish in such 

 newspapers in the infested areas as 

 he may select notice of the establish- 

 ment of quarantine, and it is forbid- 

 den to ship or offer for shipment goods 

 from the quarantined areas into any 

 other states or territories except in 

 manner prescribed by the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. 



Nursery stock is defined as includ- 

 ing field grown florists' stock, trees, 

 shrubs, plants, vines, cuttings, grafts, 

 scions, buds, fruit pits, or seeds of 

 fruit, and ornamental trees or shrubs. 



THE PAEONY. 



A Paper read before the Gardeners' and 



Florists' Club of Boston by E. J. 



Shaylor. 



This is to be just a little talk to the 

 gardeners of this club on growing 

 paeonies and to the florists on some 

 of the good varieties to grow for cut- 

 ting blooms. It is to be a plain talk 

 among ourselves on a few things I 

 have run up against in my work. In 

 ten years of careful labor in growing 

 paeonies, there has been gained some 

 interesting knowledge, and I will try 

 to tell you about it in a plain unvar- 

 nished way. 



The Paeony's IVIedicinal Virtues. 



The paeony is a native of cold 

 countries mostly, and is hardy. The 

 ancients used both the roots and the 

 seeds in a medicinal way. It is re- 

 lated that in the Trojan war one 

 Paeon used the roots to heal the sick 

 and the wounded. His name was 

 spelled P-a-e-o-n, and from him the 

 name was derived. It was done to 

 perpetuate his name for his success. 

 In my childhood about sixty years 

 ago, I remember vaguely that some of 

 our neighbors obtained some roots to 

 be steeped for medicine, so its use for 

 such purposes came nearly down to 

 the present. The roots dried were 

 worn also about the neck to ward off 

 disease. The seeds were taken in- 

 wardly to shoo away the nightmare. 

 We all know a head gardener of 

 Wellesley who having a workman 

 complaining of malaria took from his 

 pocket some paeony seeds, and hand- 

 ing them to him in a joking way 

 said, "Here, Tim, here are some pills; 

 try them and maybe they will help 

 you." Sure enough Tim took them 

 regularly for a few days, until the 

 head gardener thought the joke had 

 gone far enough, and then he asked 

 him how he was. Tim said he was 

 better and gave the pills credit. 

 Then the head gardener told him 

 what they were. To the ancients it 

 was dead earnest and no joke. They 

 were cured no doubt by faith — a thing 

 which in our day has been capitalizsd 

 as a huge dividend-paying religion. 



Planting and Soil. 



The planting of paeonies should be 

 done with care. It is not enough to 

 simply dig a hole and put them in. 

 Trench the ground deep and work in 

 old manure. It does good to mix in 

 some bone meal or wood ashes or a 

 potato fertilizer strong in potash. 

 The most successful field planting I 

 ever made was done in this way. 

 The patch was new ground which had 

 been grubbed over in summer. In 

 September, furrows were dug the 

 depth of 12 or 14 inches and the loam 

 piled along the row in a ridge. In 

 the bottom of the trench old manure 

 was put in and chopped into the soil 

 with the spade. On the ridge of loam 

 that lay along the trench we scat- 

 tered some air-slacked lime and some 

 potato fertilizer. As the roots were 

 set this loam was filled in, and that 

 mixed the lime and the fertilizer well 

 with the soil. The next spring when 

 the plants were just coming up, bone 

 meal was scattered along one side of 

 the row, and some of the same kind 

 of potato fertilizer along the other 

 side, and these were cultivated in 

 with a wheel hand cultivator. This 

 planting gave the best results, both 



in blooms and roots that I ever grew. 

 Never use any fresh manure. On© 

 year I made a mistake and set some 

 rows of paeonies so that the rows ran 

 through the place where a pile of 

 manure had lain for six months. They 

 were set in the fall. The next spring 

 I noticed at once that the paeonies 

 where the manure pile had lain were 

 in trouble. I took them up and 

 scrubbed them off in a tub of water. 

 The strong soil was eating them up. 

 They were set out in another place 

 and I saved most of them. I have no 

 doubt that if they had been left where 

 they were, they would all have been 

 lost. Be sure that your place drains 

 good. If soil sours or becomes soggy, 

 goodby to your roots. I don't know 

 why, only I know that it will either 

 kill them outright or make them 

 worthless. After they are set out 

 good — don't forget that you must 

 agitate the hoe about them quite 

 often. 



Insects. 



Insects trouble them some. The 

 cut worm likes them for breakfast, 

 dinner and supper, and for lunch be- 

 tween meals. I have had letters ask- 

 ing "What shall I do to keep the ants 

 off the Paeony beds?" My answer is 

 "Nothing." The sap that is in the 

 stalk is like a sweet syrup and it ex- 

 hudes at the top. The ants only drink 

 that. I presume the stalk being 

 sweet is why the cut worm is so par- 

 tial to them. The rose bug comes 

 about the time paeonies are ending 

 and they eat the petals of the blooms. 

 Generally paeonies are over before 

 they come in numbers sufficient to do 

 much harm. 



Diseases. 



Paeonies have been considered as 

 IRON CLAD, but my , experience is 

 that they have their chills same as 

 I do. The black rot gets in and eats 

 away the roots. Air-slacked lime is 

 the best remedy I have found. Dig 

 away the loam and put some in and 

 put back fresh loam. It you can move 

 them to a new place, then cut the rot 

 away and dust the roots with lime 

 and reset. I think this is caused some 

 by their being set in all shade, and 

 dampness does it. If your place is 

 shady, then set the roots four feet 

 apart so the air can circulate freely 

 about them. I do not recommend to 

 set paeonies in all shade — they should 

 have half sun any way. There is also 

 the club foot or knotty root which 

 affects paeony roots. I have not been 

 able to master this. Roots have been 

 sent to Prof. Bessee, Miami, Florida, 

 one of the best government experts, 

 to Amherst in our own state, and to 

 Prof. Whitzel at Cornell, and I have 

 not had any help from any of them. 

 Prof. Bessee advised soaking the 

 roots in a solution of formalin. This 

 I did but it did not help me any. I 

 wrote A. Dessert, and he said he had 

 some of those affected roots from the 

 same source which mine came from, 

 "since ten years and they had never 

 bloomed," and he considered them 

 lost. I got out of patience with mine 

 and after keeping them five years I 

 threw most of them in the dump. I 

 am not sure but there is a blight that 

 hits the leaf and stem and causes 

 the root to rot, something in the 

 nature of the potato blight. Some 

 tew roots seem to be affected in this 

 way. I have never been troubled 



