May 5, 1917 



HOETICULTUEE 



579 



Your Carnations 



May IS the liust montli of the year for the carnation 

 grower. For Mother-g Day, the second Sunday, and 

 Memorial Day. the ;i()th, every bloom is readily sold at 

 good prices and the cut 50 per cent, better than anv 

 previous mouth, customers pleased and looking forward 

 to your goods next season. This figures out a good 

 month. But to get this result a little tliought was re- 

 quired and some study ol' other seasons. If one has kept 

 a careful record of the cut of each variety grown for 

 several seasons a selection may he made of such so.rts as 

 will give a steady yield of hi,i;h gi'ade blooms throughout 

 the season and at tlic same time build up a plant that 

 will give a large crop in May. These sorts must l)e able 

 to stand hif;h culture and forcing without showing dis- 

 ease. Alatchless i> a suitiilijc subject and White Winsor 

 and Pink Delight will stand tlie treatment without going 

 soft. Since Mother's Day has come to be the best car- 

 nation day of the year the farmer plan of handling the 

 crop has been modified and will be subject to still fur- 

 ther cliange. Two holidays during ilay make prices 

 attractive and the longer davs and liigh rising sun 

 make for a heavy cut if the |ibiuts are in condition. 

 Right here is the text. 



When the sun shows its power in Ma.ich or so and fly, 

 spider and tb.rips show up with renewed vigor the car- 

 nation man has his hands full. Blooms are coming into 

 the market more freely, bulb stock is in evidence and 

 young carnation plants are demanding mere room and 

 more care. Just at this time some decision must be 

 reached. The same men in the same time can't do twice 

 the usual amount of work and the plants will not tlirive 

 on neglect. Better get out tlie records of other seasons. 

 do some close studying, then pull up what you cannot 

 use and care for the rest. The plants from now lui re- 

 quire twice as much water and salt and nicotine. Give 

 it to them ! Put on the extra wires on the south side of 

 the benches to keep in the straggling shoots, keep the 

 buds picked and all shoots leading straight up. Cut all 

 blooms when cold and crisp in the early morning and in 

 the right stage of development. Put your blooms into 

 your customers' hands in perfect condition and get a 

 living price for them. 



Biddeford. Me. 



O e Phase of the Food Problem 



To the Editor: 



At this time let us fight the foe within. Who would 

 feed a dog for less than 10c. a day— $36.50 a year? 

 Multiply this by our five million dogs and you have one 

 billion, eight hundred twenty-five million dollars for 

 food alone. Trainloads after trainloads of provisions 

 alone must go to feed worthless brutes while Pi'urope 

 starves. 



Millions of acres east and west must be idle on ac- 

 count of useless curs. The president of the Sheep Grow- 

 ers' Association of Connecticut had to give up sheep 

 growing on account of dogs. In the early days, one 

 thousand' sheep were mangled and smothered in a single 

 night by dogs. In I^ebraska, a friend of mine went out 

 to ba-ing in his three horses and found the dogs had 

 driven them into a wire fence and they were so mangled 

 they had to be killed. The poor man had to suffer the 

 loss. A friend adopted a fine, hale looking boy with one 

 arm. I asked what became of the other. It was so 

 mangled by a vicious dog it had to be taken off. About 

 the same time a dear old lady was almost torn to pieces 

 by a savage brute. 



The remedy. — Let the nation put a tax of ten dollars 

 on every dog in the United States. That would elimi- 

 nate useless ones. A dead dog would then be a fine 

 national asset. He has learned to get along without eat- 

 ing and what he saves would be so mueli gain. We love 

 a good dog and our eyes moisten as we read of his cour- 

 age and fidelity, but a hundred worthless curs ought not 

 to live on the reputation of one decent one. If a man 

 has a good dog he can pay the tax which should go to 

 feed the starving children of Europe. The sons of mil- 

 lionaires who get up dog feasts could pay. The woman 

 who prefers a pup to a baby would gladly pay ten dollars 

 for the joy of kissing the brute. Mark this. A live 

 doge's bark is a nuisance. A dead dog's bark maizes fine 

 gloves. Give us the gloves. Two or three million dog 

 skins tlirown on the market at this time would reliexe 

 the leather famine. 



(^Slt€i/^'l^'*-^ 



York, yeh. 



THE LATE W. C. LANGBRIDGE. 



It is one of the rich blessings in life 

 to have the acquaintance and claim 

 the friendship for a long period of 

 years with a man of the ability, con- 

 geniality and thorough good will, all 

 of which qualities were so richly im- 

 planted in William C. Langbridge, 

 w hose funeral was held at All)any, 

 ye-v York, his home, on Sunday, April 

 15th, 1917. Mr. Langbridge had been 

 a traveling man for the ,Jerome B. Rice 

 Seed Company for twenty-nine years, 

 and in that period of time had, as a 

 matter of course, seen the wonderful 

 clianges that have happened in the 

 rnst quarter of a century in the seed 

 business. He had a personal acquaint- 

 ance with not only all the present day 

 men of the trade, but could look back 

 a jeieiation a:'d r;:eak in affectionate 



ieinis of so many of the old gods in 

 the business. He was a man bubbling 

 ovur witli good nature always, and 

 pre-eminently the best acquainted man 

 with the seed trade and with the 

 canning trade in the United States. 

 Friend Bill's congenial smile and 

 broad humor was known everj'where 

 by everybody, and his frequent visits 

 will be missed greatly by his very, 

 vr.-y, large circle of acquaintance in 

 the canning trade and in the seed 

 trade. Almost the entire oiBcial and 

 established staff of the Jerome B. Rice 

 Seed Company attended the funeral as 

 did many others of his close associates 

 in the seed trade and in the canning 

 'rade. The inusual array of floral 

 tributes, gave mute testimony to the 

 man who had become a national 

 figure. 



Wat.so.n S. Woodruff. 

 Orange, Conn. 



COVER ILLUSTRATION. 



Rhododendron Vaseyi, which is the 

 feature of our cover illustration this 

 week, is a native of North Carolina 

 and is perfectly hardy In Boston, 

 where the photograph was taken from 

 which our cut was made. The view 

 shows one of the groups planted by 

 the late superintendent of Boston 

 parks, J. A. Pettigrew, who had a 

 great admirat;on for this azalea as it 

 was first called. The flowers are rose 

 pink, some plants bearing much deep- 

 er tinted flowers than others, and it 

 blooms in late April or early May, just 

 before the leaves appear. 



Serissa foetida, a pretty little plant 

 with tiny foliage and thickly covered 

 with starry white flowers is highly 

 recommended as an additional Easter 

 flowering plant by W. A. Manda. 



