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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



matter and placed in piles several feet deep, where 

 they are permitted to lay for a year or two. and in the 

 mean time they are forked over several times, hasten- 

 ing disintegration and decay. Sods treated in this 

 manner will make excellent soil for starting plants 

 anywhere. These rotted sods can be mixed with well- 

 rotted manure if they are lacking in plant food. 



Two parts of ordinary garden loam mixed with two 

 parts of rotted horse manure and one part of sand 

 makes a good hotbed soil. In all cases in preparing 

 soil for hotbeds avoid the use of fresh manure, as it 

 produces variable results and it gives a succulent 

 growth to the young plants. The various ingredients 

 should be thorotighly mixed and sufficient moisture 

 added to the soil so that when it is crushed in the 

 hand the ball of earth will retain its shape and crum- 

 ble when slighth- rolled around. 



The hotbeds should run east and west, with the 

 slant toward the south. The pit should be excavated 

 to a depth of from 20 to 30 inches, according to the 

 severity of the weather where made. The excavation 

 should be boarded up close and tight so as to keep out 

 moles and mice, which are very troublesome when 

 once they get started in the hotbeds. The pit should 

 be filled to within one foot of the glass with ferment- 

 ing manure, and then five or si.x inches of the prepared 

 soil in which the seed are planted. The manure 

 should be well tramped in before the soil is placed on 

 it, this preventing any settling of the soil after the 

 seeds are planted. Where flats are used in which the 

 soil for the seeds have been placed, one or two inches 

 of soil is all that is required over the manure, and the 

 flats are set directly on this soil. 



After the soil has been placed in the flats the sash 

 should be placed over the frames, and thus remain 

 until the soil in the flats has warmed up, by which 

 time the weed seed will have germinated and burst 

 forth. The soil should now be stirred about one inch 

 deep and seed of vegetables and flowers planted. — 

 ]'e''ctablc Groz^-cr. 



THE GASPLANT (DICTAMNUS ALBUS.) 



Every pretentious country estate should possess a 

 well-established gasplant, not the modern one. strung 

 like a bead on a corporation line of iniblic utilities, but 

 the old-fashioned one that delighted our grand- 

 mothers in the days of long ago, one that thrives with- 

 out a meter and gives out its gas free of cost. 



Such is Dictamnus albus ( D. Fraxinella), bearing the 

 common names of Dittany, Burning-bush, and Gas- 

 plant. The more recent introduction, the variety 

 caucasicus, also known as D. grandiflora. is a stronger 

 grower, producing larger flower spikes. 



Both are exotic species and to my mind should not 

 be included in the wild planting, as their form and 

 general appearance are not in keeping with the usual 

 aspects of our native plants. If so used one would 

 imagine at once that they were intruders "escaped 

 from cultivation," as the botanists would say. 



Their place in the border, informal planting and for 

 dwarf hedges. In either situation the Gasplant is a 

 most admirable herb, perfectly hardy, long-lived, pos- 

 sessing a foliage of a rich, glossy green that remains 

 briglit and fresh up to frost, and requiring no insect 

 powder to keep it tidy. 



The books say — and they do not always tell the 

 truth, but I hope this article does — that it thrives as 

 well in the shade as in the sun. My experience does 

 not coincide with this statement. I have a hedge of it 

 some 50 feet long, which is partly shaded by a large 



spreading Hawthorn whose branches reach over it 

 but are fully 6 to 7 feet above the ground. There is 

 plenty of diftused light over the plants, but no direct 

 sunlight until late in the afternoon. The plants where 

 shaded are fully 8 to 10 inches lower in height, and 

 the flower spikes shorter and the foliage is not as 

 luxuriant, as of those in full sun. I have seen the 

 same result in other places. 



The Gasplant makes an effective herbacecjus hedge 

 in open sunny situations. When in bloom — June and 

 July — on well-established plants, the flower spikes, 

 which are held well above the foliage, will reach a 

 height of 3 feet. The spikes on D. caucasicus are 

 some 6 inches wide at the base, tapering to a point 

 a foot or more above. The white form is fine. When 

 in bloom the plant possesses the stateliness and dig- 

 nity of the Lupines and the Foxgloves. 



When the flowers fade the bloom, stalks should he 

 cut well back, back a few inches below the main 

 height of foliage, and just above a leaf stalk, thus 

 leaving no stub to die back and turn brown. You will 

 then have a campace if well-grown, glossy green hedge 

 about 2 feet tall and almost as even in contour as if 

 sheared. ,\ little sheep manure worked into the soil 

 every other spring is a great help to the plants. 



So far I have been doing all the "gassing." Let us 

 give the plant a chance to show why it received its 

 name. 



Again I must find faidt with the books. All that I 

 have read when speaking of this plant, state, "it is 

 said that if a lighted match be applied to the flowers, 

 a gas will ignite." I tried it for over twenty years 

 and almost impoverished myself on wasted matches, and 

 with no results. I came to the conclusion that the story 

 was a myth. 



Late one afternoon Mr. E. O. Orpet strolled in to 

 "Egandale" and, ap])roaching my hedge, remarked: 

 "This ought to be a good time to try the Gasplant," 

 and placing a lighted match to the base of the floz'.'er 

 stalk, I was astonished to see a flame rush to the top 

 with a perfectly audible hiss. The myth became a 

 reality. The secret was out, and I wondered why 

 some one, who must have known it long ago, had not 

 published the facts, since I, for one. have lost many 

 op]:)ortunities of amusing the children — and we are 

 all children in some things — by showing them a flower 

 that produces a flame that does not injure itself. 



How came this curious jjhenomenon to be discov- 

 ered? It appears that an extremely volatile gas em- 

 anates from the main stem of the flower stalk, from 

 the base of the blooms up to the top. It ignites only 

 on warm, calm evenings, and seems to hug the main 

 stem ; consequently the lighted match must be held 

 close to the stem and immediately under the lower tier of 

 flowers. I had held the match to the outer rim of 

 flowers, some 3 inches away from the gas, hence my 

 failure. It is a singular fact that if the flower-stalk 

 is cut and removed it will not ignite. Either species 

 is slow in establishing itself, but once it gets a good 

 start it will outlive the ])lanter if given a fair show. 

 — W. C. Eg.\x in Billcrica. 



Wlieii .Tamps A. Garfield was president of Oherlin College a man 

 l)ioui;lit for entranee as a student his son, for whom he wished a 

 shorter course than the legulai one. 



"The boy never ean take all that in." said the father. "He 

 wants to get through (|uieker. Can you arrange it for him?" 



"Oh, yes," said ilr. Gartiehl. "He can take a shorter course: 

 it all depends on what you want to make him. When (iod wants 

 to make an oak. He takes a hundred years, but He only takes 

 two months to make a squash." — Exchange. 



