762 



HORTICULTURE 



December 9, 1916 



Make use of the best stock you can buy, and make up 

 well. If it ever pays to offer high quality stock, around 

 Christmas is the time. 



Cinerarias 



Give a cool and airy house, where the temperature can 

 be kept from 40 to 45 degrees at night, with a rise of 

 10 degrees with sun heat. In fact, the fullest light and 

 a low temperature and constant fumigation are the 

 three essentials to make stout, healthy cinerarias. These 

 plants will now be making verj' rapid growth. Particu- 

 lar care should be taken to ventilate well during warm 

 and dull weather so that they will not grow soft. Do 

 not let them get pot-bound before giving them a shift 

 with a compost of two-thirds of chopped sods and one- 

 third of well-decayed cow manure. The green aphis is 

 likely to be troublesome from this out so fumigate once 

 a week. Seeds sown in August for Easter plants will 

 now be in two-inch pots and will soon want a four-inch 

 in which they will pass the winter, and in February 

 will be shifted into their flowering pots, five-incli or 

 si.\-inch. 



Fern Spores 



To bring these up to good sized seedlings requires 

 watchfulness. All .seed pans should be well cleaned, so 

 as not to leave any germs of moss or fungus which are 

 sure to ruin tlie young ferns, when they begin to show. 

 One point to be remembered is to have everything very 



clean. Use plenty of crocks on the bottom of the pans 

 to insure good drainage. Some moss can be spread over 

 the crocks to hold the compost from choking up the 

 drainage. These pans can be iiUed to within an inch of 

 the top. A good compost will be equal parts of loam 

 and leaf-mold and some sand. Over this put about half 

 an inch of finely sifted compost, press firmly and sow 

 the spores ; press the spores in and place pans in a tem- 

 erature of 65 degrees and cover with glass. To keep 

 up a steady supply of small ferns for the filling of fern 

 pans one should sow spores about every five or six weeks. 

 Xewly sown spores should be kept in a temperature of 

 not less than 65 degrees at all times and they should 

 have this heat for sometime after they appear. 



Reminders 



Give plants that are well pot-bound a top-dressing of 

 dried blood. This is an e.xcellent fertilizer for this pur- 

 pose. 



Place a few stock plants of bouvardia in a warm 

 moist house so they will produce early cuttings. About 

 60 degrees will suit them. 



Maintain a restful temperature in the houses where 

 palms and ferns are kept, unless for any special pur- 

 pose some are being forced. 



Daffodils that were planted early should now be suf- 

 ficiently established to stand moderate forcing. Fifty- 

 five degrees vaW be all right. 



Next Week:— Canas; Easter Lilies; MlKnonette; Orchids; Start Propagating; UeinlndtTs. 



Carnations 



With the high cost of all that enters into Carnation 

 growing, it Ijecomes necessary to get the best results frniu 

 each house. Carnations are grown at a profit so small, 

 that small leaks are dangerous, and as higher prices are 

 not easily to be obtained, better cultural methods are a 

 necessity. Other crops have a larger margin of profit, 

 but a slight falling ofE of quantity or quality on the part 

 of a carnation range means net loss while no great ex- 

 cess of gains, due to a combination of favoring circum- 

 stances, can be looked for. The carnation specialists 

 know this but it is the man who grows a mixed crop — 

 and the writer is one — who needs to know that his 

 houses are actually giving best results. And it is none 

 too soon to think out next season's plans. Can we trust 

 the croj) to the weather conditions out of doors from 

 May to August? Dozens of Xew England growers are 

 suffering from bad outside conditions this season, and 

 the trouble will not end with this season's cut, as weak- 

 ened plants produce weak cuttings and "yellows"' are 

 apt to beget "yellows." 



Some strains of Carnations can be safely grown inside 

 as the Winsors — and a more profitable breed of Carna- 

 tions has never been produced for the grower who under- 

 stands it and can use short stems in the autumn. AVliite 

 Winsor will easily produce thirty-five blooms to the 

 square foot, and for keeping qualities and fragrance 

 no sort grown today surpasses it. 



Matchless does well as an inside grown sort. Beacon 

 Delight needs the open air and a lot of it for best re- 

 is safe and ready with a full crop at the holidays. Pink 

 suits. The Enchantress family can be grown either way 



and give a good yield, but the blooms are apt to be soft 

 at times and the grower needs to study his market care- 

 fully if he is to use this sort. It's the condition of the 

 blooms when they reach the home that counts and reacts 

 on the growers. 



Your retail florist will call for flesh pink in autuiuii, 

 high colors at tlie Jiolidays, white at Mother's Day and 

 deeper pink in the late spring. About 35 per cent, white, 

 35 per cent, flesh pink and 30 per cent, all others meets 

 the call pretty well. Inside grown stock will give good 

 returns early in the season before chrysanthemums 

 are much in the market. Then comes a lull perlia]).- 

 and the matter of saving cuttings comes in. And here 

 is where a year's results may be made satisfactory or 

 allowed to show a loss. The grower and retailer can 

 study this question of long stems and lost cuttings, or 

 future blooms, to their mutual advantage. It is possible 

 to gain $1 per hundred by an additional length of stem 

 and in tloing so lose three or four dollars worth of side 

 shoots. Save the cuttings. If you can use them in the 

 sand take the stem. Matchless, for instance is needed 

 in large quantities at Mother's Day and that spring crop 

 can be made or marred, early in (he season. We are 

 just learning to grow Matchless, and it is a wonder. 

 Benora, too. 



The soil pile for next season's carnation beds, and the 

 field for planting out^t's none too early, it's too late 

 for some of tliis work and if it has not been attended to 

 best results will be difficult — but that is too long a story 

 at this writing. 



Biddeford. Me. 



