894 



HORTICULTURE 



June 20, 1914 



HORTICULTURE. 



VOL. XIX 



JUNE 20, 1914 



PUBLISHED WEEKI.T BT 



HOR.TICULTUR.E PUBLISHING CO. 

 11 Hamilton Place, Boston, Mass. 



Telephone, Oxtord 292. 

 WM. J. STEWART, Editor and Manager. 



Entered as second-class matter December 8, 1904, at the Post Offlc* 

 at Boston, Mass., under the Act of CongreBS of March 3, 1879. 



CONTENTS Page 



COVER ILLUSTRATION — Hardy Rhododendrons, 

 Riverway, Boston Park System 



NOTES ON CULTURE OF FLORISTS' STOCK— Cal- 

 ceolarias — Eucharls amazonica — Ferns During the 

 Summer — Lycaste — Pruning Shrubs — John J. M. 

 Farrell 89o 



ROSE GROWING UNDER GLASS— Planting— Copper 

 Sulphate — Straw for the Benches — Depth of Soil in 

 Benches — Distribution of Plants — Arthur C. Ruzirka 895 



CLUBS AND SOCIETIES— American Peony Society- 

 Gardeners' and Florists' Club of Boston — Westchester 

 and Fairfield Horticultural Society — Lenox Horticul- 

 tural Society — St. Louis Florists' Club 89i; 



Club and Society Notes 897 



Massachusetts Horticultural Society Rhododendron 



Exhibition 898 



Tarrytown Horticultural Society 899 



SANDER & SONS ORCHID GROUP, CHELSEA SHOW, 

 LONDON 1914 897 



OBITUARY— Stanley Knaflewski— Cornelius A. Sulli- 

 van — William P. Bassett 899 



SEED TRADE— The Convention— The Canners in 1915 



— Crop Conditions 901 



Two Serious Bean Diseases — Notes 902 



OF INTEREST TO RETAIL FLORISTS: 



Steamer Departures 904 



Flowers by Telegraph — New Flower Stores 905 



FLOWER MARKET REPORTS: 



Boston, Buffalo, Chicago. Cincinnati, New York 909 



Philadelphia, St. Louis, Washington 911 



DURING RECESS— St. Louis Growers— Cincinnati 

 Outing — New York Florists' Club Outing — Philadel- 

 phia Club Outing 911 



MISCELLANEOUS: 



War on Caterpillars 898 



Stone Age Humor — George C. Watson 898 



How to Check Thrips on Grape Vines 898 



Knoxviile, Tenn., Notes 90tj 



New Corporations 90ti 



Washington Notes — Philadelphia Notes 906 



Chicago Notes 907 



Personal — Visitors' Register 907 



New York Notes 911 



Publications Received 916 



The 1913 Agricultural Year Book 91'i 



Massachusetts Agricultural College 916 



Greenhouses Building or Contemplated 918 



The annual '"'Ehododendron Show.'" 



A moribund which was held at Horticultural Hall, 



show Boston, last Saturday and Sunday, while 



it was a very attractive and brilliant .dis- 

 play of seasonable garden flowers, was a rhododendron 

 show in name only. This annual event which some 

 years ago was a superb array of hardy and tender va- 

 rieties has now dwindled down until the name might as 

 well be discontinued. Although a majority of the best 

 rhododendrons were already past, this year, yet a grand 

 showing might have been made if the spirit to do so had 

 been alive. There are rhododendrons in and around 

 Boston sufficient to cover the entire building with 

 blooms, but unfortunately there are but few H. H. Hun- 

 newells and F. B. Haveses, aided and abetted by .such 



rhododendron enthusiasts as the late F. L. Harris and 

 .James Comley. We should like to see the old interest 



^^=^ revived. There is no subject more worthy of special 

 NO. 25 attention than the rhododendron. 



== There will be a hearing before the 



Wanted— a Federal Horticultural Board at Wash- 

 square deal ington June 23 on the proposition to ex- 

 tend the lines of the quarantine zone 

 against the interstate shipment of nursery stock and 

 greens from New England points and to include under 

 the existing restrictions, during certain months, her- 

 baceous plants and greenhouse-grown stock. A well- 

 defined suspicion is growing in nursery trade circles in 

 Massachusetts that a vein of sectional feeling underlies 

 these repeated agitations and attacks upon the nursery 

 shipping trade of New England. We trust the assump- 

 tion is unfounded. There is business enough for all in 

 this big country and the nurseries of the quarantined 

 districts of New England will compare favorably with 

 those of any other section of the country in cleanliness 

 and freedom from insects or fungous pests. Federal in- 

 spectors have recently discovered brown-tail moths in 

 importations from France to New York and gypsy 

 moths in a shipment from Japan. Make a note of that. 

 Massachusetts thoroughly believes in rigid inspection 

 laws but most strenuously objects to being singled out 

 for special castigation. 



The entire country seems to be suffering 



The tent from one of those periodic invasions of 



caterpillar tent caterpillars which no scientist has 



invasion been able to account for so far as we know. 



Welcome news comes from various sec- 

 tions in Massachusetts that the caterpillars are dying 

 in their nests, by thousands, from the •"'wilt disease" 

 which has proved so effective in checking the increase 

 of the gypsy moth. We have also noticed in our own 

 home garden that the birds, especially those two much 

 condemned ones — the blue jay and English sparrow — 

 are t,aking a lively part in clearing the trees of these 

 caterpillars as well as also the canker worms which were 

 plentiful this year. Thus Nature comes to the aid of 

 man in his eiJorts to suppress these destructive pests. 

 Our attention has been called to a poster recently issued 

 from the office of the Secretary of the ilassachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture in which the cutting and 

 burning of "all useless apple and wild cherry trees" is 

 advised as a means of warfare against the tent caterpil- 

 lar. Perhaps those who advocate this course know what 

 they are talking about and maybe we don't. But, in our 

 way of thinking, the logical effect of destroying the use- 

 less apple trees would be to drive the moths to those 

 trees that are not useless. That moth has to lay her eggs 

 somewhere. The same line of argument applies to the 

 wild cherries. The cherries don't breed the caterpillar but 

 are selected by the egg-laying moths as a favorite breed- 

 ing and feeding place. Allowed to grow freely along the 

 roadsides would these trees not serve as an inducement 

 to the pests to congregate where they can be easily des- 

 patched with poison sprays or other summary treat- 

 ment? We have been interested in a report of the, tent 

 caterpillar egg-mass destroying contest started last No- 

 vember by the Connecticut Agricultural College. The 

 winner of the $25 prize was a girl who collected 116,000 

 egg masses. Second and third scores were 101,100 and 

 94,290. The pupils of one school collected 229,920 egg 

 masses, thus winning a summer-scliool scholarship for 

 their teacher. As near as can be estimated, over 10,000,- 

 000 egg masses were collected throu*h the efforts of the 

 pupils of the state 

 each. 



These egg masses average 2-50 eggs 



