40 



GARDENING. 



Oct. is, 



good companion to the variegated 

 abutilon. 



Talinum crassifolium variegatum is one 

 of our best variegated leaved plants and 

 grows a foot or so high before flowering, 

 the flowers are small, pink, arranged in 

 long loose spikes. The seed capsules 

 when ripening add considerably to the 

 beauty of the plant; they are of a reddish 

 yellow color. An easily managed plant. 



Strobilanthes Dyerianus is doing well 

 this season; it must not be allowed to get 

 too dry at the roots, as it is very liable to 

 the attacks of the mealy bug when the 

 plants are the least unhealthy, and once 

 these pests gain a footing they are diffi- 

 cult to eradicate. 



The new Acalypha Hamiltoniana did 

 not show up well last year, and thisis pro- 

 pably the last season we will grow it, as 

 it has a very weedv appearance. 



G. W. 0. 



U. S. Botanic Garden, Washington, 

 D. C. 



NOTES FROM SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 



As you know, our Springfield Amateur 

 Horticultural Society has frequent and 

 always very interesting meetings. Men 

 and women, young folks and old folks, all 

 belong to it, and we all have gardening on 

 the brain, and if you come this way again 

 you'll find that we have gardening about 

 our homes too. Well, our meetings are 

 delightful gatherings; we have a little 

 music and entertainment, and we talk 

 about our flowers and our gardens, relat- 

 ing our experience, and seeking, getting 

 and giving information. And when the 

 meeting is formally dismissed we don't 

 rush helter-skelter down the stairs in our 

 hurry to get home, but linger in an eager 

 and sociable way discussing our flowers, 

 telling and hearing about each other's 

 roses and daffodils and such like posies. 

 You who have no amateur horticultural 

 society in your town are to be pitied. Its 

 work is one of love and interest. You 

 attend the meetings, not to sit still and 

 listen all the time, for you couldn't do 

 that if you tried, nor to make a speech, 

 for there are no speeches, but just to 

 talk among yourselves about your pan- 

 sies and sweet peas, your pears and 

 strawberries, your celery and peas. You 

 can't help yourself, if you are a crank on 

 roses, when everybody is talking roses, 

 you can't keep still, you've got to tell 

 about your roses, and so on, till you'll be 

 all a-talking, and as happy and friendly 

 together as you would be at a church 

 sociable. 



China Asters. — Among the subjects dis- 

 cussed at our meeting the other evening 

 Mr. Simonds told us that the disease had 

 overtaken his China asters; he had grown 

 asters for many years with much success 

 and never till this year had they been a 

 failure. When they were growing nicely 

 the blight struck them, and they withered 

 and died; he did not know the cause of it 

 or remedy for it. The asters in the gar- 

 dens of some other members had also suf- 

 fered from the disease. Mr. Aumer found 

 that it is a fungus disease, and it first 

 asserts itself in the stems of the plants. 

 He pulled up and burned all his diseased 

 plants to prevent its spread. But, curi- 

 ous, not one of the Semple asters (a race 

 of asters gotten up by a Mr. Semple, a 

 florist of your city, Pittsburg, Pa.) were 

 diseased. Mr. Robinson grew 5,000 aster 

 plants this summer, but they had no dis- 

 ease; he thought locality and soil had 

 much to do with the health of the plants. 

 He selected and saved his own seed, and 

 also bought a good deal, and he finds 

 that from his own saved seed he gets as 

 good flowers as from any bought seed, 



with further a chance of a greater range 

 of color; in buying seeds he advised 

 against buying them in mixed colors — 

 always get the colors in separate packets. 



Dahlias. — In these Mr. Robinson 

 thought that A. D. Lavoni was the best 

 pink one, and we all like the pigmy Belle 

 of Springfield and Edaline. 



Pansies he grows in thousands. He 

 sows them late and winters them in the 

 seed bed and without any covering in the 

 way of a mulch, and in spring transplants 

 them to where required. 



Sweet Peas were a failure this year on 

 account of late planting. Mr. Eldred, a 

 specialist in this line, assured us that the 

 great secret in growing sweet peas wasin 

 sowing them early. He made 275 crosses 

 of sweet peas this summer, and from the 

 seed saved from these crosses he hopes to 

 obtain some new varieties next year. 



Clematis paniculata was spoken of 

 highly. 



Canna Seed. — In the secretary of the 

 society's garden young canna seedlings 

 come up every year, although it is seven 

 years since he allowed before now any 

 canna to grow there. 



Morning Glories. — Mr Simonds had 

 morning glories come up in his garden 

 every year since ten 3 7 ears, and during 

 this time he has not sowed any seed, nor 

 allowed any of the young plants to grow 

 up and go to seed. Chas. L. Burr. 



Oct. 7, '96. 



THE- ROSE-PURPLE CONEFLOWER. 



(Rudbeckia purpurea.) 

 The coneflowers are mostly y- How- 

 flowered, and some are yellow with dark 

 centres, but here we have one with showy 

 rose purple blossoms. Our illustration 

 is engraved from a photograph of a 

 couple of sprigs we cut of it for this pur- 

 pose, and shows without any make-up 

 or exaggeration the true nature and style 

 of the flower and plant. We make men- 

 tion of this because a year or two ago it 

 figured as a garden novelty; but this 

 doesn't detract in the least from its value, 

 for although a little coarse in appearance 

 it is a good and deserving hardy peren- 

 nial. To add to its merits, it is easily 

 raised from seed, perfectly hardy, easy to 

 to grow, and sure to bloom, and it is a 

 good perennial. There are a few distinct 

 varietal forms of it, also a reputedly dis- 

 tinct species (R. angusti folia), but they 

 all are a good deal alike. It has a special 

 advantage in being late blooming. It 

 likes good ground. 



Roses. 



HARDY ROSES. 



I was much pleased with Mr. R. H. 

 Warder's notes on hardy roses for Cin- 

 cinnati, and especially for his loyalty to 

 old and tried varieties "which behaved 

 well and stood by him in heat and cold." 

 There has been for mam* years past a 

 craze for new roses which has resulted in 

 encumbering nursery cata'ogues with an 

 endless list of varieties, whose only merit 

 frequently consists in the euphonious 

 names for which European rose growers 

 have a remarkable fancy, but which often 

 catch the eye of the public as well as their 

 shekels without giving adequate value. 

 Within the past fifty years during which 

 period I have been a rose fancier, I have 

 lested almost every variety which ap- 

 peared and I trust that I may, therefore, 

 be permitted to give a few notes from mv 

 long experience. 



Of the varieties of hybrid perpetuals in- 

 cluded in Mr. Warder's list there are sev- 

 eral that were among the earliest favor- 

 ites and are still considered so although 

 scores of new sorts have appeared, each 

 with glowing descriptions, but their life 

 has been in many instances a most ephe- 

 meral one. 



"Kites ont vecu ce que vivent les roses 



Durant l'espace d'un matin." 



This is not an inappropriate quotation 

 to the rapid passing away of so many 

 varieties. 



Until 184-5 there were known very few 

 roses of the hybrid perpetual class, not 

 more than a dozen varieties were then 

 available and Mme. Lafla\- was doubtless 

 the first of what is now the most valua- 

 ble class of hardy garden perpetual bloom- 

 ing roses that can be successfully culti- 

 vated in the colder sections of th s conti- 

 nent. Until the advent of Mme. Laffay 

 the hybrid roses were only spring bloom- 

 ers, and I remember that among a collec- 

 tion of upwards of one hundred varieties 

 we had in our grounds in Belgium, there 

 there were flowersthat weresurpassingly 

 beautiful, and are to-day not equalled by 

 many of the so-called hybrid perpetuals 

 that have no claim to the latter appella- 

 tion as they are in reality only summer 

 roses. And this is unfortunately now the 

 case with the majority of the new varie- 

 ties of hybrids sent over to us by European 

 growers every year. Of the 130 new hy- 

 brid perpetual varieties which I received 

 from Europe within the past five years I 

 have retained less than twenty-five and 

 even some of these will eventually be dis- 

 carded. A few flowers in April or May 

 and then nothing but either a tangled 

 wood growth or death of the plant from 

 weak constitution. 



The advent of General Jacqueminot was 

 soon followed by a number of its seed- 

 lings. Some of these produce better flow- 

 ers than the parent, there is so little dif- 

 ference among the larger number of them 

 however, that few of them have been re- 

 tained, but it is extensively cultivated or 

 forcing, few of its numerous offspring pos- 

 sessing an aptness for this latter quality. 

 To Mr. Warder's excellent list I would 

 add the following which include the best 

 of the newer sorts and whose merits have 

 been fully tested, and all of them are free 

 bloomers. 



Cardinal Patrizzi— (1857), vivid crim- 

 son, shaded purple. 



Clio — (1894), very large and globular, 

 finely formed light rose; center slightly 

 dark; it is a free bloomer. 



Docteur Henon — (1855), by far the 

 best of all white hybrid perpetuals. Its 

 flowers are large, well formed, and of the 

 purest white color, and is a very free 

 bloomer. 



The wood is thornless. This variety 

 should always be budded on Manetti 

 stocks. 



Eliza Boelle— (1860). Ofdwarf habit, 

 flowers white, slightly tinged with pink, 

 of medium size and beaui.ifully formed, a 

 constant and profuse blooming sort. 



Frere Marie Pierre— (1893). Flow- 

 ers very large, cherry red, very full and of 

 good shape, a constant bloomer, wood 

 is thornless, habit very vigorous. It is 

 one of the best of the comparatively new 

 sorts. 



James Bougault, or White La Reiue. 

 Similar to theoldLa Reiue but with flow- 

 ers of a light flesh color. 



Louis Van Houtte— (1869). This is 

 one of the very best dark autumn roses, 

 a free bloomer, and at the south is supe- 

 rior to Jean Liabaud. It is of intense 

 dark crimson maroon color and during 

 cojl days changes to a blackish crimson. 



