152 



GARDENING. 



Feb. /, 



Published the 1st ant> 15th of each Month 



BT 



THE GARDENING COMPANY, 



Monon Building, CHICAGO 



Subscription Price, 12.00 a Year— 24 Numbers. Adver- 

 tising rates on application. 



Entered at Chicago postoffice as second-class matter. 

 Copyright, 18118, by The Gardening Co. 



Address all communications to The Garden- 

 ing Co., Monon Kuilding, Chicago. 



GARDENING Is gotten up for Its readers and In their 

 Interest, and It behooves you, one and all, to make It 

 Interesting. U It does not exactly suit your case, 



S lease write and tell us what you want. It 18 our 

 eslre to help you. 



ASK any questions you pleaae about plants, 

 flowers, fruits, vegetables or other practical gardening 

 matters. We will take pleasure In answering them. 



Send us Notes of your experience In gardening In 

 any line; tell us of your successes that others may be 

 enlightened and encouraged, and of your failures, 

 perhaps we can help you. 



SEND US PHOTOGRAPH8 OR SKETCHES Of your 



flowers, gardens, greenhouses, frulta, vegetables, or 

 horticultural appliances that we may have them en- 

 graved for Gardening. 



CONTENTS. 



The bur oak 1 ^ 



An ornamental well-house (illus.) 145 



A suburban lot (illus.) 146 



Evergreens in winter altire 146 



The Allegheny hollyhock (illus.) 147 



Herbaceous plant notes 147 



When to sow pansies 148 



Ricinus communis lis 



Seedling sweet peas 14* 



The reserve garden 14H 



The blue marguerite (illus.).. 1411 



Orchid notes 149 



Some conservatory blunders 149 



Horticulture in Holland (2 illus.) 159 



Note on tic- strawberry root louse 151 



Books and bulletins 151 



Questioning the soil 152 



Workers in horticulture (portrait) 153 



Grapery work (illus.) 153 



Mushroom culture 154 



Societies 154 



The sturdy canna, so long exempt 

 from serious ailment, has at last become 

 the prey of a deadly rust. 



The American Carnation Society 

 will meet in Chicago February 17 for its 

 annual convention, which will continue 

 two days. 



If "Subscriber," who makes inquiry 

 concerning fertilizers, will send name and 

 address we shall be pleased to supply the 

 desired information. 



The value of a toad in gardens and 

 gardening is shown by the careful esti- 

 mate that a single specimen destroys in a 

 year insects which, if they had lived, 

 might have damaged crops to the extent 

 of $19.88. 



The water hyacinth, which has been 

 the source of so much inconvenience in 

 the sluggish streams of Florida, is be- 

 lieved to be not entirely eradicable. 

 Among other means of keeping it in check 

 the agency of disease is suggested. 



The most peculiar form of insult we 

 have ever heard of is one which, accord- 

 ing to a foreign contemporary, exists in 

 German}', where to offer a rose, or any 

 other flower, without any green or leaves 

 with it to a lady is to deeply insult her, 

 though why this should be so is not 

 known precisely. 



Apropos of the note on market mush- 

 rooms in our last issue, some wicked wag 

 sends us the following from an English 

 Journal: "Clergyman:— 'My child, be- 



ware of picking a toadstool instead of a 

 mushroom; they are easy to confuse.' 

 Child: — 'That be all right, sur. that be. 

 Us bain't agoin' to eat 'em ourselves — 

 they're agoin' to market to be sold.'" 



A disadvantage of windbreaks, says 

 a recent writer, is the favorable condi- 

 tions they sometimes afford to the de- 

 velopment of plant diseases, especially 

 apple blight in the West and grape dis- 

 eases in the East. Wind-breaks may also 

 in rare instances either prevent or induce 

 frost. The protection wind-breaks give 

 to insects and birds is sometimes detri- 

 mental and sometimes beneficial. 



One of the latest Paris fashions in 

 relation to the use of flowers for personal 

 adornment, says the Gardeners' Maga- 

 zine, is the wearing of belts of flowers. 

 The majority of the French ladies prefer 

 belts made of Parma or Neapolitan 

 violets, small roses, or pansies. The belt 

 is completely covered with the flowers, 

 which are sewn thickly together on a 

 plain band of silkelastic, great care being 

 taken to use the finest silk of exactly the 

 same shade as the flowers chosen. 



Celery blight as known in this 

 country exists in two distinct forms, 

 and according to Mr. Duggan, of the 

 Cornell University Experiment Station, 

 these are distinguished as early celery 

 blight and late celery blight. Hot weather 

 tends to increase the former, and moisture 

 does not necessarily check it. The late 

 blight, unlike the early, does not dis- 

 appear with the cold weather, but con- 

 tinues in the field until the plants are 

 lilted and then extends its injuries to the 

 storage cellar. In this disease the outer 

 green leaves wilt and soon the fungus 

 spreads to the younger blanched leaves, 

 wilting and discoloring them. The plants 

 in the field should be sprayed regularly 

 with a weak solution of ammoniacal 

 copper carbonate to prevent the appear- 

 ance of the diseases, dipping the leafy 

 portions of the plant in the same prepara- 

 tion and removing the badly affected 

 leaves before storing the crop. The 

 storage cellar should be kept but little 

 above freezing temperature, Iree from ex- 

 cessive moisture, and given good venti- 

 lation. 



Park and garden politics now con- 

 stitute a feature of horticulture to which 

 our professors have not given sufficient 

 attention in the past, with the result 

 that some of our most talented gardeners 

 are even as shorn lambs in a den of 

 hungry wolves. The case of Mr. Petti- 

 grew, of Chicago (nowof Boston), is still 

 fresh in ourminds, when Mr. Otto Buscek 

 is ousted from his position as superin- 

 tendent of the parks of Patterson, N. J., 

 for no reason other than that of the most 

 corrupt political expediency. Now Mr. 

 Parsons of New York has resigned, and 

 no doubt an inside view of this case 

 would disclose an equally interesting 

 state of affairs. The old attack on Mr. 

 Doogue as superintendent of the Boston 

 public grounds is renewed, and none can 

 predict where next the hydra-headed 

 monster of destruction may appear. If 

 these and other old servants of the 

 public have not discharged their duties 

 faithfully and well why have they been 

 tolerated so long? If they were not com- 

 petent, why were they engaged at all? 



Henry A. Dreer established the flour- 

 ishing business which still bears his name, 

 sixty years ago. From the first the firm 

 has been noted at home and abroad for 

 the thoroughness and enterprise with 

 which every department of the seed and 

 plant trade has been managed, and it is 



to this, with unwavering honesty of pur- 

 pose, that the concern owes its present 

 position in the front rank of the world's 

 great merchants Those gardeners who 

 remember the founder of the house, and 

 there are many of them, had the utmost 

 confidence in his every word, and we all 

 know how admirably this reputation has 

 been maintained by his successors. Mr. 

 Henry A. Dreer died in 1873, and the 

 business has since been conducted by his 

 son, Mr. Wm F. Dreer, with all the zeal 

 of his illustrious parent. Well indeed 

 may the concern, in celebrating its six- 

 tieth anniversary, rejoice in its achieve- 

 ments; and since it has been always a 

 potent factor for good in our favored 

 pursuit, we can and do on behalf of this 

 journal and its patrons extend the hearti- 

 est congratulations to Mr. Wm. F. Dreer 

 and his able associates. A beautiful 

 souvenir of the occasion has been pre- 

 pared by the firm, which may be had on 

 application. 



A meeting of unique horticultural 

 interest was held in Boston Saturday, 

 January 15. There were present Col. F. 

 H. Appleton, president of the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society, Prof. S. T. 

 Maynard of the Hatch Experimmt Sta- 

 tion, Prof. F. C. Sears, director of the 

 Provincial School of Horticulture, Wolf- 

 ville, N. S., Mr John Craig, late Domin- 

 ion Horticulturist, Ottawa, Ont., Prof. 

 F. Wm. Rain, of the New Hampshire 

 Agriculture College, Prof. W. M. Munson 

 of the Maine State College Prof. B. 

 M. Watson of the Bussey Institution, 

 Boston, Mass., Prof. F. A. Waugh of the 

 University of Vermont. Mr. J. G. Jack of 

 the Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Mass., 

 Prof. L. F. Kinney of the Rhode Island 

 Agricultural College, and Mr. S. A. Beach 

 of the New York State Experiment Sta- 

 tion. For some time teachers and profes- 

 sional experimenters in horticulture have 

 felt the need of an organization that 

 should bring them into closer touch with 

 each other and give more system to hor- 

 ticultural instruction and experiment and 

 provide a convenient opportunity for the 

 interchange of horticultural ideas. The 

 Boston meeting was arranged by Pro- 

 fessors Munson of Maine and Waugh of 

 Vermont. It was decided that the organ- 

 ization should be known simply as "The 

 Horticultural Club." A committee on 

 organization was elected consisting of 

 Professors Munson, Watson and Waugh. 

 The only organization in this country 

 similar to The Horticultural Club is the 

 Association of Official Agricultural Chem- 

 ists. The Horticultural Club may be the 

 nucleus of a permanent and important 

 organization. It certainly has great 

 possibilities. 



QUESTIONING THE SOIL. 



The following address was delivered by 

 frof. I. P. Roberts, of Cornell University, 

 before the Western New York Horticul- 

 tural Society last week, on the occasion of 

 its fortv-third annual meeting at Roches- 

 ter, N. Y : 



Since 1860 a large number of trained 

 scientists have worked faithfully and in- 

 telligently with the view to discover the 

 composition of the soil, the amount, kind 

 and character of the plant food which it 

 carries, the proportion of available and 

 unavailable constituents, together with 

 the combination and proportion of the 

 valuable elements with those which are 

 valueless or of little value. The physical 

 characteristics of the soil and subsoil, 

 climatic influences, precipitation and soil 

 moisture, all have received most careful 

 scrutiny by trained, painstaking investi- 



