312 



GARDENING. 



July /, 



Published the 1st and 15th of each month 



— by — 



THE GARDENING COMPANY, 



Motion Building, CHICAGO 



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 desire to help you. 



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 Bowers, fruits, vegetables or other practical gardening 

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CONTENTS. 



The Welsh memorial grounds (illus.) 305 



Ornamental bedding (illus.) 30H 



Duties of park commissioners 10< 



Three fine pyruses (illus.) 309 



The culture of dendrobiums I0B 



\n ever-blooming chrysanthemum (illus.) 310 



Treatment of cyclamen bulbs 31" 



Books and bulletins all 



Notes from Germany 311 



The I 'ark ami < >utd : Ari Association (12 



Plants ami parasitic fungi 312 



Workers in horticulture. XII 313 



Vegetable notes 313 



Japanese name for Crimson Rambler rose 314 



Grafting tomatoes on potatoes 314 



Fumigating with sulphur 314 



Winter forcing in II pen tield 314 



Chemical analysis of plants as an indication ol 



fertilizers required 315 



Fungus diseases of the hollyhock (illus.) 315 



Fertilizer cartridges 315 



cutting oil Beed pods 316 



Societies 316 



Gleanings 318 



The new Lilium rubellum lately ex- 

 hibited for the first time in England has 

 made a very pleasing impression. It is 

 apparently very free flowering and the 

 plant is said to resemble a slender L. 

 auratum. Color a pale rose or rosy pink. 



The staminatc form of the purplish 

 meadow rue (Thalictrum purpurascens), 

 found on dryish soil north of Chicago, 

 makes quite a showy plant when brought 

 into the garden and cultivated. It grows 

 three to four feet high and presents an 

 airy, graceful appearance. 



J. W. Manning's new cut-leaved sumach 

 is a good dwarf tree, and will be still bet- 

 ter when grown with a straight trunk. 

 It is a variety of the stag's horn sumach, 

 and possesses the same rambling habit of 

 growth as the parent plant. The elegant, 

 light green, fern-like foliage of the new 

 acquisition renders it very effective. 



An eminent horticulturist writes about 

 the care of lawns as follows: "The con- 

 stant clipping and raking of lawns tends 

 to impoverish the grass and leaves the 

 roots bare. For this reason it is well to 

 spread a light dressing of loam over the 

 grass, mixing in a little fertilizer. This 

 compost should be carefully applied so as 

 to fill up all crevices and rolled in when 

 the ground is somewhat soft after rain. 

 If this is done about threetimes annually, 



it keeps the lawn in repair and saves the 

 expense of remaking, which is necessary 

 every three years where lawns are neg- 

 lected." 



There are two specimens of the Colo' 

 rado blue spruce under our observation, 

 and both trees are of the same age and 

 subject to the same conditions of climate. 

 Three years ago both were of about the 

 same shade of color throughout. Two 

 years ago six inches of soil v. as removed 

 from above the roots of one specimen, 

 applving a layer of bone meal nearly a 

 quarter of an inch thick and replacing the 

 soil. This year the tree so treated is 

 "blue" all over, fhe color penetrating 

 almost to the trunk, while its neglected 

 companion shows the desired hue only at 

 the tips of the growth. 



It will not be very long before the 

 Blister beetle will make its appearance 

 and devour the asters and some vatieties 

 of the clematis. There are two forms, 

 one black and one gray. They drop 

 quickly to the ground when touched, and 

 the easiest way to catch them is to take 

 a tin pan eight or ten inches in diameter, 

 pour in an inch or so of water and then a 

 little kerosene oil. Hold the pan under 

 the plants and shake them and Mr. Bee- 

 tle will drop into the oil. This operation 

 should be repeated frequently and early 

 in the morning as soon as the beetles 

 make their appearance, as they breed 

 rapidly and can do considerable damage 

 in a few hours. 



Cantkrberry bells make such a bril- 

 liant display at this season that some 

 preparation should now be made with a 

 view to having a supply of plants next 

 year. These plants are biennials, varie- 

 ties of Campanula Medium, and the seeds 

 should be sown in July, wintering the 

 plants in a cold frame where the climate 

 in rigorous. The cup-and-saucer forms 

 are perhaps the most showy, and the 

 flowers come white, pink, purple, blue 

 and striped, with the white and pink as 

 the most effective. A plantation of the 

 various colors in mixture is decidedly 

 attractive. The plants bloom but once, 

 and provision should therefore be made 

 to replace them soon after the middle of 

 the present month, especially as they are 

 not in any sense decorative when they 

 cease to bloom. 



THE PARK ANDOUTDOOR ART ASSOCIATION. 



The second annual convention of this 

 society was in session at the West Hotel, 

 Minneapolis, June 22, 23 and 24. There 

 were nearly fifty members in attendance, 

 including park superintendants, landscape 

 architects and lovers of nature from New 

 York to Salt Lake and from Duluth to 

 New Orleans. In the absence of Pres. J 

 B. Castleman, of Louisville, Vice-Presi- 

 dent L. E. Holden, of Cleveland, presided 

 and appointed the following committees: 



Auditing— E. J. Parker, Quincy; T. W 

 Kelsey, New York; Dr. W. \V. Polwell 

 Minneapolis. 



Publication— O. C. Simonds, Chicago 

 J. C. Olmsted, Boston; J. A. Ridgeway 

 Minneapolis, and Secretarv Manning. 



Finance— L. E. Holden, Cleveland; E. B 

 Haskell, Boston; J. II. Patterson, Day 

 ton, Ohio. 



Resolutions— Secretary Manning, Lewis 

 Johnson, New Orleans; C. Wahl, Milwau 

 kee. 



The several sessions were made note- 

 worth}' by the presentation of a number 

 of eminently practical papers by men of 

 wide experience. The social features of 



the convention included a reception by 

 Mayor Pratt, of Minneapolis, a reception 

 by the Minneapolis Improvement League, 

 a banquet at the West Hotel, excursions 

 by carriage through the park systems of 

 the Twin Cities, and a trip to St. Anthony 

 park, where the Minnesota State Horti- 

 cultural Society was in session. 



Detroit was selected for the next meet- 

 ing. 



Officers were elected as follows: Presi- 

 dent, C. M. Loring, Minneapolis; vice- 

 presidents, P. H. A. Balsley, Detroit, W. 

 H. Olmstead, Boston. G. H. Warder, Cin- 

 cinnati, E. J. Parker, Ouiney, 111., Lewis 

 Johnson, New Orleans, and M. L. Moore, 

 Toledo; secretary, Warren H. Manning, 

 Boston; treasurer, E. B. riaskell, Boston. 



PLANTS AND PARASITIC FUNGI. 



Professor Edward A. Burt of Middle- 

 bury College, Middlebury, Vt., recently 

 lectured before the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society upon the subject of " I he 

 Resistance of Plants to Parasitic Fungi." 

 The following is an abstract of his 

 remarks: 



Fungi are plants with the vegetative 

 body not differentiated into stem and 

 leaves. They do not contain the green 

 grains called chlorophyll and they are 

 propagated by spores. There is of late so 

 much said of the destructive work of par- 

 asitic fungi that one must not conclude 

 that all fungi exist only to cause disease 

 or death of plants. When the horticul- 

 turist sees his plants ruined by rust, the 

 damping-off fungus, mildew and the like, 

 and realizes that all these troubles are 

 due to fungi, he sees small compensation 

 in the mushrooms he has raised and con- 

 cludes that fungi could be well spared 

 from the world. 



Fungi have an important and a peculiar 

 work in the world's economy. The green 

 plants are constantly convertingthe inor- 

 ganic matter of the soil into material for 

 their own use. Only a small part of this 

 material is used as food by animals and 

 is broken up into simpler compounds and 

 returned to the soil. 



At the end of the season the unused 

 plant matter remains to accumulate on 

 the ground, and if left untouched, in the 

 form of dead leaves or wood, this matter 

 would be of no value to the soil, and its 

 stores of carbon, nitrogen, etc., could not 

 be used in that form as food for green 

 plants. Decay must take place first. 

 Fungi are the causes of decay and the> , 

 in forms ranging from bacteria to mush- 

 rooms, attack the decaying vegetable 

 material and make prompt return to the 

 soil of the plant and animal remains 

 which would otherwise be withheld from 

 it. 



While most fungi are saprophytes and 

 have to do only with dead organic mat- 

 ter, still many are found with living or- 

 ganisms, especially the higher plants. 

 In some cases the higher plant suffers by 

 the contact and then we apply the term 

 parasitic to the fungus; in other cases the 

 higher plant, or even both organisms, 

 gain by the association, which is then 

 called symbiotic. As to the latter rela- 

 tion, it has long been known that legu- 

 minous crops increase the nitrogenous 

 matter in the soil and so are of advan- 

 tage in the rotation of crops. The 

 nitrogen in these compounds is from the 

 air circulating through the soil, and it is 

 only within a dozen years that it has 

 been established that the fixation of the 

 nitrogen in these compounds is due to the 

 presence in the soil of fungi of a low order. 



