368 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



With the beginning of September a mass of sunflowers and golden-rods 

 "are over all the hills." The prairie is literally a sea of gold. Perhaps, 

 the most common Golden-rods are Solidago Canadensis and Solidago 

 rigida, and they are endlessly repeated. To most people the repetition 

 becomes monotonous. The poet who shall sing of the Golden-rods as 

 Wordsworth sang of the Daffodils has not yet appeared. Whether west- 

 ern Minnesota is to produce that poet remains to be seen; but most 

 probably not. The Golden-rod is too common there. 



With September, too, comes a cloud of Asters of different species, some 

 of them very beautiful. Helenium autumnale opens its yellow heads on 

 the margins of sloughs. Several species of Artemisia combine to give the 

 prairie its prevailing gray tint, and, with the coming of the first killing 

 frost, the Gentian opens its purple petals on the seared and brown prairie. 

 It is after the first frosts, too, that one notices on the prairie meadows an 

 extremely sweet and all pervading perfume. It comes from a large 

 species of Polyganum, the frost seeming to set free all the honeyed odors 

 that the plant has gathered up through the summer. It is when the 

 winds of autumn come, too, that the casual observer will notice the large 

 Tumble-weeds, rolling like great wheels before the wind. This is another 

 plant that is "improved by cultivation." On unbroken prairie it is in- 

 conspicuous enough, but on new breaking it grows to great proportions, 

 and breaking loose from its roots it goes bounding off over the prairie be- 

 fore the autumn wind, scattering its seeds on every hand. 



COSMOS. 



GUST. MALMQUIST, MINNEAPOLIS. 



This lovely flower should be more used by the florists than it is now, as 

 it will flower during a season when good flowers, as a rule, are scarce; 

 that is,during the latter part of September and October, before the chrys- 

 anthemum season commences. As cosmos has usually been grown here 

 before, that is out-of-doors, it is more or less a failure, as the early frosts 

 in September generally cut down the plants before they have commenced 

 blooming, and if they are lifted before frost, and grown on in greenhouses, 

 they are so large and take up so much room that they are, more or less, a 

 nuisance. 



Last summer, I, therefore, made an experiment,which I think solved the 

 problem, how to gfow cosmos in Minnesota. 



The seeds were planted in March, and the young plants transplanted, as 

 soon as they could be handled, into small pots. These plants commenced 

 to bloom when quite small, and kept on blooming till after they were 

 planted outside in June. The reason for their flowering so freely during 

 spring was from the plants being pot-bound, and they stopped 

 blooming as soon as they commenced growing freely outside. The first 

 week of August, cuttings were taken from the strong top-shoots, which 

 were then growing freely and soft. These rooted inside of two weeks, 

 and were then planted in three-inch pots, and later plunged along the 

 edge of a carnation bench and allowed to grow at will; only the tallest 

 were bent over. These plants commenced to bloom the last week of Sep- 

 tember, and bloomed freely for nearly two months. 



