OPEN LETTERS. 



Planting- Hyacinths. 



Sir, — As it is to the interest of all readers 

 of the HoKTiL'i'LTURisT that articles appear- 

 ing in that Journal should be criticised, if the 

 advice given be at all doubtful, an article 

 appearing in the January number on the 

 hyacinth is certainly open to criticism. The 

 advice given there to plant hyacinths in 

 tlanuary is against all well known authority. 

 Instructions on growing bulbs always advise 

 their being planted as soon as possible after 

 being procureil, and as hyacinths arrive in 

 this country in September, would they pro- 

 duce good flowers if kept out of earth until 

 January. Would not the better plan be to 

 plant them as soon as received, and retard 

 their flowering by kee]>ing the pots in a box 

 of ashes in a cool place. The sentence 

 " until the shoots are two inches long, about 

 the same proportion of water should be kept 



around them and the bulb, keeping them 

 from the light and air," is very puzzling, and 

 needs ex]>lanation. 



T. A. \V. , Napantt. 



We quite appreciate the general good 

 that will result from criticisms and notes 

 of experience from all our readers, 

 whether fruit or flower growers. We 

 did not take the article under considera- 

 tion to advise planting in January rather 

 than earlier, only to say that it could be 

 planted early in that month for Easter 

 blooming. We have ourselves planted 

 a dozen bulbs to test the matter. 



EXPERIENCE WITH CARNATION. 



Sir. — Some two or three months since 

 I observed a letter in your valuable 

 monthly enquiring about Carnations. 1 

 intended at the time to send my experi- 

 ence as I have always been a lover of 

 that flower ; but something hindered 

 until I saw in your last issue a notice 

 soliciting communications on floricul- 

 ture. 



Steele Bros, of Toronto, advertised 

 Marguerite Carnations which would 

 bloom in four months from the time of 

 seed-sowing and promised about 80 per 

 cent, of double flowers. I sent for a 

 ten cent packet and sowed them in 

 March in a shallov; box, in two rows 

 about yi an inch deep ; I believe every 

 seed came up ; I had about twenty 

 plants, which I set out in spring in a 

 border about a foot apart. Nearly every 

 one had some bloom in the fall and I 

 had about 18 double flowers. Before 

 the frost came I potted the double ones. 



took them into the house and had some 

 blooming all the winter, not freely, but 

 perhaps 6 or 8 all the time. As soon as 

 the frost was gone I bedded them out 

 and as they are apt to grow high and 

 need support, I put in slender stakes, 

 some of them were altogether to high 

 and I cut them down which caused them 

 to grow more stocky. When the flower- 

 ing time came I had a magnificent dis- 

 play of carnations so that I frequently 

 would give a good handful for a boquet 

 to a visitor or neighbor and there still 

 seemed as many as before. Perhaps they 

 will not do much this year, but they had 

 done so well that I could not throw them 

 away, so I cut them pretty well down and 

 have left them out all winter under a 

 covering of stalks and leaves, by way of 

 experiment. 



josEi'H Wallace, Sr. 

 Orillia, Jan. ig, lS<)/. 



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