named James MacFarlane, in honor 

 of the man who headed the floricult- 

 ure work at the University of New 

 Hampshire for so many years. This 

 variety is a seedling of Loyalty, one 

 of the Canadian varieties. We have 

 found soft wood cuttings from it 

 L'loom in two years, producing a 

 great quantity of blossoms. It makes 

 an excellent landscape plant, and is 

 also useful for cutting. It is being 

 propagated as rapidly as possible and 

 should be available at nurseries soon. 



A. F. Yeager 



New Varieties of Gladiolus 



The gladiolus is well adapted to 

 New Hampshire gardens and an 

 effort is being made to improve the 

 smaller flowered types which are 

 more suitable for home decoration 

 and florists' work than the larger 

 types. More than 18,000 seedlings are 

 being raised with the expectation of 

 obtaining new varieties having su- 

 perior spikes, productiveness, colors, 

 and fragrance. 



E. B. RiSLEY 



Winter Hardy Chrysanthemums 

 Have Korean Wild Parentage 



A wild single-flowered chrysanthe- 

 mum from Korea has proved fully 



winter hardy at Durham, N. H. A 

 pistallate-flowered seedling of the 

 Korean species, chrysanthemum si- 

 biricum, was enclosed in a screened 

 cage along with such ordinarily 

 lather hardy cultivated sorts as Nash- 

 ua and Welcome, among others, for 

 l^oUen parents. House flies were put 

 into the screened cages and affected 

 pollination readily. In addition, some 

 hand pollinations were made. Sever- 

 al hundred seedlings from these 

 crosses were planted in the field in 

 June, 1950. 



All seedlings having Korean X 

 Nashua parentage survived the try- 

 ing conditions of the winter of 1950- 

 51. Welcome plants were winter 

 killed, also a few of the seedlings 

 from the cross with the Korean par- 

 ent, but most of these proved fully 

 hardy. 



Further breeding work is antici- 

 pated utilizing selected first gener- 

 ation hybrid single-flowered plants 

 to develop fully winter hardy double- 

 flowered varieties for northern states. 



E. M. Meader 



E. B. RiSLEY 



Poultry Husbandry 



Ammonia Vapor As a Source 

 Of Ocular Disorder 



During the past few years there 

 has been an increasing incidence of 

 a certain idiopathic disorder affect- 

 ing young chickens. It has been sug- 

 gested that ammonia vapor as com- 

 monly found in many brooder houses 

 may be responsible for this ocular 

 disorder. 



Work was undertaken to deter- 

 mine whether this ocular disorder 

 could be reproduced experimentally 



by subjecting chickens to ammonia 

 vapor liberated from ammonium hy- 

 droxide. It was observed that an ocu- 

 lar disorder clinically resembling, if 

 not identical to, naturally occurring 

 cases of keratoconjunctivitis was re- 

 produced experimentally, thus con- 

 firming the observations concerning 

 the possible effects of ammonia lib- 

 erated from the litter upon young 

 chickens. 



G. P. Faddoul 



R. C. RiNGROSE 



34 



