34 THE SCHOOL GARDEN BOOK 



flowers would care to plant these monstrosities a second 

 season. 



Give every leading dahlia type place in your note-book. 

 Make sketches of typical dahlia blossoms, and if the flower 

 details are too difficult for you to paint or draw, then care- 

 fully represent in color or line one typical floret. Illustrate 

 in other ways your accounts of the form and coloring of the 

 blossoms, the habits of the plants, and their uses. If you 

 take photographs, mount some that show fine groups of 

 dahlias, and place with them in your book plans that show 

 how dahlias are used in the best gardens in your community. 

 Pictures of the different types may be cut from old cata- 

 logues and used to illustrate some pages. Make a list of the 

 best-named varieties under each type which you see at the 

 September flower shows, as a guide to purchase the following 

 spring. 



Probably you have some dahlias in your school or home 

 garden. They will soon need care. Since the plant origi- 

 nated in Mexico it is not hardy in a cold temperate climate, 

 and, like the potato, the tubers must be cared for in some 

 cellar through the winter. As soon as the first frosts have 

 blighted the bloom and foliage of the dahlias, their stalks 

 should be cut down to within a foot of the ground, and the 

 mass of tubers should be lifted. Push a spading fork under- 

 neath the clump, from a distance to one side, then raise 

 tubers and soil together. This should be done so carefully 

 that no tubers will be cut or torn from the plant, for the buds 

 are at the base of the stalk, and a piece of dahlia tuber, un- 

 like a cutting of a potato, cannot produce a plant. 



The tubers must be kept in some cellar such as is suitable 

 for storing potatoes or root crops. It should not be too near 



