LILY OF THE VALLEY, LOBELIA 



427 



chill the young growth with cold water, but rather have it of the 

 same temperature as the air in the frame. After ten or twelve 

 days, let up a little on the heat and allow just a little light. By the 

 twentieth day the first buds will be open ; then more air and less 

 heat should be given to properly finish them. 



Just what you use to plant the pips in matters little; proper 

 heat, moisture and shading have to do the work and that holds 

 good with any you force. The later you force the easier it is and the 

 less heat is required. For Easter almost any place will do for forcing. 

 Six- and 7-in. pots or half pots filled full of pips and placed on the hot 

 water returns twenty-four days before Easter will without much 

 trouble develop into well-foliaged and well-flowered plants which 

 will find ready sale. 



Here, as with everything else, we have failures as well as suc- 

 cesses, and actual experience is necessary in order to become efficient, 

 but you have only to force a few thousand in order to find out that 

 except for the above-named special flower days, on which there is 

 always an increased demand for Valley, it is cheaper to purchase 

 the cut flowers and that, no matter what they cost you, they are 

 cheaper than you can yourself produce them on a small scale. 



LOBELIA 



Lobelias the dwarf as 

 well as the trailing sorts 

 belong in your bedding 

 stock assortment. The 

 dwarf sorts are used for 

 borders around beds, and 

 the trailing ones are just 

 the thing to hang over 

 the edges of a porch box 

 or lawn vase. Seed should 

 be sown in January in 

 order to obtain stock. 

 The seedlings are so 

 small and slow growing 

 for the first weeks that it 

 is hard to imagine them 

 ever amounting to any- 

 thing and many make the 

 mistake of taking four or 

 five of them in a bunch 

 when transplanting them 

 into flats or later in pot- 

 ting them up. This will 

 result in obtaining larger 



Fig. 203. LILY OF THE VALLEY. It takes a 

 specialist to force Valley profitably during Mid- 

 winter. Toward Spring, however, even those 

 with not the best of facilities can have nice pans 

 in bloom and sell them either intact or as cut 

 flowers 



