LOCATION AND PREPARATION 



plants. The hundred-pound price is a little more 

 expensive than the carload rate. Since the European 

 War the cost of peat moss has naturally increased. 

 However, moss is being imported and, as far as can 

 be discovered without an actual test, is practically 

 the same. In England, one of the best growers, 

 Herbert L. Wettern, who won the Amateur Cham- 

 pionship of England, for exhibition and decorative 

 roses, in 1915 and 1916, uses a mulch of spent hops 

 on his beds. This may be secured from any brewery, 

 usually for the cost of hauling, or for fifty cents a ton. 

 Tested this year, it has proved a fan* substitute for 

 peat moss; the temperature of the beds covered with 

 it has been about the same as other beds covered 

 with moss, but it does not conserve moisture as well 

 as the old mulch. It would seem that if a deeper 

 mulch of spent hops was put on, it would be prac- 

 tically as good as moss. However, roses which lose 

 their foliage early do better with the moss. Dr. 

 Lewis Rumford, of Wilmington, Delaware, advocates 

 the use of cut grass on beds in summer to protect 

 them from heat; where moss or hops are not used 

 this would undoubtedly be of value. 



To return to the composition of the bed itself. 

 We have found that there are two most important 

 things necessary to insure success: First, the bed 

 must underdrain, to get rid of any great surplus of 



141 



