36 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST February, 1908 



Growing' Asparag'xis Ferns From Seed 



AMONG the most charming and 

 beautiful of foHage plants are the 

 asparagus ferns. The most pop- 

 ular varieties are Asparagus plunwsus 

 nanus and Asparagus sprengeri. Plants 

 of either species start readily from seed. 



Use a light, spongy soil. Leaf mould 

 is excellent but, if not obtainable, soil 

 taken from around an old straw pile in 

 the barnyard will do. The soil should 

 spring back slightly when pressed. 



Before planting the seed, soak them 

 in warm water for twenty-four hours. 

 Start them in pots or a box. As soon 

 as the first fronds of the plants are two 

 inches high, they should be transplanted 

 to small pots. They will transplant 

 more readily without injury if the soil is 

 allowed to dry slightly before handling. 



The pots should be well-drained, with 

 charcoal if possible, or pieces of a broken 

 flower pot, as it will keep the soil sweet. 

 When transplanting, the soil should be 

 pressed firmly about the roots and 

 watered sufficient to moisten all the soil 

 in the pots. Shade the pots for a day 

 or two. Four-inch pots should be used 

 when it is again necessary to shift the 

 plants. When this is required, allow 

 the soil to dry out a little, but not 

 entirely, and it will be a comparatively 



easy matter to perform the operation. 

 Run a knife around the inside of the 

 pot to loosen the soil. Turn the pot 

 upside down, one hand covering the soil 

 and the other hand grasping the bottom 

 of the pot, and by firmly tapping against 

 some hard surface, the soil is easilv re- 

 moved in a compact lump. After the 

 drainage material has been placed in 

 the bottom of the pot, add enough soil 

 to bring the crown of the plant level 

 with the top of the pot, add fresh soil 

 around and press firmly, water as be- 

 fore, and keep the plants shaded for a 

 few days. 



While constant shade is unnecessary, 

 neither of the varieties mentioned should 

 be placed in a warm, sunny location. 

 Extreme heat retards their growth and 

 sometimes causes them to droop and 

 die. Keep the plants fresh and healthy 

 by spraying with cold water once a week. 

 A whisk broom may be used for the pur- 

 pose if a plant sprayer is not available. 



A few of these plants will be welcomed 

 in the home. They are- dainty in the 

 sitting-room. Cut fronds make an ex- 

 quisite finish for a bouquet of flowers 

 or for floral decorations on the table. 

 The foliage is useful for all decorative 

 purposes. 



GreenKouse Construction* 



R. W King, Toronto 



IF you want to put in steam heat, 

 don't go to a novice. Go to some 

 one who understands steam heating 

 if you want to ensure success. It is well 

 enough to get up a design, and you may 

 think you have the thing first rate, but 

 it requires time and experience to find 

 whether or not it is going to work. 



We have had a considerable discus- 

 sion on ridge and furrow houses. The 

 ridge and furrow house is a serious 

 problem in locations like Ottawa, Mon- 

 treal and Edmonton, on account of the 

 snow getting on the roof. It is only of 

 late years that it has been thought prac- 

 ticable to put up ridge and furrow 

 houses in the neighborhood of Montreal. 

 It has been rendered practical by the 

 adoption of iron gutters. The snow 

 does not lie on the iron gutter, but will 

 melt away. By placing a hot pipe each 

 side of the gutter, you can bring the 

 snow down very fast. If a man is near 

 a city where land is valuable, he cannot 

 afford to put up separate houses. 



One of the largest vegetable growers 

 in Canada, near Montreal, has a new 

 range of connected houses and in spite 

 of the fact that they have stood two 



*A portion of the discussion on Mr. J. D. Fraser's 

 paper that was read at the last convention of the 

 Ontario Vegetable Growers' Association, and published 

 in the January issue of The Canadian Horticulturist, 



seasons, he is nervous. When they 

 have a large snowfall, he is afraid his 

 houses will not stand, and he has props 

 ready in case of the failure of the roof. 

 His present idea is to build a separate 

 span, and he wants a house forty to 

 fifty feet wide. He has sixty acres of 

 ground and cultivates the ground be- 

 tween the houses. Thus he uses more 

 land than the glass covers. He grows 

 500,000 heads of lettuce and gets about 

 four crops a year. He has about 75,000 

 roots of rhubarb. 



These new houses were put up for the 

 purpose of raising carnations, but he 

 now grows lettuce in them, and finds 

 that the lettuce does much better in this 

 house than when he had it in the old. 

 His old houses were fifty feet wide and 

 the glass started one or two feet from 

 the ground, and there was a great deal 

 of timber in the roof. He found that 

 the lighter the houses were constructed, 

 the better stock he grew. He is so 

 much impressed with the improvement 

 in the higher houses that he is going to 

 use them. One fault he found was that, 

 when the lettuce was close to the glass, 

 the leaves turned brown on the edges, 

 but in the centre of the house, where 

 the glass was high and away up above 



the leaves, they were better and there 

 were no brown tints. 



In summer, the beds close to the glass 

 turned with the heat and in the winter, 

 they get cold from the glass. He de- 

 cided to raise the houses and the new 

 range he is building will be kept high. 

 He has not yet determined on the width 

 of the houses, but he thinks that he will 

 have them fifty feet, single span. 



Something was said about hot water 

 and steam heating. Hot water was em- 

 ployed all through this plant, but the 

 new carnation houses the owner put up 

 has a steam plant and separate power 

 house. He now intends to have all his 

 buildings heated by steam. He must 

 have some very strong reason for that 

 because he has a first-class hot water 

 plant. He tried experiments with 

 movable sash houses, and he says it did 

 not pay him to do it. 



The big point in connection with 

 greenhouse work is labor. With the 

 idea of building large houses comes the 

 idea of cultivating the inside of the 

 house with horsepower. In North 

 Wales there is a greenhouse that covers 

 two acres of ground, and I see no reason 

 why it could not be cultivated the same 

 as two acres of fields. It is simply 

 necessani' to have the door made large 

 enough to drive a team in. A good 

 many growers are doing this and cul- 

 tivating just the same as they would in 

 the field. There is only one thing in 

 the road and that is the heating pipes in 

 the roof overhead and on the side walls. 

 It would not do to have these pipes too 

 near the top. If placed about seven 

 feet from the ground, the ground would 

 be clear, and in a large house the heat 

 would be practically on the lower strata. 



So"wing Tomato Seeds 



Angus Mclnnis, London, Ontario 

 There are different ways in which 

 tomato seeds may be started. Those 

 for early use I plant in the greenhouse. 

 Take any box about three inches deep. 

 To the depth of an inch place rich earth, 

 then fill to within half an inch from the 

 top with poorer earth. Pack very 

 firmly with a brick or block of wood 

 and it is ready for the seed, which must 

 be sown as evenly as possible. 



Sift clean sand over the seed such as 

 is used for plastering or lake shore sand. 

 My reason for this is that the plants 

 come up better. When the seedlings » 

 are coming up they often push the % 

 earth up in great bunches and, should 

 the weather change at this ])oint, the 

 young plants arc liable to be chilled 

 and die while under the earth. When 

 coming up through sand, it falls down 

 around the stem of the plant, especially j 



when watered. I always use water ! 



which has had the chill taken off, as 

 cold water keeps them back. In about 

 four or five weeks I transplant the seed- 

 lings about three inches apart each way. 



