146 HARDY PERENNIAL PLANTS. 



south do not produce as many nor as good blooms during midwinter. 

 The temperature is safe for the plants as long as frost is excluded, but 

 10 degrees above the freezing point should be the minimum for continu- 

 ous flowering. In Winter the teipperature may rise to from 55 to 60 

 degrees. Airing must be carefully attended to so as to maintain a cool, 

 dry atmosphere. A hot, moist, stagnant atmosphere supplies perfect 

 conditions for weak, sickly growth, and is certain to encourage the 

 development of fungoid diseases. The soil should be loamy, mixed with 

 at least a sixth of rotted cow manure and a very small quantity of pure 

 bone meal. After planting the glass is shaded with turpentine or naph- 

 tha and white lead, allowing full ventilation. Water only when moder- 

 ately dry. In August, or beginning of September, the plants should 

 get a shallow mulch of leaf soil mixed with dried horse manure. All 

 leaves which show the least signs of decay should be removed and 

 burned. During Summer, syringing should be attended to frequently, for 

 the purpose of ridding the plants of red spider, their greatest enemy. For 

 this purpose the water must be applied with considerable force to the 

 lower surfaces of the leaves. The plants can, however, be kept tolerably 

 free of this pest if proper growing conditions are supplied, as red spider 

 is only found on plants which are enfeebled through some cause. When 

 syringing is to be done it should be attended to in the early part of the 

 day, and in bright weather, so that ventilation may be relied upon to 

 dry the foliage before night — a most essential item. For ridding the 

 plants of aphides, the use of hydrocyanic acid gas is much preferable to 

 tobacco in any of its forms, as it leaves no objectionable odor. 



Leaf Spot— When this, the most dreaded of the fungoid diseases, 

 appears, the leaves should immediately be picked off and burned, for by 

 being allowed to continue on the plant the fungus will ripen its spores 

 and spread to other leaves. It is present more or less in all houses, and 

 is only kept under control by supplying favorable conditions for the 

 growth of the plants. When grown outdoors or in frames without pro- 

 tection the leaves are apt to suffer from too much moisture in the shape 

 of dew. This condition is very favorable for the increase of spot. There 

 are several other more or less hurtful fungoid diseases which can only be 

 guarded against by giving the plants proper treatment, and their rav- 

 ages curtailed by picking off and burning the infected parts. Very weak 

 liquid cow manure may be afforded occasionally if the plants are in need 

 of a stimulant. 



Hardy Violas— Among the hardy Violas V. cucculata is the species 

 most frequently grown in gardens. It often becomes a troublesome 

 weed, and keeps on producing apetalous flowers long after the long- 

 stemmed showy blooms are gone, and from the short-stalked apetalous 

 flowers large capsules of seed follow in almost every instance. V. pedata, 

 and its forms, are among the earliest of our native species to bloom. V. 

 blanda has pure white flowers, growing in dense tufts; this species 

 delights in sandy soil. 



