1890. 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



137 



in ami arouml Philadelphia arc grown the finest 

 rhrysjintlu'iniinis in America. Some varieties 

 also require different treatment from others; 

 Mrs. A. Hanly, Crimson King, Belle Panic and 

 others are very partial to excessive moisture. 

 The same applies to pinching; some varieties if 

 pinched late will not produce any tlowers at all ; 

 such are Granditlora and others. 



Culture. The culture of Chrysanthemums is 

 very simple when the cardinal points are well 

 observed : namely, selecting strong, soft shoots 

 for cuttings and as soon as they are rooted never 

 to allow them to suffer for want of root room or 

 water, and after the buds are set to encourage 

 them with liquid manure. 



After the plants have done flowering, they 

 should be cut down to about a foot from the 

 ground and iiut in the cool house or a well-ven- 

 tilated frame. In January the offsets from the 

 ground, and also from the stems or branches, 

 will be from four to six inches long, when they 

 should be cut and planted in sand, either in pots, 

 boxes or the propagating bench; a south aspect 

 and a temperature not above 55° by artificial 

 heat are very essential. As soon as the cuttings 

 have rooted they should be potted in two-inch 

 pots; from those they should be repotted in three 

 weeks into three or four inch pots, and again 

 when well rooted into Ave or six inch pots, by 

 which time the first pinching takes place. After 

 the plants are well established in five or six inch 

 pots they should be planted in theii- final quar- 

 ters: if in pots, ten to twelve inches is large 

 enough to grow the best plants ; if in bunches or 

 boxes, four inches of depth will suffice for the 

 roots. Then comes the fixing of the plant to a 

 neat stake, and tying it firmly, while pinching 

 and pruning should not be neglected. The last 

 pinching is dohe at the end of July, while the 

 ground shoots are not allowed to grow, so that 

 the whole strength may go into the main stem. 

 When the buds are well set liquid manure should 

 be freely given, and attention should be given to 

 the disbudding, as by leaving one bud to each 

 twig you will have the finer flowers, and the 

 plants will also look better with fifty perfect 

 blooms than with a hundred imperfect ones. 

 When large specimen flowers are desired, not 

 more than from four to six flowers should be 

 left on each plant, so that this very limited 

 number may have the benefit of the whole rtgor 

 of the plant. When standard plants are desired, 

 the best way is to secure a strong shoot early in 

 January, and leave it growing without stopping 

 until it reaches the required height, when it 

 should be pinched and treated in the same way 

 as a bush plant. Planting out and potting in 

 August may be practical, yet plants will suffer 

 more or less by being lifted. 



To he continued. 



CONDENSED GLEANINGS. 

 Tboroughaess in Drainage Essential. J. J 

 Warren sends to the Drainage and Farm Jour- 

 nal, a sketch of a twenty acre field and how it 

 was drained. His father had begun by putting 

 in a wooden drain from "E" to "C". This re- 

 lieved that part of the field from excessive moist- 



ARRANGEMENT OF DRAINS. 



ure, and did so well, that the drain was extended 

 to "B" 3. But soon the wooden drains were stop- 

 jjed up, and he concluded to lay tiles. Four inch 

 tile was used from "E" to "C", three inch from 

 "C" to the mouth of the branch "B" 4, and 

 from this point to the pond two-inch tile. This 

 did well for a time, but in the next wet season it 

 was found that the tile was not near large 



enough, and finally he had to do the whole work 

 over again, this time lowering the bottom of 

 trenches to four feet. The main drain, from "E" 

 to "C" is now laid with eight-inch tile. From 

 ''C" to "B"; the tile are fi\'e-inch, the "B";linc 

 four inch, from ''C" to "B" 2 six-inch, and 

 the "B" 3 line five inch. The laterals are of 

 three inch tile. There are now about eleven 

 rods of drains per acre, and the cost is about 

 $7.50 |ier acre. Yet it becomes more and more 

 apparent that twice as many drains are really 

 needeil, although the land is doing finely. The 

 dotted lines show where the additional drams 

 should be laid. When finished there will be 

 about 31 rods of drain per aci"e. The pond "F'' 

 is no longer a pond, but is one of the richest spots 

 on the farm. There are at least twelve or fifteen 

 acres beyond the field that naturally drain to 

 it. This drainage will be intercepted by trenches 

 around the pond on each side as shown in the 

 dotted lines. 



Mushroom! in Open Air. In September, 188S, 

 I planted a brick of the spawn in a field of rich 

 pasture land, the operation being the simple act 

 of raising the sod with a spade, dropping into 

 the cavity a piece of the spawn as large as a wal- 

 nut and pressing the sod back again. On the 

 morning of the 2d of October, 1889, I was re- 

 warded by the sight of my first Mushroom on 

 the field planted in 1888. From my experience 

 so far I conclude that the spawn or germ of the 

 Mushroom, once in rich soil, resists for months 

 high or low temperature, drought and satura- 

 tion; but it does not develop into the perfect 

 Mushroom that it pushes above ground, except 

 under certain soil and weather conditions of heat 

 and moisture, and temperature sustained for 

 some days between sixty and seventy-five de- 

 grees Fahr. Days with these characteristics are 

 most apt to occur in May and October for these 

 latitudes, and sometimes in unusually cool sea- 

 sons in the summer months. Judging from what 

 I have observed so far, I conclude there is no 

 difliculty in growing Mushrooms on land as rich 

 in nitrogen and phosphates as the black soil 

 prairie, but the intense features of the climate 

 so much restrict the season of harvest, some- 

 times abolishing it altogether, that the crop must 

 needs be a precarious one.— B. F. Johnson in 

 Field and Farm. 



The FoitonouB Primula Obconica. I am quite 

 able to confirm from personal experience, and 

 that of other members of my family, the poison- 

 ous nature of Primula obconica. The effect on 

 different constitutions was different in degree, 

 in one case the hands and arms only being at- 

 tacked, whereas in others the swelling of the face 

 and eyes, as occui"S in erysipelas, was so great 

 and the fever so high that the repeated attacks 

 of inflammation became very seriously detrimen. 

 tal to health. The attacks continued throughout 

 a period of nine months, and it was not until our 

 attention was arrested by a warning in a horti- 

 cultural paper in .\pril last, that the true source 

 of our malady was suspected. An immediate 

 discontinuance of all contact with the plants 

 which had previously been grown in quantity 

 here, resulted in entire cure, since which there 

 has been no return. The poisonous or irritant 

 property in Primula obconica does not affect all 

 constitutions. Many persons can handle it with 

 impunitj', and it is with infinite regret that we 

 have banished so pretty and useful a plant from 

 our greenhouses. My own impression is that the 

 iriitation is produced mainly by the downy 

 hairs, of the leaves and stems— a point worthy 

 it would seem, of scientific investigation.— 

 Gardening World. 



Tree for Training Brapes. Long experience 

 here fully aflSrms the truth of Matthew Craw- 

 ford's statement that a tree affords the best of 

 all support for Grapevine, although notthe most 

 convenient. No doubt, the exhalations from the 

 tree foliage keep the Grape leaves in health. 

 The fine, high-bred, thin-leafed European Grapes 

 cannot endure the occasional extreme dryness 

 of our atmosphere, but do well in the damper 

 air of the California coast, even where the soil 

 is so dry as to necessitate irrigation. Two things 

 are especially requisite for free and full growth 

 of a Grapevine— one is that every tendril! may 

 find some smaU twigs or wire that it can clasp 

 and hold firm by, so that the young growth may 

 not be stopped by twistings and bendings in the 

 wind; the other is that every leaf may safely 

 bask in the full sunshine.— Quis-quis in N. Y. 

 Tribune. 



Orape Syrup, Mr. G. H. Malter, a well-known 

 California \ineyardist, has succeeded in manu- 

 facturing a splendid article of syrup from Grape. 



A large copper pan was built, and several hun- 

 dred gallons of Grape syrup have already been 

 manufactured. That now on hand contains 

 seventy-flve per cent, of saccharine matter by 

 the si»indlc and could, of course, be still further 

 redui'ed. To make a pure, clear Grape syrup 

 that will not turn to jelly or sugar and not burn 

 in the process is, in fact, quite difllcult. Mr. 

 Malter gets 160 gallons of juice from one ton of 

 flrapes. This is reduced to one-fourth its 

 volume, forty gallons. The Malter syrup has 

 been placed, on sale in Fresno, and will soon be 

 marketed in San Francisco. If received with 

 favor it will be sent east next season. Thus are 

 the practical uses of the Grape continually deve- 

 loped, and overproduction rendered impossible. 

 — Vineyardist. 



The Pleasures of a Deer Forest. A correspon- 

 dent of an English society paper enumerates the 

 pleasures of being the tenant of a Highland 



Singular ChTT/santhemum Floicer. See next page. 

 deer forest. He explains that the place costs 

 him £10,000 a-year, in addition to no end of small 

 sums, of which he grew tired of noting, and the 

 pleasures which he obtained in return for this 

 outlay were of the following character :—" For 

 a couple of hours at a time I have walked with 

 the waters of a running stream well over my 

 boots. A suit of clothes has been done for in a 

 day's wear. Twice or thrice I have sunk up to 

 my chest in a moss. Once I fell over a precipice. 

 Once when crossing a loch I fell overboard, and 

 was not fished out till I was nearly drowned. On 

 another occasion I was fired at by one of my own 

 gUlies, who said he mistook me for a ' beastie,' 

 of what kind I do not know, but 1 fancy I had 

 rather a narrow escape. Per contra, I have on 

 five occasions brought down a good stag."— 

 North British Agriculturist. 



Sooting Orape and Fig Cutting. I prepared 

 my ground as usual, the soil being upland red 

 clay and gravel, distributed bags of sand every 

 200 feet along the rows, dug away a shovelful of 

 earth where I intended to set the cuttings, made 

 a hole, 2)^ to 3 feet deep, with a crowbar and 

 poured in enough sand to fill to the proper depth 

 then set in the cutting and filled around it with 

 sand to the top. Result, every cutting grew, 

 and they are apparently as far advanced now as 

 one-year-old vines or trees would have been. 

 The column of sand acts as a self-irrigator, and 

 retains sufficient moisture during the dry season 

 to enable the cutting to grow, and also allows 

 the roots to penetrate to a suflicient depth. 



Coreopsis Lanceolata. This showy perennial 

 when planted with Penstemon tubiflorus forms 

 a pleasing contrast. It attains the height of 

 three feet, the rag-like flowers of golden yellow 

 borne in great profusion, standing out well 

 against the light and pretty foliage. It is grand 

 for cutting and decorative purposes. They ex- 

 act the simplest culture, any soil suiting their 

 requirements, though the richer the better. 

 Propagation by root divisions in autumn and 

 spring is advisable; where quantities are re- 

 quired, divide in May, pot and plant out again at 

 the end of June; plants treated thus flower in 

 July, and are ready to divide again in the usual 

 way. — cor. American Garden. 



Sparrow and Caterpillars. Capt. W. F. Sea- 

 grave, British Consul at Baltimore, warns the 

 Americans that their policy in waging war 

 against the sparrow may prove to be a mistake. 

 The great 'blizzard' of March, 188S, he says, 

 destroyed multitudes of sparrows, and as a con- 

 sequence, the past and present summers have 

 seen a vast increase in grubs and caterpillars. 

 Already in many large cities the inhabitants, 

 through the public press, are complaining of 

 the destruction of their ornamental trees, the 

 diminished number of sparrows being unable to 



