203 



a 3-inch. Getting strong plants to 

 plant out in June will give you an 

 extra crop over small, weak plants. 

 And although you often see them 

 standing under a bench in May and 

 June that is not the way to produce 

 well rooted, strong plants. 



Make your Smilax bed in the center 

 of the house on the ground with seven 

 or eight feet of head room; and more 

 is better. If the floor of the house is 

 naturally dry you want no prepara- 

 tion, but make the bed seven or eight 

 inches above the surface and confined 

 with a brick or plank wall. 



I have tried several kinds of soil. 

 The worst smilax I ever grew was in 

 a light sand, and the best was in a 

 stiff loam, such a soil as roses like, 

 with the addition of one-fourth of rot- 

 ten cow manure. Plant at end of June 

 or very early in July. 



If you intend to renew the bed every 

 year, which I strongly advocate, then 

 plant ten inches between the rows and 

 six or seven inches between the plants. 

 Run a wire across the bed just be- 

 hind the row of plants, and a corre- 

 sponding wire near the roof, and at 

 each plant run up a string of silkaline. 

 It is invisible when cut and saves you 

 much bother when using the smilax 

 because there is no need of pulling it 

 out. 



Keep down weeds from the start 

 and frequently teach the little growths 

 that they are to climb up the strings. 

 When once started they are no trouble, 

 and when a crop is cut and a new 

 growth is starting replace the strings 

 at once. We are guilty of neglect and 

 I have seen days of labor spent over 

 a smilax bed that was allowed to grow 

 without strings a few weeks and had 

 to be unravelled and started up the 

 strings much to the harm of the 

 growths. 



When growing fast smilax likes and 

 must have an abundance of water and 

 should be daily syringed to keep down 

 red spider. It should be also fumiga- 

 ted, but not heavily or it will turn the 

 tips of the leaves. Vaporizing with 

 tobacco extract would avoid that, but 

 with proper care we have no trouble 

 with the smoke. 



When a crop is fit to cut or your 

 business demands that you cut it, be- 

 gin at one end and clear it as you go. 

 When the plant is denuded of its entire 

 growth, as it is when you cut the 

 strings, it does not want water till 

 it begins to send up more growth. I 

 have seen the roots rotted by a heavy 

 watering just after cutting off the 

 strings, and when the thick, fleshy 

 roots rot they raise a bad smell, very 

 similar to decayed Solanum tuberosum, 

 alias potato. 



When cutting the strings don't let 

 a crude hand ruthlessly chop off all 

 the growth. There may be several 

 strong young shoots a foot or eighteen 

 inches high that will quickly make 

 another string. 



By planting last of June you ought 

 to get four crops before planting time 

 again, and will if the temperature of 

 the house is kept never less than 60 



degrees at night throughout the win- 

 ter, and if it is 65 degrees so much the 

 better; contrary to what would be the 

 case with most plants the warmer you 

 grow it the harder it is providing it is 

 matured when cut. Being naturally 

 a twiner among trees it likes the 

 shade, and is best shaded in summer 

 and early spring. 



I am sure it is wisest to plant every 

 year. You get more strings; they are 

 a more useful size, and easier man- 

 aged. After the second crop is, cut, 

 about New Year's, the bed will be 

 greatly benefited by a top dressing of 

 an inch of loam and cow manure. 

 Their strong asparagus-like crown of 

 roots soon works to the surface and 

 need this mulching. The smilax is a 

 heavy feeder, so a strong soil, plenty 

 of water when growing, and a good 

 heat, suits it. 



SOILS. 



Although various soils have been 

 often alluded to as most suitable for 

 different plants I cannot impress on 

 you too much the importance of being 

 always well supplied with this most 

 necessary article of our business. 

 We too frequently are careless and 

 often falsely economical in not buying 

 a good pile of soil. Greenhouse estab- 

 lishments in or near cities, or where 

 by, its growth has surrounded them, 

 have often a difficulty in getting a 

 good supply, and it is too often a case 

 of get what you can. I have learnt 

 lately that when a teamster asks, "do 

 you want twenty loads of good earth'?" 

 you had better investigate at once, and 

 if it is good buy it; you don't know 

 when you will get the next. 



We pay out without a murmur thou- 

 sands of dollars for fuel, but squirm a 

 good deal over one-quarter the amount 

 for soil and manure. And if by these 

 words I have made you think seriously 

 how important a matter is good soil 

 I will have done you some good. 



Those having five or six acres, or 

 better, fifteen acres, can help them- 

 selves off their own place, and they 

 should take care and husband their 

 land or they will find that with broad 

 acres they can soon use it up and have 

 little in the right condition. No one 

 nowadays thinks of using soil for roses 

 or carnations or violets the second 

 year, and these crops take a great deal 

 of soil. 



When an acre is what we call 

 "skinned," three, four or five inches 

 deep, it should be restored as soon as 

 possible with the soil that comes out 

 of the benches. Pt as much back as 

 you took away, and what you put 

 back will be good soil, for while in 

 use in the greenhouse you added ani- 

 mal manure, bone-meal and other fer- 

 tilizers. You can grow a crop of pota- 

 toes on it the first summer, or use it 

 for your planted out crops for a couple 

 of years, or better still, after the po- 

 tatoes lay it down to winter wheat and 

 sow clover in the spring and in two 

 years plow the clover under, and you 

 have a grand field for your carna- 

 tions. 



I have proved within a few years, 



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