14 



The Florists^ Review 



Januabt 4, 1917. 



SPACE BETWEEN SWEET PEAS. 



How far apart in the rows should 

 sweet peas be planted? 



V. E. F.— Ind. 



Indoors plant them four to six inches 

 apart in the rows. Outdoors, for good 

 blooms, allow twelve inches between 

 the plants. C. W. 



SWEET PEAS LATE. 



We have a house 50x156 planted to 

 sweet peas for the fourth season, and 

 we notice that the peas have bloomed 

 later each season. This year they are 

 just starting to bloom. The crop was 

 planted the same time each year, about 

 the last of August. 



We have given all the peas the same 

 treatment and have had good crops, but 

 later. Each year tfe trench the house 

 about eighteen inches deep, four feet 

 three inches apart, digging in manure 

 and using thirty-five or forty 1-horse 

 loads of horse manure. Now, are we 

 using too much manure? 



The first season the soil was heavy 

 and we had some trouble with buds 

 dropping, but the next season we 

 drained the house by putting 3-inch 

 drain tile under each row and since then 

 have had less trouble with buds drop- 

 ping. J. P. K.— Md. 



If you would reduce the quantity of 

 manure used one-half, your sweet pea 

 vines would grow less vigorously, but 

 bloom earlier. Cow manure, well rotted, 

 is superior to horse manure, if you can 

 secure it at a reasonable cost. I would 

 prefer to feed the plants with liquid 

 manure and top-dressings of cow or 

 sheep manure, as they need it during 

 the growing season, rather than make 

 the soil so rich at planting time. 



C. W. 



SWEET PEA CULTURE. 



I am sending under separate cover a 

 shoot of sweet peas that seem to be dis- 

 eased. It appears to be some form of 

 mildew. The seeds were planted Sep- 

 tember 14, in sandy soil. They were run 

 quite dry from the start, sometimes 

 three weeks without water. At times 

 the ventilators are wide open, also the 

 doors. Would this cause the trouble? 

 The grower maintains that they are too 

 wet. There are two holes in the roof 

 through which the water leaks. The 

 plants underneath these holes are thor- 

 oughly wet and the plants on either side 

 are vigorous and larger than the rest, 

 with no signs of disease. Please tell me 

 the cause of the above condition, and 

 give cultural directions for the crop 

 from its beginning. A. T. V. — W. Va. 



The shoot forwarded was not affected 

 with mildew, but had every appearance 



of having been browned by excessive 

 dryness at the root. Mildew whitens 

 the foliage and looks quite different 

 from foliage absolutely brown and dried 

 up as yours is. I should say that the 

 culture has been radically wrong if the 

 plants have been allowed to go for any 

 such period as you name without watet. 

 The full cultural directions for winter- 

 flowering sweet peas appeared in Tha 

 Review of October 12, 1916. The proper 

 treatment for the plants is a minimum 

 temperature of 45 to 48 degrees until 

 the flowers appear, then 50 to 52 degrees 

 at night, with a rise of 10 to 15 degrees 

 with sunshine during the day and 5 to 

 8 degrees on cloudy days. Sweet peas 

 naturally are moisture-loving plants, and 

 if the beds in which they are planted are 

 well drained there is not much danger 

 of any oversupply of water. The soil 

 in which they are growing should have 

 been deeply spaded in advance and 

 plenty of cow or other manure, well 

 rotted, incorporated with it. Careless 

 ventilation, causing drafts, will cause 

 mildew. A dry, overheated condition 

 will start red spider; both need to be 

 guarded against. A mulch of sheep or 

 cow manure when the plants are flower- 

 ing will prove beneficial, but avoid the 

 use of quick-acting chemical fertilizers. 



C. W. 



NABCISSUS BOOTS HOTTED. 



We would like to know what causes 

 the roots of Paper White narcissi to 

 rot, after the bulbs have become thor- 

 oughly rooted. We potted the bulbs in 

 October, in a compost of good, fibrous 

 sod, with four or five parts of rotted 

 manure and one or two parts of sand. 

 The compost was piled last May, turned 

 once or twice during the summer and 

 kept well watered. The bulbs were 

 placed in a trench outdoors to root, 

 and were brought into the house after 

 having formed excellent roots. Top 

 growth came on finely for a while, and 

 then practically stopped. On examina- 

 tion of the soil balls, we find that prac- 

 tically all roots are rotted off on the 

 outside of the ball and that the ends 

 are rotted on the inside. Part of the 

 bulbs have had bottom heat part of the 

 time and the others have not, but the 

 roots are all the same. We have kept 

 the plants well watered. 



The temperature of the house has 

 been carried at 50 to 60 degrees at night 

 and as high as 75 to 80 degrees during 

 the day, with plenty of ventilation. As 

 a rule, however, the day temperature 

 has not been much over 65 degrees. 



K. & L.— Wash. 



In the first place, your compost was 

 too rich; one-third well rotted manure 

 would have been ample. In the second 

 place, you made a mistake in placing 

 the narcissi in a trench outdoors, where 

 they probably were left too long. Ee- 

 member that Paper White narcissus 

 bulbs are not hardy like those of tulips, 

 daffodils and hyacinths. They should 

 be placed in a coldf rame, cellar or pit, or 

 even under greenhouse benches, where 

 they are free from drip, and in such 

 places they rarely fail to do well. While 

 they will stand such a temperature as 

 you mention, they will flower vastly 

 better if given not over 50 to 52 de- 

 grees at night, with a fair rise during 

 the daytime. C. W. 



HIOH COST OF LIVING NOTE. 



Caladiums for Use and Beauty. 



Some years ago the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture took an inter- 

 est in trying to introduce into this coun- 

 try certain species of caladiums that 

 might prove of value as food plants. 

 The Department reasoned that as sev- 

 eral varieties of caladiums are used for 

 food in the tropics, and as one of these 

 is capable of producing more food to the 

 acre than any other known plant, even 

 being capable of feeding two or three 

 thousands of people per acre the year 

 around, there was no reason why they 

 might not prove of value in this coun- 

 try, at least here, in the south, where 

 the seasons are long. Further, it was 

 reasoned that much land too wet for 

 other crops might be available in grow- 

 ing these plants. 



Accordingly, caladiums were gathered 

 from the four corners of the earth. 

 These were judiciously distributed in 

 small quantities, but thus far none of 

 them has proved of great value for the 



purpose intended. Doubtless this is 

 largely due to the difficulty in inducing 

 people to take up new things. But sev- 

 eral of these caladiums are of great 

 value from an ornamental standpoint, 

 and as soon as generally known will 

 largely displace the old Caladium 

 esculentum. 



A Substitute for Potatoes? 



The Trinidad dasheen is perhaps the 

 most promising variety for food. From 

 a tuber no larger than a walnut a plant 

 is produced that grows to a height of 

 five or six feet, with leaves two feet 

 broad by two and a half feet long. A 

 tuber is produced by fall that is as 

 large as the largest esculentuia tubers 

 on the market, with several offsets at 

 least as large as the one planted in the 

 spring. These tubers, when baked, taste 

 fully as well as potatoes. The second 

 season one of these large tubers pro- 

 duces dozens of leaves and makes a 

 wonderful show. 



As an ornamental plant, this caladium 

 is most effective in the center of beds, 

 surrounded by plants that do not grow 



