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The Florists^ Review 



15 



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HOW SIM SUCCEEDS 



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MT METHOD WITH SWEET PEAS. 



Preparatioii of Soil. 



The site selected for building a green- 

 house should be high and dry, with pro- 

 tection, if possible, from the northwest. 

 The land should have a gravel subsoil 

 and if this is overlaid with eight inches 

 to one foot of good loam, you have an 

 ideal site for sweet pea growing under 

 glass. 



Any good loam with the application 

 of half-rotted cow manure, with occa- 

 sionally an application of lime, is well 

 suited for sweet peas. It is entirely 

 unnecessary to use decayed pasture land 

 or to make a special compost and renew 

 this every year, as I have some houses 

 which have been producing fine crops 

 each successive season for fifteen years 

 without any renewal of the soil. I be- 

 lieved that the results obtained did not 

 warrant the expense of changing. We 

 make a practice of spreading a coat of 

 half-rotted cow manure over the whole 

 surface of the soil. On top of this 

 manure we apply a liberal dose of air- 

 slaked lime, which kills all worms and 

 also makes the process of mixing with 

 the soil more congenial to those who do 

 the work, by preventing the manure' 

 from sticking to the shoes. We mix this 

 with the soil in the house and go down 

 to the gravel. 



Building the Greenhouse. 



The house should be of even span, run- 

 ning northeast and southwest. The sides 

 should be at least eight feet high. The 

 pitch of the house should be steep, so 

 that from the floor of the greenhouse to 

 the ridge would be about twenty-thrco 

 feet. The front of the greenhouse should 

 have seven feet of glass and one foot of 

 concrete. The back should have five feet 

 of glass and three feet of concrete. The 

 ventilators of the roof should be con- 

 tinuous on both sides, and the side ven- 

 tilators should also be continuous on 

 both sides and should be hinged to the 

 oaves plate and be one foot deep and 

 open from the lower side out. By hav- 

 ing the side ventilators in that position 

 the draft produced when they are 

 opened does not strike the plants as it 

 <loes if they are placed lower down the 

 sides. A house forty-one feet wide is, 

 in my judgment, about the right size. 

 The rows should be planted three feet 

 away from the sides and five feet apart. 

 All heating pipes for a house this size 

 can be placed along the sides without 

 taking away light to any extent, giv- 

 ing an equal temperature throughout the 

 liouse. In a wider house it would be 

 Tiecessary to distribute the pipes 

 throughout. 



Planting the Seeds. 



The Spencer type of sweet pea can be 

 had in bloom at any season. This is 

 brought about by timing successive sow- 

 ings of seeds and by regulating the 

 temperature of the greenhouse after- 

 wards. Seeds may be planted, if the 

 house is ready, directly where they are 



A paper on the cultiratlon of the Spencer 

 type of early or winter-flowering varletiea, by 

 William Sim, of Cliftondale, Mas*., prepared for 

 the American Sweet Pea Society. 



to grow. This is the best practice. If 

 the house is not ready they may be sown 

 in beds and transplanted or sown in pots 

 and transplanted. In sowing the seeds 

 we use a marker two and one-half inches 

 deep and two and one-half inches apart; 

 this is made about twelve feet long, so 

 that a row can be marked off in a few 

 minutes. One seed is dropped into every 

 hole and the soil pressed together over 

 the seed. It is essential, if good sweet 

 peas are desired, that the plants should 

 be grown the greatest length of time at 

 as low a temperature as possible until 

 near the period when you wish the 

 plants to bloom, when it will be neces- 

 sary Ho increase the temperature in 

 order to produce color and have the 

 plants hold their buds. What seems to 

 trouble most growers is mildew, aphis, 

 red spider, bud drop and method of 

 staking. 



Mildew is brought on through im- 

 proper ventilation and manipulation of 

 the steam pipes. From observations, 

 mildew always starts in the house where 

 the air is dead in the two corners where 

 the steam supply enters. The headers 

 of the steam coils being located there, 

 an undue amount of heat is given off at 

 all times, unless these are thoroughly 

 insulated. Once the mildew starts in 

 corners, and the house gets into a wet, 

 clammy condition, the fungus spreads 

 over a whole house in less time than it 

 takes to write these lines. I have never 

 used anything for a remedy, believing 

 that prevention w:is a bettor course than 



trying to cure, and have not been 

 troubled to any extent with it. 



Checking Aphis. 



Aphis will appear, and unless held in 

 check will soon ruin a crop. We have 

 used, for many years, fumigating to- 

 bacco dust. As soon as aphis shows itself 

 we give the house what we call a double 

 dose; that is, two applications the same 

 night, giving the first at dusk and the 

 other about 10 to 11 o'clock. This 

 keeps the smoke in the house the whole 

 night and will kill most of the aphids. 

 On the following night we give a single 

 dose, setting off at dusk. In a house 

 forty-one feet wide we use three rows 

 of 12-inch pie plates, placed eight 

 feet apart for a double dose and sixteen 

 feet apart for a single dose. We cover 

 the bottom of a plate with one inch of 

 tobacco dust, making the center slightly 

 conical. In setting the dust off we use 

 an ordinary oil can filled with wood al- 

 cohol. We light the end of the spout 

 and squirt a few drops of the flaming 

 liquid into the dust, which will com- 

 mence to burn a little. 



This makes the work of lighting off 

 simple and speedy. The nights selected 

 for fumigating should be as calm as pos- 

 sible, with the plants fairly dry and the 

 temperature cool. Doses should be kept 

 up frequently in quick succession, so 

 that all those emerging from the eggs 

 are killed before they can do much dam- 

 age and breeding commences. Fumigat- 

 ing may be continued for a few nights 



William Sim. 



