u 



The Florists' Review 



Sgptembee 18, 1913. 



versity, George B. Hart, F. C. Thomann 

 and others. 



The ofBcers of last year were re- 

 elected by acclamation to serve an- 

 other year; they are: President, Wm. 

 F. Kasting, Buffalo; first vice-president, 

 Earl A. Bates, Syracuse; second vice- 

 president, Chas. B. Weathered, New 

 (^ York; third vice-president, E. R. Fry, 

 ■Rochester; sfecretary, John Young, New 

 York, and treasurer, W. A. Adams, 

 Buffalo. The treasurer, Mr. Adams, in 

 his report showed that the financial af- 

 fairs of the federation were in a strong 

 condition. 



After the meeting President Kasting 

 entertained the officers at a dinner at 

 the Onondaga hotel. The same com- 

 mittees were reappointed for the com- 

 ing year. The legislative committee 

 consists of F. R. Pierson, John Young, 

 W, T. Logan, S. A. Anderson and C. B. 

 Weathered; the state fair committee 

 of Geo. E. Thorp, Wing R. Smith, 

 Arthur Cowee, F. H. Traendly and 

 F. A. Danker. 



LEAF-SPCT ON PANSIES. 



I am sending some leaves of pansy 

 affected with white leaf -spot; I have 

 about 200,000. Is this disease liable to 

 do much injury? What is the best rem- 

 edy? C. A, P. 



This spot is not at all uncommon in 

 August and the first half of September. 

 I do not think it is anything likely to 

 spread seriously, or which you need 

 worry much over. Should it prove quite 

 bad in spots, a spraying of Bordeaux 

 mixture might be advisable, but if -only 

 on isolated plants, do not trouble about 

 it. The spot appears when we have cold 

 nights and heavy dews, followed by 

 plear, hot days, and is similar to that 

 affecting double violets. C. W. 



WINTERING HIBISCUS. 



What is the proper treatment for hi- 

 biscus over winter in this Pennsylva- 

 nia climate? The varieties are Crim- 

 son Eye, Moscheutos roseus. Golden 

 Bowl, H. grandiflorus Sunset and Man- 

 ihot. R. B. 



All the varieties named should prove 

 perfectly hardy in your latitude, with a 

 mulch of leaves or some other material 

 over them after the ground freezes up. 

 If, however, you must lift them, do so 

 any time before frost has tightened up 

 the ground. Cut the tops back close 

 to the ground and pack the roots in 

 moist sand or earth in a cellar or cold- 

 frame. They can ho packed quite 

 closely. Plant out again as soon as the 

 ground is open. C. W, 



LILY BULBS AFTER FORCING. 



Can you inform us whether the bulbs 

 of Easter lilies are of any use after 

 forcing? These are taken from cold 

 storage every month and we thought 

 it might pay to plant them outdoors for 

 blooming. Will they bloom? H. & C. 



Cold storage lily bulbs are of no value 

 whatever after forcing. Bulbs not sub- 

 jected to cold storage, and the flower 

 stalks of which have not been cut back 

 too hard, can be planted six inches deep 

 outdoors. An}' left over from Easter 

 will give a small second crop in June 

 and July, but are not worth much fuss- 

 ing over. C. W. 



DISEASES OF THE VIOLET^. 



[Extracts from a paper by Dr. Donald Red- 

 (llck, of Ithaca, N. Y., read before the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society. Continued from 

 The Review of September 11.] 



Symptoms of Root Rot. 



Plants attacked by the thielavia dis- 

 ease in its various stages are readily 

 detected. A great many growers, how- 

 ever, do not realize that the various 

 symptoms which I shall now present to 

 you are symptoms of one and the same 

 disease. Indeed, one often has consid- 

 erable difficulty in convincing growers 

 that this is true. The most striking 

 symptom of the disease, as it occurs on 

 the matured plant, is a yellow appear- 

 ance and the somewhat dwarfed and 

 crinkled condition of the foliage. The 

 foliage is not so abundant and the yel- 



Violet plant grown from a cutting infected 

 with root rot The plant was placed In phos- 

 phated soil June 10 and persisted there until 

 November 5, 1912, the date of making the 

 photos'raph. The plant was lifted from the 

 .■-oil carefully. In order to preserve all the 

 roots. The stem i.s broken slightly at the 

 point of the original lesion. The foliage was 

 a sickly yellow. 



low cast is particularly noticeable in 

 contrast with the deep green of healthy 

 plants. On making a more careful ex- 

 amination, the underground stem will 

 often be found to be badly diseased. 

 It may be cracked and rough; or, if in 

 particularly damp soil, often appears 

 water-soaked and black in spots. Defi- 

 nite brown or black lesions occur on the 

 roots, usually girdling them, and stand 

 out sharply in contrast with the normal 

 white coloV. The roots may be girdled 

 at many points. The disease also occurs 

 on the runners and leaf petioles, where 



characteristic lesions are produceir 

 When young the lesion is a small water 

 soaked spot, but as it increases in size 

 the center becomes whitish and the 

 margin black. Sometimes the runners 

 are entirely girdled, but the lesion has 

 a tendency to extend more in a longi 

 tudinal direction than radially. 



Handling Infected Cuttings. 



It has been found that the persons 

 making violet cuttings rarely know 

 that the lesions on the stems bear rela 

 tion to the violet disease; therefore 

 cuttings which have only small lesions 

 on them are invariably placed in the 

 soil along with healthy ones. More 

 than that, they fall into the same pail 

 of water with healthy cuttings and thus 

 abundant opportunity is afforded for 

 distributing endoconidia to many plants. 

 That this distribution does occur not 

 infrequently was plainly apparent when 

 some observations were made at the 

 time of taking the plants from the 

 sand. In a number of cases the writer 

 counted the young plants actually 

 thrown out on account of this trouble 

 and found frequently as high as forty 

 per cent of the plants grown from cut 

 tings infected. 



For the most part, infected plants are 

 easily detected as they come from the 

 sand. The lesion which was small at 

 the time the cutting went into the sand 

 increases in size and the stem becomes 

 black. Sometimes only a black point is 

 evident. There are indications tnat the 

 black-pointed plants are ones which be 

 come infected from diseased cuttings. 

 Not infrequently many of the new 

 roots also are infected. These are dis 

 carded, but even the most careful grow 

 er will not succeed in sorting out all 

 of the infected plants. A certain num 

 ber invariably get into the soil. Some 

 of them die after a period of time, but 

 the slightly infected ones may live 

 through the year. The cultivation that 

 is done during the summer naturally 

 drags occasional diseased roots to the 

 surface, and later the runners, when 

 they spread over the ground, become in 

 fected. Furthermore, the old roots ol 

 the previous vear are never entirely 

 removed in changing the soil, so that 

 as they slowly disintegrate quantitie^^ 

 of chlamydospores from the previou;^ 

 year are set free. The propagation oi 

 the fungus from one year to another is- 

 therefore usually in one or the other ot 

 these ways and is doubly assured. 



Sterilizing the Sand. 



With the foregoing points in mimi 

 the method of control mav now be :i| 

 preached from a scientific standpoint 

 It seems evident that only perfectly 

 healthy cuttings should be used in prop 

 agating violets. This may seem a sim 

 pie proposition, but it always must 'i' 

 remembered that some of the cuttin-'' 

 which are apparently free from d ^ 

 ease may have the fungus in them i" 

 the incubation stage. The sand us'*' 

 for rooting the cuttings should, ot 

 course, be free from rotten toots ot 

 previous years. Most growers make •' 

 regular practice of bringing in ni'\^ 

 sand, but the old sand will prove p« ' 

 fectly satisfactory for this purpose P'O 

 viding it is sterilized. Commercia' 

 formaldehyde is effective when diluted 

 at the rate of one pint to twelve a'l*] 

 one-half gallons of water. This solu 

 tion should then be sprinkled over tb^ 

 cutting beds at the rate of one gallon 

 per square foot of surface. The treate<l 



