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The Weekly Florists' Review, 



March 7, 1907. 



velop a red rust that is baneful in effect 

 and detracts from the market value of 

 the blooms. 



It sometimes happens that immedi- 

 ately after syringing the weather be- 

 comes cloudy, in which case I would ad- 

 vise putting a little artificial heat in the 

 houses and opening the ventilators a little 

 wider. 



You will find the red spider most trou- 

 blesome on Beauties and roses with 

 hybrid blood in them. Possibly the 

 heavier foliage of these varieties offers a 

 better protection from the force of wa- 

 ter. Some growers, in regions where 

 syringing is often impossible for days 

 at a time, use a weak solution of Paris 

 green to keep the spider in check; but 

 I have had little experience with it, so 

 am not competent to advise. Where 

 there is plenty of force of water and 

 enough bright days to allow of syringing 

 twice or three times a week, there will be 

 little trouble with the pest. 

 (To be Continued.) 



field has made peonies a specialty since 

 1884. He now has a collection of 640 

 varieties. In the block shown in the 

 picture there is just one plant of each 

 variety. They are planted 3x5 feet, all 

 carefully labeled and afford an excellent 

 opportunity for comparison of varieties. 

 The other illustration shows a hedge 

 of viburnum fifteen feet high and in full 

 bloom, loaded with thousands of flowers. 

 This hedge divides the residence and or- 

 namental grounds' from the service 

 buildings of the farm, which also are of 

 a character to impress the visitor with 

 the fact that Mr. Eosenfield has one of 

 the finest locations ^o be found anywhere 

 in the west. 



SEEN IN NEBRASKA. 



The accompanying illustration, repro- 

 duced from a photograph made at the 

 home of J. F. Eosenfield, at West Point, 

 Neb., is interesting for several reasons, 

 not the least of which is the fact that 

 it controverts the general eastern idea of 

 conditions in Nebraska. Those who. 

 think of the state as regards horticul- 

 ture, usually apply to it only the terms 

 properly pertaining to the western and 

 the northwestern counties, where the ele- 

 vation is as much as 5,000 feet above 

 the sea, where the land is principally 

 sand hills, which give way to the buttes 

 and bad lands of the extreme western 

 part, and where the wind is never weary. 



West Point, the home of J. F. Eosen- 

 field, is in Cuming county, in the eastern 

 section of the state. This is a section 



THE EXPERIMENT STATION. 



[A paper by Professor A. C. Beal, of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, read before the Illinois State 

 Florists' Association, at the annual convention, 

 ut Bloomlngtou, February 19, 1907.] 



President Eudd, in his address to the 

 S. A. F. in 1899, said: "We are not as 

 a class receiving from the experiment 

 stations — institutions established and con- 

 ducted with public funds and for the 

 public good — the benefits to which we are 

 entitled. For this state of affairs no 

 one is to blame but ourselves. We have 

 neglected to make our wants known in 

 an intelligent manner, and have not ac- 

 cepted gracefully what little work has 

 been done in our behalf. * ' 



President Kasting, last year at Day- 

 ton, called attention to the work of the 

 experiment stations and advanced the 

 opinion that florists should use their best 

 endeavors to see that the stations are pro- 

 vided with suflScient funds for carrying 

 on their work. 



Since there has been a movement in 

 Illinois during the last two years look- 

 ing toward closer relations between the 

 florists and the State Experiment Sta- 

 tion, I thought it might be well at this 



Hedge of Viburnum at J. F. Rosenfield's, West Point, Neb. 



adapted to apple growing and native 

 plums and cherries are recommended by 

 the state horticultural society. Grapes 

 do well here. The picture shows that 

 there is nothing of the arid character in 

 this section of the state. 



In the foreground' of the picture a 

 peony plantation is shown. Mr. Eosen- 



time to call attention to the object of 

 experiment stations, what has been ac- 

 complished and what in floriculture needs 

 to be done. 



Work of the Experiment Stations. 



The work of the experiment stations 

 is thus outlined in the Hatch act, which 



provided an appropriation of $15,000 an- 

 nually for establishing and maintaining 

 a station in each state : "It shall be the 

 object and duty of said experiment sta- 

 tions to conduct original researches or 

 verify experiments on the physiology of 

 plants and animals, the diseases to which 

 they are severally subject, with the 

 remedies for the same ; the chemical com- 

 position of useful plants at their differ- 

 ent stages of growth; the comparative 

 advantages of rotative cropping as pur- 

 sued under varying series of crops; the 

 capacity of new plants or trees for ac- 

 climation; the analysis of soils and 

 water; the chemical composition of ma- 

 nures, natural and artificial, with experi- 

 ments designed to test their comparative 

 effects on crops of different kinds; the 

 adaptation and value of grasses and for- 

 age plants; the composition and digesti- 

 bility of the different kinds of food for 

 domestic animals; the scientific and eco- 

 nomic questions involved in the produc- 

 tion of butter and cheese ; and such other 

 researches or experiments bearing direct- 

 ly on the agricultural industry of the 

 United States as may in each case be 

 deemed advisable, having due regard to 

 the varying conditions and needs of the 

 respective states and territories." 



According to the last available report, 

 there are sixty experiment stations in the 

 United States, of which fifty-three re- 

 ceive support from the federal govern- 

 ment. Although there are 710 persons 

 engaged in the work of these stations, 

 floriculture is not recognized, and but 

 one person, George Coote, in the Oregon 

 Experiment Station, is specifically charged 

 with experimental work along this line. 



During the twenty years that the 

 United States experiment stations have 

 been established in the various states, 

 there have been issued not less than 

 5,000 bulletins, of which sixty are on 

 floriculture and allied greenhouse sub- 

 jects. Of these, eight were on outdoor 

 flowers, five on florists' flowers, twenty- 

 four on vegetables under glass, five on 

 diseases and seven on insects affecting 

 greenhouse plants, three on greenhouse 

 management, two on construction, three 

 on electro-horticulture and one on forcing 

 fruit. Of the sixty bulletins issued one 

 was from Illinois, the leading state in 

 floriculture. 



A Broad Field. 



One of the reasons why more work 

 has not been done for the benefit of the 

 florist is that in many of the stations 

 one man stands for the whole subject of 

 horticulture, and not only would this 

 seem a broad enough field for any man 

 to cover, but, in addition, the position 

 is often linked with either botany, for- 

 (!stry, entomology or agriculture. 



If horticulture includes orchids, onions, 

 oranges, apples, bananas, greenhouses, 

 canning factories, cold storage, cover 

 crops, spraying, plant breeding, white 

 fly and landscape gardening, can one man 

 do justice to them all? 



In the beginning of this station work, 

 the farmers themselves were indifferent 

 and often prejudiced against it, so that 

 the work had to be made intensely prac- 

 tical, and therefore it was confined to 

 the food products. The result has been 

 that the orchard products were empha- 

 sized and the training of the students 

 in the colleges with which these stations 

 were connected was principally along this 

 line. Since the horticulturists have been 

 trained in pomology and their inclinations 

 were in this direction, and, recognizing 

 that no man can obtain recognition in the 



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