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Mabch 28, 1907. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



1453 



'About So hong/' says Jaggs. 



never 'eard what become o' Saggers. I 

 did 'ear once o ' a chap that was trainin ' 

 toadfish to dredge oysters along the Jer- 

 sey coast, and that sounded uncommon 

 like James H. Saggers, but maybe it 

 wasn't true. There's too many chaps 

 nowadays tryin' to mislead the public 

 with them sort o' yarns." 



"It seems too bad, don't it," ob- 

 served Tom. my to the new rose grower, 

 ■who was gazing rapturously at Jaggs. 

 * * The trouble is as them that has ex- 

 perience, like Jaggs, is too modest in 

 expressin' theirselves. What I want to 

 know is, how did James H. Saggers gain 

 the confidence of them innocent electric 

 eels?" 



LATHYRUS PUBESCENS. 



The beauty of this perennial pea from 

 Chili should go a long way toward ren- 

 dering it popular for the cool green- 

 house and for cutting. Climbing plants 

 of its particular color shade are rare, the 

 only likely competitor being Plumbago 

 capensis, a plant nearly every one grows. 

 The lathyrus is not hardy save in the 

 warmer parts of Britain, says the Gar- 

 deners' Magazine, but needs nothing 

 more than the coolest treatment. Culti- 

 vated under glass, it gives one a wealth 

 of blossom in June, and sends up relays 

 of flowering growths from the base 

 throughout summer if occasionally fore- 

 shortened. It is full of ailments as a 

 seedling, and numbers die from excess of 

 damp, but once it enters the second grow- 

 ing season it becomes strong and starts 

 to flower. Its foliage is grayish, as in 

 the culinary pea, the gray being due to 

 a soft, downy covering that persists till 

 the leaves grow old. The flower sprays 

 have long stems that will delight the dec- 

 orator, each spray containing seven to 

 nine flowers that are nearly the equal of 

 well-grown sweet peas in size, and quite 

 the equal in floral value. The annual 

 growth exceeds seven to eight feet. One 

 cannot treat an old specimen too well, 

 provided it is in a well-drained spot. 



PROPAGATING DRACAENAS. 



As a plant for the novice in propaga- 

 tion to try his hand upon, the dracaena 

 must be placed in the very first flight. 

 He must be indeed a novice, and a care- 

 less one at that, if given an old, leggy 

 dracaena, he cannot work up a decent 

 batch of plants. Let us have a look at 

 our dracffna. It is an old terminalis, 

 in a 5-inch pot, but so robbed of leaves 

 by an overdose of housework that what 

 few remain are at the top of a respecta- 

 ble length of bare stem. But its grow- 

 ing point is uninjured. 



We shall first ring or tongue our 

 plant! Ringing consists of carefully cut- 

 ting away a ring of bark about an inch 

 below the bottom good leaf. Tonguing 

 is performed by making a cut half way 

 through the stem an inch or so below 

 the bottom leaf, in the same way that 

 one makes a tongue in a carnation layer. 

 Both plans are good, but of the two I 

 prefer the tongue, as one quickly ob- 

 tains a mass of roots. In either case 

 the cut part of the stem must be ex- 

 cluded from the light, and kept moist, 

 for we want roots to issue from it. At 

 one time we accomplished this by split- 

 ting a small flower pot lengthwise, fas- 

 tening the two halves round the cut 

 stem, and filling the pot with soil. Now 

 we find that a handful of wet moss 

 placed round the cut, and secured by 

 a few twists of raffia, answers the pur- 

 pose equally well. The moss is kept con- 

 stantly wet with the syringe, and when 

 white roots are seen to be pushing their 

 points through it, the stem is severed 

 beneath it, and the moss and roots are 

 buried to the lowest leaf in a well- 

 drained pot of soil. If at all carefully 

 carried out, ringing or tonguing never 

 fails to give a good plant in a short 

 time. 



When, however, the house can be kept 

 at 55 degrees at night, and also con- 

 tains a propagating case, ringing and 

 tonguing may be dispensed with, and 

 the top boldly severed, and rooted as a 



cutting. The advantage of this system 

 is that the old stem of the plant is im- 

 mediately available for propagating pur- 

 poses, whereas one must wait until roots 

 are formed under the ringing process. 



Having disposed of the top, let us 

 turn our attention to the old stem, and 

 to facilitate matters we will knock the 

 latter out of the pot, and shake away 

 all the soil. With a sharp knife we will 

 now cut up the stem into portions one 

 inch long, and if we want as many plants 

 as possible we will split each section 

 down the middle. Every section, split or 

 unsplit, is capable of forming a new 

 plant. 



We take a cutting pan, fill it to within 

 an inch of its rim with a compost of 

 equal parts of loam, leaf-mold and coarse 

 sand, and then sprinkle a layer of sand 

 over all. On this layer we arrange our 

 sections of stem, flat and cut side down, 

 about an inch apart, cover with a half 

 inch of compost, and water well. Space 

 in the propagating case is too precious 

 to take this pan, so we stand it on the 

 hot-water pipes, if possible. 



In a very short time, provided plenty 

 of heat and water are given, tiny green 

 spears will be seen pushing through the 

 soil, and when these are from one inch 

 to two inches long, they will generally 

 be accompanied by roots issuing from 

 the other side of the cut section. When 

 this stage is reached potting singly in 

 2i{!-inch pots should follow, with care- 

 ful watering, plenty of warmth, and 

 syringing. 



When old plants are dealt with, says 

 a writer in a British contemporary, it 

 will generally be found that they pos- 

 sess one or more thick, fleshy white roots. 

 These may be cut up, split, and treated 

 exactly as the stem sections, and will 

 make plants equally as easily and quick- 

 ly. Either kind, root or stem section, 

 should push growths through the soil in 

 less than a month after insertion, if 

 heat and moisture iu plenty are forth- 

 coming. 



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