86 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 418. 



to novelties shown in first-class condition, so that, while not 

 relying upon them, we always grow to the best advantage such 

 as are most promising. Our list of varieties suitable for speci- 

 men plants has been made with care, and, although extending 

 over a number of years, is by no means large. Practical expe- 

 rience must alone guide, and when looking over the lists I 

 often see kinds noted as suitable for specimen plants which 

 have not proved so with me. To give an idea how few plants 

 are really suitable for this purpose I will say that Crystalina, a 

 dwarf early white, and Mrs. S. T. M urdock, pink, were the only 

 real good ones found among all the introductions of 1895. The 

 most promising varieties for 1896, so far as I have seen, are 

 Mrs. Perrin, pink ; Gretchen Buetlner, white ; Violescent, 

 blush, and Columbine, bright bronze, the latter being espe- 

 cially recommended. 



It has been said that the popularity of the Chrysanthemum 

 is on the wane. No doubt, the Japanese varieties have been 

 overdone, but that the Chrysanthemum will ever become un- 

 popular I do not believe. There will rather be a return to a 

 larger variety of types, and many of the old kinds will come 

 into favor. Already we see this. We shall see more pompon- 

 tiowered varieties grown as pot-plants. They are handsome 

 in all sizes and shapes, and, being naturally bushy in habit, are 

 less formal than trained specimens ; they are nice, too, for 

 cutting in sprays. Anemone-flowered varieties have a beauty 

 all their own. They do not mix well with the large Japanese 

 or formal Chinese sorts, but they supplement them, and small 

 plants are very effective in grouping, far more so than the 

 large-flowered varieties. 



Varieties fresh from the introducers usually come with the 

 balls of earth pressed closely about the plants. I find it a good 

 plan to carefully loosen the soil by gentle pressure betore 

 placing them in new soil. Of late years, mainly for want of 

 space, I have put mine in flats, with plenty of room for branch- 

 ing, placing them on shelves near the glass. Here they make 

 good stocky plants. I take the tips off as soon as the plants 

 become hardened, and root them. These often make better 

 plants than the original stock. Such varieties as I wish to grow 

 solely for specimen blooms I cut in hard. This encourages 

 shoots of the sucker type, and these make the very best cut- 

 tings. Leaf-eyes of any exceptionally rare variety, such as 

 Philadelphia was last season, or Mrs. Perrin will be this, may 

 be rooted quite as easily, and some of the finest blooms have 

 been raised in this way. 



Wellesley, Mass. 7. D. Hatfield. 



Pentstemons. 



THE old-fashioned border flowers are no longer so carefully 

 tended as they once were by the specialists, and it is a 

 rare thing now to find a good collection of Tulips, Auriculas, 

 Carnations or Picotees. In the old days the number of plants 

 in cultivation was small in comparison to what it is to-day ; 

 the limits of horticulture were circumscribed for those of 

 moderate means, and the result was that these classes of plants 

 were taken in hand by enthusiasts who became identified with 

 one or more of each and made a close study of them, with the 

 result that they were improved to the utmost limit, and there 

 are no better kinds to-day than there were a generation ago. 

 The old-time exhibitions have largely died out, too ; many, if 

 not most, of the plants formerly displayed it would be impos- 

 sible to obtain now. This must not be considered a retro- 

 gression altogether, but rather an indication that gardening is 

 too broad a subject to be restricted to exhibition limits, and 

 border Carnations, Tulips, Auriculas and Pentstemons are 

 grown now to be enjoyed in the garden instead of on the show 

 board with the regulation frilled white paper collars round 

 each bloom. 



It is more especially of the Pentstemon that I wish to speak 

 as I saw it at its best in English gardens last August. At Kew 

 especially, in the public parks and everywhere in home gar- 

 dens, large beds were devoted to them, and the colors were as 

 brilliant as those of Gladioli, and with about the same range of 

 colors, too, but with more elegantly shaped flowers. The flow- 

 ers were as large and the spikes as tall as well-grown Foxgloves, 

 and admirably adapted for house decoration when cut. The 

 season of bloom, too, lasted for two months I was told, and it 

 seemed there were few plants that could give such returns for 

 so little trouble. When asking about the sorts I was told that 

 they were in all cases seedlings raised from a sowing made 

 early in the year and set out in summer, the plants being 

 treated as annuals instead of perennials ; in this way winter 

 storing was dispensed with. Seed was saved from the best 

 flowers each year for the display to follow. Now, it at once 

 occurred to me that the progenitors of this race of garden 

 Pentstemons are all north-western American plants, the domi- 



nating blood being that of Pentstemon Hartwegii, its brilliant 

 scarlet being very evident, while the more sombre purples and 

 blues were derived from P. Coboca and others. As now grown, 

 however, they are distinct enough in themselves to lose any 

 identity with any particular species. 



There seems to be no reason why we cannot have beds of 

 these fine border flowers as easily as they are obtained in Eu- 

 rope. There may be cultivators of Pentstemons here, but I have 

 not seen them. Here we have made a start in the right direction 

 by securing seeds from several sources and the plants are well 

 up now ; the results will be noted later in the summer, but 

 there seems to be no reason to doubt that the experiment will 

 be a success. 



South Lancaster, Mass. £-■ O. Orpet. 



Warming Tanks for the Victoria regia. 



TOURING the past season the Victoria regia was grownmost 

 •l— ' successfully in some of our public parks and gardens for 

 the first time, and excited much interest in aquatic gardening. 

 Where the Victoria can be grown well it is always a surprise 

 to those who are not familiar with it, and every one is im- 

 pressed with its queenly rank among Water-lilies. To secure 

 a perfect specimen it is necessary to have an artificially heated 

 tank, for our season is otherwise far too short. The plant can- 

 not be safely set out until settled warm weather, or about the 

 end of June or beginning of July. With continuous summer 

 weather the plant attains only fair proportions when cool 

 nights and shortening days are upon us, but with artificial 

 heat a tropical temperature can be maintained for six or eight 

 weeks before warm weather sets in, and the plants will have 

 reached good proportions and be a source of enjoyment 

 throughout the summer months. Few plants are grown en- 

 tirely under glass during the whole season, although there are 

 advantages in such treatment. It is much more enjoyable, 

 however, to inspect these marvels of the tropics in the open 

 air rather than under a glass roof in summer's heat. 



Plants for the open-air pond or tank should have attention 

 now. The seeds may be sown any time before the second 

 week of March in water kept at a temperature of eighty-five to 

 ninety degrees, Fahrenheit. They will germinate in about 

 twenty days. The plants make rapid growth and will require 

 repotting at intervals before becoming- pot-bound or exhausted 

 in small pots. If this detail is attended to the plants will make 

 satisfactory growth and be of the first size for planting out when 

 the season arrives. The plants should be kept steadily grow- 

 ing from the seed-leaf to the mature plant. The matter 

 of heating tanks for Victoria regia and for other trop- 

 ical aquatics has received attention from many culti- 

 vators since the Victoria was first introduced. Several 

 systems, more or less satisfactory, have been adopted, but I 

 feel sure that the best and most satisfactory has yet to be 

 adopted. If a system of hot-water heating is already in use 

 in the establishment, it is advantageous and economical to 

 adopt this for heating the tank. But a long stretch of piping 

 in one tank is not practicable, as the heat is soon given off and 

 a great portion of it is therefore useless. I have used hot 

 water under pressure for heating tanks in connection with the 

 greenhouse plant, and found in shallow tanks, eight inches 

 deep, that one one-inch pipe through the centre of the tank is 

 as effective as a one-inch flow and return pipe through the 

 same. The return pipe is cold almost always, except during 

 hard firing in severe weather in winter. Steam-heating in the 

 ordinary way is to be condemned. It is unreliable, unsteady 

 and dangerous, and needs constant and careful watching. At 

 the point of contact, where the steam-pipe enters the tank, the 

 water will be very hot, the steam condensing as soon as it 

 enters the submerged pipe, and little heat is conveyed a few 

 feet farther along. Consequently a tank twenty feet long would 

 be very hot at one end and many degrees colder at the other. 

 Having recently had a house one hundred feet long fitted up 

 for aquatics and heated by steam, I endeavored to have a large 

 tank heated by the same system, and to overcome the diffi- 

 culties mentioned I selected a two-inch pipe to run through 

 the centre of the tank on the floor. Through this pipe the 

 steam-pipe (one inch) was conveyed, making the ends of in- 

 gress and egress perfectly water-tight, and thus forming an air 

 space between the steam-pipe and the radiating surface of the 

 two-inch pipe. By such an arrangement the steam-pipe at no 

 time comes in direct contact with the water, and the air space 

 is uniformly heated through the entire length. The water in 

 the tank is also uniformly heated and an even temperature is 

 maintained. This plan obviates the objections to the ordinary 

 steam-pipe submerged, and it is the best method I have found 

 for warming the water in Lily-tanks by steam-heat. 



Riverton, N. J. William Tricker. 



