September 9, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



361 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Fertilizers and Flowers 3°t 



Newport through English Eves 362 



Botanical Gardens.— II .' Professor N.L. Brit/011. 362 



The Wood Pulp Supply and our Spruce Forests G. E. IV. 363 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 364 



Plant Notes :— Aquilegia Jonesii. (With figure.) 365 



Cultural Department:— Dodder on Garden Vegetables. (With figure.) 



Professor Byron D. Halsted. 365 



Carnation Notes W. N. Cr.iig. 366 



Violets E. O. Orpet. 366 



Seasonable Flower Notes T. D. Hatfield. 367 



Correspondence : — The Delaware Peach Crop G. Howard PuTuell. 368 



The Forest: — The Burma leak Forests. — VI Sir Dietrich Brand is. 368 



Exhibitions : — Autumn Flower Show at Boston 3t>9 



Notes 37° 



Illustrations: — Aquilegia Jonesii, Fig. 48 165 



Dodder Growing on Union Leaves, Fig. 49 367 



Fertilizers and Flowers. 



DURING recent years there has been an immense 

 increase of popular knowledge relating to the use 

 and action of fertilizers upon the growth of crops. So 

 much instructive literature on this subject has been dis- 

 seminated by our agricultural experiment stations, by 

 the addresses at farmers' institutes and societies and in the 

 agricultural and horticultural newspapers, that farmers and 

 truck-growers use manures much more intelligently and 

 effectively than they did a few years ago. In many cases 

 they buy different chemicals and mix them so as to form a 

 fertilizer which combines nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash in different proportions, and they are careful to 

 apply it to different soils and upon different crops, so that a 

 certain amount of each of these nutriments in an available 

 form is supplied for their roots. 



Now, it is understood that the soil is something more than 

 a storehouse for plant-food. Aside from its chemical con- 

 tents, its structure and texture are of great importance, 

 since it must be so formed mechanically that it will retain 

 the plant-food in a watery solution so that the roots can 

 take it up and yet be sufficiently open to allow the admis- 

 sion of a proper amount of air, which is just as necessary 

 to the parts of the plant below the surface of the ground as 

 to the parts above it. No cultivators take greater pains 

 and show greater skill in securing soil that is just in the 

 proper mechanical condition than florists do, and a large 

 amount of the success in floriculture depends on the skill 

 with which the soil is prepared so that its particles will be 

 neither too small nor too large — neither too loose nor too 

 binding. But, somehow, the question of scientific fertiliz- 

 ing has not yet received as much study by florists as by 

 truck-growers and farmers. Owing to the small amount of 

 soil to be enriched, it costs but little to use an abundance 

 of whatever fertilizer may be at hand, and long practice 

 has given flower-growers skill to note whether a plant 

 seems overfed or starved, and they give or withhold as the 

 case may be. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that some- 

 times a plant which seems starved is abundantly provided 

 with all sorts of nutriment except a single one, while 

 another plant which is overfed may only have a surplus of 

 one ingredient. 



Professor R. C. Kedzie therefore did a wise thing when 

 he read an address, at the late convention of the Society of 

 American Florists, devoted to the application of fertilizers to 

 plants for flower-growth. In a familiar way he told how 

 nine tenths of the substance of cultivated plants — carbon, 

 etc. — comes from the air, and that of the remaining 

 elements almost all of them are found in abundance in 

 ordinary garden soil, and explained that the florist needed 

 phosphorus, nitrogen and potash for his plants, just as the 

 farmer needs them for his crops. He showed them how 

 potash stood at the very portals of vegetable life to help the 

 chlorophyll cells in their work of active assimilation ; he 

 showed how phosphorus is closely in touch with the prin- 

 ciple of life from the very beginning, and is needed espe- 

 cially in the development of the root and leaf of all young 

 plants ; he showed, too, how the highest products of plant 

 life are all rich in nitrogen, and that when ihis element is 

 supplied in abundance there is a luxuriant growth and the 

 leaves acquire a particularly dark green color ; and just 

 here he made a practical suggestion. A riotous leaf- 

 growth is increased by the application of nitrates, but it is 

 sometimes accompanied by the arrest of fruit formation, 

 and the flowers become sterile and fall off and few 

 flower-buds are formed. Now, the superphosphates have 

 a direct tendency to the formation of flowers and fruits, and 

 in this fact may be found a corrective for the tendency of 

 nitrogenous manures to excessive leafage just as the farmer 

 uses the soluble phosphates to hasten the setting and ripen- 

 ing of his crops. An instance in orchard practice was cited 

 which illustrated this point. A large collection of Pear- 

 trees had been set out on rich ground, and they grew 

 vigorously until the trees were of large size, but they bore 

 no fruit. The farmer was advised to give the orchard a 

 liberal dressing of plain superphosphate, which he did, 

 with the result that the orchard produced a crop of pears 

 in one year that sold for enough money to pay for the 

 whole farm. Now, since the woody growth of a Pear 

 orchard can thus be turned to fruitfulness, it might seem 

 that the plants which have been forced into making a great 

 leaf-growth by nitrate of soda might be induced to ener- 

 getic flowering with a superphosphate, and in this way the 

 alternate use of the two kinds of manure could be turned 

 to practical advantage. 



But this is only a single example of what might de done 

 by the use of different nutrients. Well-rotted stable manure 

 contains all the elements of plant-food, and it has a benefi- 

 cent effect on the mechanical condition of many kinds of 

 soil. It probably helps, too, in another way by furnishing 

 a congenial home for the various bacteria and other organ- 

 isms which are necessary to prepare the mineral ingre- 

 dients of plants for absorption. The use of abundant stable 

 manure in many of the market-gardens of Long Island has 

 filled the soil with humus to such a degree that no more is 

 needed, and, therefore, in many instances commercial fer- 

 tilizers are used entirely. No doubt, soil of such a richness 

 and texture can be prepared by florists that no plant-food 

 need be used except the three elements which are found in 

 the so-called "perfect" fertilizers of commerce. And just 

 here is the opportunity for many experiments which may 

 bring results of genuine practical value. It might be shown 

 wdiat proportion of each was best adapted to given soils or 

 particular plants, or for special purposes. It woul 

 interesting to know whether an excess of either nutrient 

 would be useful in prolonging the flower season, in mak- 

 ing flowers more lasting, in the particular development of 

 leaves in foliage plants and in numerous other directions. 



Professor Kedzie advises as a practical matter that the 

 best way to furnish potash for general use is to give it in the 

 form of ashes. Indeed, he names wood ashes as a fertilizer 

 of the first importance. These ashes contain all the mineral 

 matter of plant-growth, and without this matter in some 

 form no plant can grow. Tin- potash, too. is more active than 

 it is in some chemical conditions, because it is alkaline and 

 the ash contains in a very finely developed condition all 

 the remaining minerals that are taken up by plants. The 



