436 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 295. 



The boxes of young plants stood out-of-doors during Septem- 

 ber, and it was probable that the eggs were laid upon the 

 plants at that time. Heads began to form early in December, 

 and on the 13th of January, four and a half months from the 

 seed, the first ones were ready to sell. The Erfurt was earliest, 

 and as the house was needed for other experiments the plants 

 were removed on the 20th of January. At this time nearly 

 three-fourths of the crop had matured sufficiently to give mar- 

 ketable heads, although many of them were small. Like all 

 forced crops, winter cauliflower should be sold when small, 

 for products of medium size or smaller will sell for quite as 

 much as large ones in winter, and the cost of raising them is 

 less. 



Heads four inches across sold in January at the door for 

 twenty cents each. On the 25th of January a second crop of 

 early Snowball and Dwarf Erfurt plants was set in the beds 

 from seed sown on the 21st of October. On the 20th of March 

 heads were formed on early Snowball, and a week later some 

 plants had heads three to four inches in diameter, while the 

 Erfurt plants showed none. The first heads sold on the 29th 

 of March, five and one-third months from the date of sowing, 

 a little longer interval than in the case of the first crop, because 

 the later plants were grown in the dark, short days of midwinter. 

 The climate of Ithaca, too, is excessively cloudy, and the forc- 

 ing of plants presents special difficulties there. Owing to dark 

 weather, and, perhaps, to mismanagement, many of the heads 

 in the first crop had begun to button or break into irregular 

 portions, with a tendency to go to seed when the plants were 

 removed. An attempt was now made to keep them at a uni- 

 form, but not an exuberant growth, to prevent this trouble. 

 The crop held well till the first of May, when the experiment 

 closed and there were many merchantable heads still left. 

 Ninety per cent, of the plants made good heads, which is a 

 large proportion for even the best field-culture. They were 

 allowed to attain a size of six inches, which is larger than the 

 midwinter crop. It is rarely necessary to bleach the head of 

 a Snowball cauliflower, although late in April it may be neces- 

 sary to break a leaf down over the head now and then to pro- 

 tect it from too hot sun, but generally they will be perfectly 

 white under glass when full-grown. The plants were grown 

 under a single-thick, third-quality glass, and the heads were as 

 sweet and tender as the very best field product. Altogether, 

 no crop grown under glass at the station, of vegetables or 

 flowers, was so satisfactory or attracted so much attention as 

 these crops of cauliflower. 



As to variefies, there is little choice between the Erfurt and 

 Snowball strains. In the most successful crop the Snowball 

 was earlier, but otherwise it had little, if any, superiority. The 

 attempt to grow Lettuce between the Cauliflowers was unsuc- 

 cessful, but the two borders of the beds give good crops of 

 Chinese mustard, which makes delicious greens in winter. 



The sum of the matter seems to be about this: Cauliflowers 

 can be grown easily as a winter crop if they are kept in vigor- 

 ous and uniform growth. They need a rich soil, with careful 

 attention to watering, cultivation and ventilation, and a cool 

 temperature like that employed for Lettuce. They need no 

 bottom-heat. They should be set in beds when from six weeks 

 to three months old, according to the season, and heads will 

 be fit for market in from four to five months. The heads re- 

 quire no bleaching, and are ready for sale when from four to 

 six inches in diameter. 



Mushrooms. 



THERE are few gardens containing special arrangements 

 for the culture of Mushrooms, as caves and houses 

 specially built for this purpose are not often seen. But 

 places that are suitable for the production of a crop without 

 any expenditure, except for the material and labor, are quite 

 common in almost every garden where the greenhouses are 

 built on the modern plan with benches or stages in the inte- 

 rior. We have a house wherein are two centre benches of 

 Chrysanthemums ; the benches are about three feet from the 

 ground, and under these is the natural soil or gravel floor. By 

 placing hemlock-boards on edge against the legs of the benches 

 we have at once as good a Mushroom-bed as can be desired, 

 and hitherto have not failed of a crop. One cart-load of 

 manure is available a week, and this is spread out-of-doors 

 to dry, and is turned over every day once or twice. At night 

 it is heaped up and shutters are placed over it in case of rain, 

 and in a week it is dry enough to make into beds indoors. I 

 like to have it so dry that the hands are not soiled by contact, 

 and that it does not contain moisture enough to cause it to 

 stick to the bricks used to make the beds firm. The old-time 



plan of mixing loam with the manure is a good one, especially 

 if a heap of perfectly dry loam is prepared and covered up 

 during summer. The loam will then act first as an absorbent 

 of ammonia, and, besides this, as a regidator of the heat of the 

 newly made beds, for whenever a bed heats violently — say, 

 over 100 degrees, Fahrenheit — the heat is rarely sustained as 

 long as desirable to promote a healthy spreading of the myce- 

 lium, or spawn, through the bed, without which there cannot, 

 of course, be any success. As soon as it is certain that the 

 heat will not be violent we plant the spawn and cover with 

 loam when the heat is on the decline, and if the temperature 

 of the bed is still decreasing about six inches of hay is put on 

 as a covering. This brings the heat up again through the 

 spawn to the surface of the bed. Our first-made beds stand 

 now at eighty-five degrees, and will not vary more than five 

 degrees until the crop appears. 



After the first crop is gathered a good soaking of manure- 

 water is applied — that from the cow-barn is best — and we get a 

 second and sometimes a third crop from the beds before the 

 warm days of spring make it too hot a place for success. 

 It should be stated that the minimum temperature of the house 

 is fifty degrees, and fire-heat is rarely used until the Chrvsan- 

 themum-buds begin to show color ; after these are past, Violets 

 are grown in the same benches with hybrid Roses, for spring 

 flowering, the side tables being occupied with Pinks perma- 

 nently. 



I fear we are too liable to blame the spawn for lack of suc- 

 cess, for there are many other causes of failure, only to be 

 found out by careful watching. Scarcely any two growers agree 

 in the minutiae of their practice, and there certainly seems to 

 be no royal road to assured success. Each season we 

 gather a quantity of the very best Mushrooms from a bench 

 containing Mignonette. We have gathered there already and 

 shall continue to do so, more or less, all winter. The soil in 

 the benches is twelve inches deep and is made very rich ; the 

 material from an old bed is mixed in at the time of putting in 

 the soil, the last week in July, and manure-water is used just 

 as soon as the Mignonette is ready to cut. This season we 

 have spawned a portion of the Mignonette-bed to see how this 

 will result. The cool, moist bed of soil in which the Mignon- 

 ette grows seems just suited to the development of the best 

 Musifirooms, but it must be remembered that the spawn runs 

 during the period of warm weather, when the bed is not kept 

 so moist as it is later, when the Mignonette requires frequent 

 watering. 



South Lancaster, Mass. E. 0. Or pet. 



Noteworthy Late-flowering Shrubs. 



GOOD late autumn-flowering shrubs, hardy enough to live 

 out-of-doors in winter, are few and much to be desired in 

 northern gardens. In fact, those generally known, and which 

 normally produce their bloom in October, exceed hardly a half- 

 dozen in number. There are, however, a considerable num- 

 ber of species which, while they properly blossom much 

 earlier in the season, persist in producing flowers on new 

 growths of wood, until finally checked by frosts. 



Among the true autumn-flowering woody plants there are 

 none so common in many parts of our country, and yet gen- 

 erally so little known and appreciated, as our native Witch- 

 hazel, Hamamelis Virginiana. Different plants, even in the 

 same locality, vary greatly in the fime of flowering, so that the 

 little clusters of buds may be found opening and the narrow, 

 long, pale yellow petals expanding during September and Oc- 

 tober, and well into the month of November, if the season is 

 favorable in this latitude. There is considerable variation 

 among these plants, in the size and abundance of bloom as 

 well as in the time of flowering, and some particularly fine or 

 free-blooming forms might be profitably selected for culfiva- 

 tion and propagation. The Witch-hazel will grow well in any 

 ordinary soil and does not require unusual moisture, as is t^ 

 commonly supposed. It is of a rather straggling habit of ' 

 growth, and where it abounds naturally it may, therefore, be 

 enjoyed in its native haunts ; but where it is less common it 

 is interesting enough to have a corner in the garden. In 

 autumn the foliage gradually fades from green to a pale yel- 

 low color. 



Alders usually blossom in early spring, but the sea-side 

 Alder, Alnus maritima, is an exception to this rule, as it pro- 

 duces its slender male catkins in the autumn, or in the latter 

 part of September, in this latitude. It is a rather rare plant, 

 and does not possess any particular value for cultivation, ex- 

 cept for its unusual time of flowering. 



Though by no means what is called a hardy plant, an ex- 

 ceedingly interesting and beautiful one throughout the 



