538 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 305. 



delicate pale-blue corolla, with a pink centre, diameter about 

 three inches. (2) Corolla, white, with the faintest blue tint, 

 like some forms of white iron-stone china, and covered with 

 deep blue spots as large or larger than a pin-head ; diameter 

 of flower about two and a half inches. (3) Corolla, deep pur- 

 ple, with a lighter purple shading on the margin of each petal, 

 with pink centre, the line of demarkation between the two 

 purple colors being most distinct ; diameter about two and a 

 half inches. (4) Corolla, light purple, with pink centre ; diam- 

 eter about three inches. (5) A very large light blue flower, 

 edged with an incurved line of white, the white line having a 

 depth of about one-fourth of an inch at its widest point. (6) 

 Color, a peculiar shade of brilliant red, quite unlike any other 

 shade of Morning-glory that I have ever seen ; diameter two 

 and a half inches. 



These Japanese Morning-glories are in every particular as 

 vigorous as the common one, though they perhaps do not 

 fiower quite so freely, and make a charming variety when 

 clambering over a trellis. 



Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind. C. S. Plumb. 



[The Morning-glory is one of the eight plants whose 

 flowers the Japanese chiefly value, the others being the 

 Apricot (Mume), the Cherry, the Wistaria, the Peeony, the 

 Iris, the Lotus and the Chrysanthemum. The species most 

 generally cultivated is Ipomoea triloba, a native of China, 

 which blooms in Tokyo at midsummer. The plants are 

 grown in small pots, and neatly trained around bamboo 

 stakes about three feet long, three or four flowers only be- 

 ing produced on a plant at one time. In all the little nur- 

 sery-gardens in the suburbs of Tokyo and of the other 

 large cities collections of the plants are grown and offered 

 for sale, thousands being disposed of every year in Tokyo 

 alone. Amateurs, too, devote a good deal of attention to the 

 cultivation of these plants, and pay large prices for certain 

 fashionable forms with peculiarly marked or abnormally 

 formed flowers, in which the Japanese delight, although to 

 less carefully educated eyes they may appear simple abom- 

 inations. The city of Osaka is said to contain the best private 

 collections. We have seen a Japanese book in which hun- 

 dreds of named varieties are described and illustrated by 

 colored drawings. At Iriya, in Shitaya, a suburb of Tokyo, 

 every summer the gardeners make a display of Morning- 

 glories, which they use as they do Chrysanthemums in the 

 autumn in decorating with growing plants life-size human 

 figures placed on revolving stages. Every morning thou- 

 sands of persons visit this exhibition, which is, perhaps, the 

 most curious midsummer spectacle that can be seen in the 

 capital, but, as the flowers close soon after sunrise, a person 

 living at one of the foreign hotels has to be up by 2 a.m. in 

 order to reach the gardens in time to see them at their best, 

 so that comparatively few foreigners, unless they happen 

 to be enthusiastic horticulturists, ever visit it. — Ed.] 



Roses in Washington. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Perhaps the largest establishment in the country where 

 Roses are grown for cut flowers is that of Messrs. C. Strauss & 

 Co., situated on the Blademburg Road, two and a half miles 

 from the Capitol in Washington. Here are forty-four houses, 

 ranging from 115 to 320 feet long, making altogether more 

 than five acres under glass. While the principal business here 

 is the sale of cut roses, a large trade in plants, especially in 

 Rose-plants, is done in the spring, and there are thirty-two 

 acres of land connected with the houses in which Gladiolus, 

 Tuberose, Cosmos, Roses and other flowers are grown for sale 

 during the summer. The demands of the home market alone 

 do not suffice to keep a business like this running at high 

 pressure, and, as a matter of fact, flowers are shipped to 

 wholesale dealers in all parts of the country. Not many are 

 sent to the vicinity of New York, Philadelphia or Boston, which 

 are themselves large centres of supply, but to Cincinnati, St. 

 Louis, Chicago and St. Paul, in the west, as far as to Maine, in 

 the north, and to Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine and 

 nearly all the cities of the south large shipments are constantly 

 made, mostly of roses ; but there is room enough for a matter of 

 50,000 Carnation-plants here, and the benches on which they 

 are planted are fringed with Pansies and other plants. Two 

 thousand Sweet Peas are preparing to bloom, and in different 

 houses there are Palms, Ferns, Dracaenas, Pandanus Veitchii 



and Rubber-plants in sufficient quantity to stock a considera- 

 ble business in this line alone. 



At a recent visit to Washington I was conducted through 

 the establishment by Mr. Hugh A. Kane, one of the firm, and 

 found acre after acre of plants all in the vigor of perfect health, 

 and with the added beauty which always comes from perfect 

 cleanliness and careful arrangement. Of the Roses grown for 

 cut flowers the so-called white form of La France takes the 

 lead in number of plants, there being some 20,000 of these 

 now in the beds. The flower, as is well known, is not white, 

 although lighter than the La France, but it has the same silvery 

 sheen and the same fragrance, and for all purposes it seems 

 better than the type. It is a stronger grower, yields better and 

 the flowers last longer. In the autumn chrysanthemums seem 

 to have the preference over all other flowers, so that roses 

 are in light demand at that season ; on the other hand. May, 

 and even June, are excellent months for rose-sales, and there- 

 fore the plants are set out later than they are in some places, 

 but just in time to have their first heavy crop about Christmas, 

 although they are now yielding well. They were put in the 

 house about the ist of July, and have been blossoming since 

 October, and will continue to bloom on till August. The 

 method of cultivation pursued here does not differ substan- 

 tially from that generally practiced elsewhere, although in the 

 selection of varieties no Hybrid Perpetuals are grown. Ex- 

 periments, however, are always in progress for the purpose of 

 testing new plants and new processes. In one long house, 

 where the centre stage had been removed for repairs, a solid 

 bed of Kaiserin Augusta Victoria had been planted on the 

 ground. For half the length of the house two-year old plants, 

 which had been lifted from the bench at the close of the cutting 

 season in August, were planted in soil without any bottom- 

 heat, while in the other half young plants, which were started 

 late in May, were planted in the same way, except that steam- 

 pipes were running through the drainage. Flowers of im- 

 mense size were growing on strong stems, and vigorous shoots 

 were starting up from the ground among the old plants. In 

 the other half of the bed the young plants were making a 

 wonderful growth, and seemed altogether superior to some 

 other plants of the same age on a side bed which were not 

 treated in this way. Altogether, this planting on the ground 

 with bottom-heat looked like an improvement on the old 

 methods. Of course, experiments are constantly made with 

 new Roses, and something like a himdred varieties have been 

 imported during this year, and are now under trial. The 

 great bulk of the sales, however, are from half a dozen kinds, 

 the leading variety being the white La France, followed in 

 order by Catherine Mermet, Perle des Jardins, the Bride, 

 which will probably be superseded entirely by Kaiserin Au- 

 gusta Victoria, American Beauty, American Belle and Sou- 

 venir de Wootton. 



In examining the construcdon of the houses, it is note- 

 worthy that the newer ones are all built with roofs high above 

 the stages, and instead of having the plants close to the 

 glass, abundant light is secured by using a very clear quality 

 of glass twenty-fourinches wideand double-thick. Asa matter 

 of course, all the improved appliances forgiving a free circula- 

 tion of air are in use here. In one place I noted five houses, 

 each 112 feet long and 18 feet wide, standing alongside of each 

 other, with no walls between them, so that they altogether 

 made practically a single apartment. The benches, which 

 were here filled with Carnations, stood something like five feet 

 above the ground, although, of course, the slatted walk between 

 them was raised to a convenient height for working in them. 

 This gave a great body of air below the benches as well as 

 above the plants, so that the house never cools off rapidly 

 when the temperature drops suddenly. In fact, steam had 

 been turned on in only a few of the pipes in every other 

 house so far this season. Certainly Carnations never looked 

 better than they did in this cluster of houses. The white varie- 

 ties grown here chiefly are Lizzie McGowan and Mrs. Fisher; 

 Grace Wilder is the preferred pink, while Lady Emma and 

 Portia are the principal scarlet kinds. Considerable quantities 

 are growing on trial of Daybreak, Edna Craig, Grace Battles, 

 Thomas Carflidge, Nancy Hanks, Ruth Cleveland and the very 

 dark Anna Webb. 



To furnish warmth for this great space there are two batte- 

 ries near each other, one consisting of eight No. 8 Furman 

 boilers, and the other of four forty-section Exeter boilers, 

 •These are so connected and adjusted that anyone of them can 

 be run alone, or any two or three or four of them together, so 

 that as many of them as are needed, and any particular 

 ones that are desired, can be used as required. The return 

 pipes from all the houses come and empty the condensed 

 steam into one delivery pipe connected directly with the 



