1 86 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 17, 18 



Carnations for Winter Blooming. 



NEARLY all the varieties of Carnations grown in America 

 for winter blooming are of American origin. Many of the 

 best English kinds have been tried, but few have proved use- 

 ful. Most of the imported kinds are too vigorous — " too 

 grassy," to use an old grower's expression. The flowers are 

 too full as a rule, and incline to burst. The majority of our 

 varieties are dwarf in habit, being almost self-supporting. 

 The flowers are thin, but of fine form, and I think these varie- 

 ties would be useless out-doors in England owing to this very 

 fact. 



Mr. Tailby, of Wellesley, who raised Grace Wilder, a very 

 popular variety, with rose-colored flowers, says that when 

 Americans began to grow Carnations, planted out on beds and 

 benches, they found the old English varieties, which they had 

 been accustomed to grow in pots, unsuitable, and therefore 

 commenced to raise seedlings, and they selected the dwarf 

 semi-double ones,' which to most people would appear worth- 

 less, using these as parents, though occasionally crossing 

 them with others of good habit and color, but with flowers of 

 indifferent form, to produce, if possible, the kind adapted to 

 our needs. The work was tedious, and only those having a 

 real love for it could continue, for good time and space often 

 went for nothing. Many of the seedlings, when first bloom- 

 ing, would appear satisfactory, but when propagated and pre- 

 pared in the usual way would turn out worthless, and, again, 

 others taken up, after being virtually discarded, have turned 

 out well. 



We have excellent scarlets in Alegetaire, Florence and an 

 unnamed seedling; good crimsons in Anna Webb and Orient; 

 violets in Victor and Century ; salmon in Madame RoUicker 

 and another unnamed seedling. The only excellent rose- 

 colored variety we have now is Grace Wilder. The good yel- 

 low, for winter blooming, has yet to be found. Pride of Pens- 

 hurst has lovely form and color, but poor habit, and is very 

 late, as also is Belle Halliday. Andalusia is early enough, but 

 of poor habit and form. Of striped yellow varieties of mod- 

 erate earliness and fair form. Buttercup is the best. Madame 

 Carle is the best white we have, of fine form and color, a free 

 bloomer, of good habit, but a little late. Snowden is an old 

 stand-by, likely to hold its own. The flowers are of good 

 form, but small. Mr. Tailby has a pure white sport from 

 Grace Wilder, which he intends naming Our Mary. 



The practice is to strike cuttings in benches or boxes filled 

 with rather coarse sand, with just enough plastic matter in it 

 to retain moisture, and made very solid by beating with a 

 brick. The cuttings require very little preparation. An expe- 

 rienced man would put in 2,000 per day. No knife is used, 

 the tips, with only two to three joints, being snapped off. 

 They are put in with a common dibbler, which is not driven 

 into the sand farther than is necessary to insert the cuttings, 

 and there is little prospect of their rooting unless set firmly in 

 the sand. 



The cuttings are kept saturated with water and shaded until 

 they stand well up under sunlight. Pricking off into boxes, or 

 potting into thumb-pots, is the next work. Sandy loam should 

 be used, and made firm in the pots. As soon as established, 

 and growth enough made to allow the tips to be pinched out, 

 this is done and continued until about the second week in 

 July, when they are allowed to develop flowering-stems. A 

 good, heavy loam is the most suitable soil to grow them in, 

 both in the houses as well as when in preparation out-doors. 

 A good, airy house, with night temperature of 50° suits the 

 plants. The foliage should never be wet unless a bright day 

 is assured. During January a top-dressing of wood-ashes and 

 leaf-soil is given, which helps the blooming along until May. 



Wellesley, Mass. T. D. Hatfield. 



Memoranda from a Northern Garden. 



T7OR several years I have been interested in a little native 

 •*• plant found, according to Mr. Pringle, in few localities 

 in Vermont — the Strawberry Elite — Blittim capitatum. Spin- 

 ach will not winter in my grounds, but the Elite does not 

 mind the cold, however severe ; and as it starts into growth 

 the moment the snow departs, it makes as early greens as the 

 Dandelion, and to my taste quite as good as Spinach. The 

 Elite is a pretty persistent weed, so far as reproduction from 

 seed goes ; and the seeds are almost as small and quite as 

 numerous as those of Purslane, yet it is easily killed with the 

 hoe. The brilliant crimson color of its pulpy but insipid fruit, 

 with its abundance, makes the Elite a pretty plant in the flow- 

 er-garden, when well grown. 



Speaking of Purslane reminds me that though it grows 

 here as freely and as rankly as it grew in my old Kentucky 



home, it is worth nothing for greens, for it will not cook ten- 

 der when grown so far north. I find the same trouble with 

 Okra, the dwarf, early form of which grows and forms pods 

 freely enough in my garden ; but they are worthless for use, 

 being hard and woody before they are half grown. 



In most years I manage to get fairly good Water-melons 

 and Musk-melons in my garden, from seed started in pots 

 under glass, and transplanted about the tenth of June. Even 

 last year my whole crop of Christiana ripened nicely before 

 the frost of September 5th destroyed the vines ; but the first 

 ripe one was twelve days later than the season before. Of 

 course we can grow later sorts by giving each hill a hot-bed 

 to itself, and not moving them. The famous Montreal 

 melons are grown in that way. 



Growers about New York decry the Montreal melon as 

 large, but coarse and insipid. Those who have eaten it in its 

 home know much better than that, and some in New York, 

 at least, have had a chance to try those which have been 

 shipped in from Montreal, as they have been quite abundantly 

 in some seasons. The whole secret is, I think, that the Long 

 Island and New Jersey gardeners have not learned the trick of 

 growing them properly. These big melons are gross feeders, 

 and must have ground much richer than that on which 

 smaller sorts will succeed. 



Newport, vt. T. H. Hosktns. 



Heating Green-houses. 



pROFESSOR S. T. MAYNARD has been conducting some 

 ^ interesting experiments to ascertain the relative value of 

 steam and hot water for heating green-houses, and a report of 

 the conclusions reached are given in a late Bulletin of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Agricultural C@llege Experiment Station. Two 

 green-houses of the same size — -seventy-five by eighteen feet — 

 were constructed as nearly alike as possible in every particu- 

 lar. Two boilers of the same pattern and make were put in, 

 and one was fitted for steam to heat the east house, and one 

 for hot water to heat the west and more exposed house. 

 Records of temperature were made five times a day, and from 

 these the following averages are taken for the month of 

 January: Average out-door temperature, 29.1°. For the house 

 heated by hot water the in-door minimum daily temperature 

 averaged 42.7°; maximum daily temperature, 55.1°. Average 

 in-door temperature, 47.5°. In the steam-heated house the 

 temperature varied between 41° and 55.1°, with an average of 

 45.9°. The coal consumed in the hot-water house was 2,532 

 pounds, and in the steam-heated house 3,220 pounds. In Feb- 

 ruary the average in-door temperature of the hot-water house 

 was 49.6°, with a total coal consumption of 2,642 pounds, and 

 of the other house the average temperature was 47.9°, and the 

 coal consumption 3,362 pounds. According to this test hot 

 water, with nearly twenty per cent, less coal, gave a tempera- 

 ture 1.7° higher, and a temperature, too, more uniform than 

 that furnished by steam heat. 



This only shows that for this mild winter, and with these 

 particular machines, hot water has proved more economical 

 and satisfactory as a method of heating than steam in houses 

 constructed like these two. Still, so far as it goes, it is a fair 

 test, and we are not aware that any similar trial has been con- 

 ducted. In larger houses and in a colder winter the result 

 inight have been difterent, and Professor Maynard is prepar- 

 ing for careful and accurately recorded comparisons for 

 another year. Meanwhile he invites all who have kept records 

 of the temperature of their green-houses, together with the 

 amount of coal consumed, to send him the figures, giving also 

 the size of the house and the kind of apparatus used. 



Spring Flowers. 



/^WING to the exceptionally mild spring, hardy-flowering 

 ^-^ plants and bulbs are making a display fully two weeks in 

 advance of their usual flowering period. First in the order of 

 flowering comes Ranunculus anemonoides, with its masses of 

 Anemone-like, pale pink flowers, an inch across, pro- 

 duced in advance of the much-divided, glaucous-green 

 leaves. This plant is comparatively new, being introduced 

 into cultivation from the Styrian Alps in 1883, and it is acharm- 

 ing little plant. R. atiemonoides succeeds well in a moist 

 position in the open border. Fritillaria pudica has been 

 noticeable for its pretty, pendent yellow flowers, usually solitary, 

 on stems six to eight inches high, and lasting a month in good 

 condition. This plant is a native of the western states. Cculterin 

 his "Manual "gives it as distributed through "Utah and M )ntana 

 to the Sierra Nevada and British Columbia." It cannot, how- 

 ever, be very plentiful, as collectors refuse to supply it a '; any 



