7 6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 313. 



Cultural Department. 



Propagation of Chrysanthemums. 



OPINIONS vary as to the proper time to insert cuttings in- 

 tended for specimen plants. For many years I put them 

 in about the middle of January, and while this gave them a 

 longer season of growth, it often happened that cuttings taken 

 so early ran to bloom when transferred to six-inch pots in 

 March. With no preparation for replacing the plants, these 

 varieties were lost for that season. Many of the best varieties 

 will bloom in this way, Viviand Morel being a noted instance. 

 My experience has been that cuttings struck toward the end of 

 February make good specimens. Preference should always be 

 given to root-cuttings over stem-cuttings, particularly if the cut- 

 tingsarefrom suckers. This is notal ways possible, however, and 

 I well remember an old and beautiful deep pink variety, 

 Damio, now almost lost to cultivation, as particularly shy in 

 producing cuttings of any kind. Very fair plants may also be 

 obtained from leaf-cuttings inserted with an eye, this being 

 often the only means of propagating a sport. Last season 

 some of my best flowers of Ni veus were obtained from leaf-cut- 

 tings. It is better, whenever this is practicable, to take stock 

 from plants which have been grown "cool." Many noted 

 cultivators are following this plan, and grow their stock- 

 plants out-of-doors until late in the autumn, when they are 

 stored in cold frames until required. The reason that so many 

 new varieties do poorly during the first season is that they have 

 been forced and propagated to exhaustion. 



We use a general propagating-bed where the bottom-heat is 

 steady at sixty-five degrees, with a minimum air temperature 

 of fifty degrees. This ensures quick rooting and gives us the 

 space for other stock. Cuttings will root with a temperature 

 as low as forty degrees, or even less, and in England it is cus- 

 tomary in many places to put them in pots in cold-frames. By 

 this plan, it is claimed, their constitution is strengthened, but 

 I do not think it makes so much difference, especially in a 

 plant which responds to good culture so quickly as the Chrys- 

 anthemum. Cuttings should be prepared with a good sharp 

 knife, and shorn of a few leaves and the tips, which are liable 

 to hang about the base of the cutting and encourage damping. 

 They should be put in firmly, and set far enough apart so as 

 not to touch, for when damping once commences it is almost 

 impossible to prevent its spread throughout the whole bed. A 

 liberal supply of water should be given for the first few days, 

 and the plants shaded when the sun shines, for they must at no 

 time be allowed to wilt. The cuttings should be rooted in 

 three weeks, when they may be potted off into small pots, 

 using a rather light soil, not made very firm. 



A list of well-tested standard varieties which make good 

 specimens includes : 



White. — Ivory, Joseph H. White, L. Canning, Miss Kate 

 Brown, White Gem, Mrs. W. G. Newitt, Parthenia, Mrs. Robert 

 Craig. 



Yellow.— L. C. Madiera, W. H. Lincoln, President Hyde, 

 Mrs. Walter Baker, Mrs. Hicks Arnold, Mr. H. Cannell, H. L. 

 Lunderbruch, Glorian, Fascination. 



Red. — C. Shrimpton, Cullingfordii, G. W. Childs, Gladiator, 

 C. B. Whitnall. 



Pink. — Duchess of Connaught, Irma, Mrs. M. W. Redfield, 

 Mrs. Fottler, Etoile de Lyon, Louis Bcehmer. 



Wellesley, Mass. T. D. Hatfield. 



Poinsettias. 



WHEN the Chrysanthemum season is over there is usually 

 a scarcity of flowering plants to brighten the conservatory 

 or greenhouse, and nothing, in my estimation, forms a more 

 striking display than a well-grown collection of Poinsettias. 

 Plants, from which the bracts have faded or been cut off, should 

 now be kept dry and rested for a few weeks in a house where 

 a night temperature of forty-five to fifty degrees is maintained. 

 About March 10th they may be removed to a warmer house, 

 kept watered and freely syringed. By the end of the month a 

 plentiful crop of cuttings will have appeared, which may be 

 rubbed off at a heel and inserted in a sand-bed with a bottom- 

 heat of seventy-five degrees. The cuttings must be shaded 

 from sunshine and carefully watered until rooted, which 

 should be in about four weeks after insertion. It should never 

 be forgotten that any carelessness in overwatering may cause 

 the entire batch to damp off. 



When taken from the propagating-bed the young plants can 

 be placed in two-inch pots in a compost of leaf-soil and loam 

 in equal parts, With a dash of sharp sand added. They should 

 fie grown along in a house where they can have a night tem- 



perature of sixty degrees, and must be shaded from hot sun- 

 shine and grown well up to the light to keep them stocky. 

 Syringing twice a day is highly beneficial. About the end of 

 May the pots will be well filled with roots, and a shift may be 

 given to four-inch pots. A little well-dried cow-manure may 

 be added to the compost at this stage of their growth. From 

 the middle to the end of June the plants can be moved into a 

 frame and the pots half-plunged in ashes. By the middle of 

 July the plants will be ready for their next shift into six-inch 

 pots. At this potting we use a compost consisting of two parts 

 loam, one part dried cow-manure, one part leaf-mold and a 

 mixture of sand and powdered charcoal to keep the soil 

 porous. After this shift the plants are replaced in the frame 

 and kept freely ventilated, the sashes being tilted up, both back 

 and front, by night and day. A syringing in the evening of a 

 warm day is helpful. After remaining in the frame, perhaps, 

 ten days, we plunge the plants in a bed of ashes in the open 

 air, where we grow our Chrysanthemums. When the pots be- 

 gin to fill with roots, liquid-manure is applied twice a week. 

 Any liquid which suits the Chrysanthemums may be applied 

 to the Poinsettias. 



During the month of August it is well to stake up the plants 

 securely, as high winds are apt to break them off at the bot- 

 tom. When the cool nights of September come, the plants 

 should again be placed in a frame, for a low temperature will 

 cause loss of foliage quite as surely as overwatering will. 

 About September 20th we place our plants in a house where a 

 night temperature of sixty degrees is kept. If extra fine bracts 

 are desired, it is well at this time to shift the plants into eight- 

 inch pots. They must be kept close to the light and not 

 crowded. When the bracts begin to appear, liquid-manure 

 may be given freely, for Poinsettias are gross feeders. The 

 plants should never be allowed to become either dry or water- 

 logged, as the foliage will suffer in either case, and no plant 

 looks worse with poor foliage than a Poinsettia. Many of the 

 Poinsettias seen on private places are little better than long un- 

 sightly sticks with a few leaves on the top below the bract. As 

 much skill and attention are required to grow Poinsettias with 

 good foliage as to grow Orchids well. 



In early December, when the bracts are well developed, the 

 plants can be removed to a house ten degrees cooler. Among 

 Callas, Eupatoriums and. similar plants, Poinsettias make a 

 beautiful display, and last in good condition longer than any 

 other flower I know. At this time, February 14th, we have 

 bracts in good condition which were fully expanded in the 

 middle of December, and these measure from sixteen to 

 twenty-two inches in diameter. 



Of the several varieties of Poinsettias, P. pulcherima is the best 

 for all purposes ; P. plenissima, the so-called double scarlet 

 species, is useful, and P. pulcherima alba, while not pure 

 white, is desirable for variety. After the plants are dried off 

 and have started into growth they will attain an extra size if 

 they are shifted into larger pots. Several bracts will thus be 

 produced on each plant, but neither in size nor in appearance 

 are these as desirable as those grown on younger plants. 



Taunton. Mass. ■ W. N. Craig. 



Chinese Orchids. 



GROWERS of Orchids for cut flowers may be interested 

 in a few Chinese species that are easy of cultivation and 

 well suited for decorative purposes. The Chinese florists are 

 peculiarly conservatire in the matter of stock, and it is unusual 

 to find more than fifty genera represented in their gardens. 

 Novelties are scouted as new-fang-led innovations. It is only 

 the well-tried plants that have been hallowed by the apprecia- 

 tion of their forefathers, and endeared by association, that are 

 thought worthy of careful cultivation. And yet there are 

 thousands of native plants in the "Flowery Land" that rival 

 and excel the cultivated kinds ; but, as the ancient philoso- 

 phers who established the canons of taste in China did not 

 proclaim their beauty in some poem, they remain unappre- 

 ciated. I have often been amused, while botanizing in China, 

 to notice the look of tolerant compassion, and sometimes in- 

 credulous suspicion, with which the villagers regarded me 

 when it was explained to them that I was collecting wild plants. 

 They generally looked upon me as a harmless kind of ma- 

 niac, or else a prospector in search of gold or silver trying to 

 cloak nefarious designs under a silly pretext. 



The Chinese botanists have a crude plan of classifying plants, 

 but nothing approaching the Linnean or natural mode of clas- 

 sification in systematic analogy. Terrestial Orchids are called 

 Lan-fa — a general term for gynandrous plants and those with 

 a single flower on a peduncle. The epiphytal kinds are known 

 as Tiau-lan-fa, and the term is applied rather indiscriminately 



