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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, .1907 



Farm and Garden News 



A BREED of horses that is being devel- 

 oped at the Colorado Agricultural Col- 

 lege, at Fort Collins, in cooperation with the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, ap- 

 pears to have some promising characteristics. 

 The object in view has been to develop a first- 

 class carriage horse that has plenty of "go" 

 combined with great powers of endurance. 



The ever-blooming dwarf rose, popularly 

 called the Baby Rambler, its real name 

 being Madame Norbert de Lavavesseur, 

 has quickly become one of the most popu- 

 lar garden plants, because of its persistent 

 energy in flowering. Little slips of plants 

 only two or three inches high will be laden 

 with flowers, and during the past season, 

 advantage was taken of this fact by one of the 

 ten-cent bargain stores which offered thou- 

 sands of plants, each one in a 2-inch pot and 

 flowering, at ten cents each. We now learn 

 that there is a white counterpart of the red 

 rose which will probably be introduced next 

 season under the name of Madame Zeinet. 



D. Willis James of Morristown, N. J., 

 has for many years been a distinguished 

 patron of advanced horticulture. He died 

 the 13 th of September. As a patron of 

 horticulture, he occupied a unique position, 

 being particularly interested in new and 

 rare stove and greenhouse plants. His 

 greenhouses contained some of the most 

 perfect specimens and in many cases unique 

 examples in America of many remarkable 

 palms, dracaenas, etc. His collection of 

 plants was entirely that of rare gems such as 

 are usually found only in botanical gardens, 

 where, however, they are also surrounded 

 by the commoner kinds. With Mr. James 

 the idea was selective, not collective. 



The Middle West has found a new use for 

 the straw and corn cobs which heretofore it 

 was necessary to burn in order to get them 

 out of the way. On June 15th, at Beatrice, 

 Neb., a plant was put into operation which 

 manufactures illuminating gas from straw, 

 corn-cobs and things of that sort. The gas 

 is sold to the residents for one dollar per 1,000 

 feet, which is seven dollars less per 1,000 feet 

 than the price charged for coal gas by a com- 

 pany in the same city. Ton for ton more gas 

 was produced from the vegetable matter than 

 could be produced from the best Pennsyl- 

 vania coal, 16,000 cu. ft. being taken from 

 a ton of cobs and straw, which is 60 per cent 

 more than the coal could have produced. 

 Another advantage of the vegetable gas is 

 that it produces 660 British thermal units of 

 heat against 600 units for the coal gas. From 

 now on, there is no reason why towns of the 

 Middle West should not be provided with 

 gas plants for there is an abundance of fuel 

 which may be had for the hauling, which 

 costs only a very small amount per ton. It 

 costs just six dollars a ton in Beatrice, Neb., 

 for coal from which to manufacture gas. 

 Gas plants already in operation can be 

 converted over to use straw and such like 

 for a very small amount. 



The producer of soft fruit, especially the 

 one who looks to the money return from his 

 crop, will be interested in the appearance of 

 an automatic fruit weighing machine which 

 saves considerable handling. According to 

 Professor G. Harold Powell, nearly nine- 

 tenths of the total decay of fruit is due to 

 mechanical injury, and the importance of 

 anything that will reduce this is self-evident, 

 and it is claimed that this machine will elimi- 

 nate 60 per cent, of the injury due to hand- 

 ling. This has already been put into use in 

 some California orchards. 



A very striking illustration of the benefits 

 which may be derived from a parasitic insect 

 preying on an orchard pest was found in 

 the Grand Valley, Colorado, this last summer. 

 During the last few days of July and the first 

 days of August, some orchards which were 

 badly infested with the woolly aphis were 

 cleaned of every insect above the ground by 

 the larvae of the aphis-lion, lady beetles, and 

 syrphus-flies. It is a pity that the insects 

 lack the ability to attack the woolly aphis 

 below the ground, for it is there it does 

 its worst work by attacking the roots, and 

 can be attacked only with insecticides. The 

 woolly aphis is not the only insect infesting 

 our orchards and any bird or insect which will 

 reduce the damage should be fostered, for 

 at the present time, man in his infinite 

 wisdom has upset Nature's equilibrium and 

 as a result we are paying out thousands of 

 dollars each year for spraying mixtures and 

 machines to do the work which Nature once 

 cared for. 



Little by little, we are getting authentic 

 record of the work done among varieties of 

 vegetables — we mean, work of a strictly 

 scientific character. It is no light task to 

 take one of the popular garden vegetables and 

 bring order out of the chaotic multitude of 

 varieties and multiplicity of names. It is 

 almost certain that the man who does it will 

 never get his due reward of thanks. But the 

 worst of it is that the work when it is done 

 does not reach the great public, and they con- 

 sequently go on ordering names year after 

 year in the hope of planting something better 

 than they had before, only to find the same 

 old bean, or the same old lettuce turns up 

 perennially. The most recent work of this 

 character is a monograph of "American 

 Varieties of Garden Beans" prepared by 

 W. W. Tracy, Jr., and issued by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture during the 

 past year. In looking over the work of this 

 sort, one is surprised first of all at finding how 

 many hundred names there are, the second 

 shock coming from the realization that a 

 great many of these names are unnecessary 

 duplicates. The best varieties of olden days 

 crop up afresh continually under new desig- 

 nations. Other monographs of the same 

 nature devoted to vegetables are one on 

 "Sweet Corn" by Sturtevant, one on "The 

 Garden Peppers" by Irish and another on 

 "Lettuces" by Tracy. We wish some one 

 would monograph potatoes and onions. We 

 could promise a great deal of amusement over 

 the latter. 



The highest priced daffodil offered for 

 sale this year was Peter Barr, said to be the 

 largest white trumpet daffodil. It was of- 

 fered at $105 a bulb. The best substitute for 

 it available in America is Mme. de Graaf 

 which was catalogued at $7.50 a dozen. 



There are thousands of acres of barren 

 sandy land in the New England States which 

 were cleared for farming purposes and later 

 abandoned. This land can be made a profit- 

 able investment provided one is willing to 

 wait forty years for the returns, and the white 

 pine is the crop to grow. It will cost about $51 

 to plant and care for an acre for forty years. 



At this time of year, it will be well to re- 

 member that the San Jose and other scales are 

 capable of doing some of their most serious 

 damage to our fruit and ornamental trees 

 during the winter. Professor J. B. Smith 

 once suggested a very easy proof of this. 

 Cut a scale-infested branch from a living 

 tree. In a few months, the scales will all be 

 dead while those yet remaining on the tree 

 will be living. Clearly, the scale lived on the 

 juices it was able to suck. Other commoner 

 trees and shrubs, which go into the winter 

 in fair condition, are dead by the spring, 

 having succumbed to the effects of scale, 

 when perhaps want of water or lack of 

 hardiness has been ascribed. Therefore, 

 spray your trees. 



The automobile has passed out of the class 

 of the farm possibility; it is a necessity. 

 The progressive agriculturist in the Middle 

 West States finds abundant scope for the use 

 of the auto wagon, and wisely figures that it 

 is more economical to use his horses in draft 

 and tillage work on the farm than it is to use 

 them for travel and other pleasure purposes 

 on the road. The auto car answers the latter 

 purpose without in any way interfering with 

 the farm operations, and is daily becoming 

 a greater factor in every-day life. The use 

 of the gasolene power engine on the farm 

 has familiarized the farmer with the possi- 

 bilities of this class of machine, and it merely 

 remains for the manufacturers to place before 

 the consumer a suitable type of wagon. 

 -«■ 



Although the sweet pea does not make 

 such a noise in the world as it did during 

 the time of its boom about ten years ago, 

 it still remains — as we hope it ever will — 

 one of the most highly esteemed of the annual 

 flowers. There is no need for us to voice 

 its merits — that has all been done before. 

 The chief interest now centres in the large- 

 flowered type called " orchid- flowered " of 

 which the Countess of Spencer is the pro- 

 totype. These have flowers which are not 

 only large but there is a beautiful wavy effect 

 on the ample standard that gives it much 

 distinction. The name "orchid" has been 

 derived from the suggestion that it resembles 

 the texture of one of the petals of a cattleya. 

 When the flowers are grown under glass, 

 these standards are much more beautiful 

 than from flowers grown in the open. There 

 are several new varieties of this type to be 

 offered next year. 



