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ODDS AND ENDS 



FROM EVERYWHERE 



3S5gsX 3ES£e: 



Lonicera Heckrotti 



THE articles by Mr. Wilson on the Lily and the 

 Rose, Shrubs, and Vines, have been decidedly 

 interesting. Perhaps it may seem presumptuous 

 to submit a correction — yet traits may be observed 

 by one who has a few garden pets that might escape 

 the larger view, and I do not like my favorite pink 

 Honeysuckle slighted. 



In praising the Lonicera Heckrotti in the Septem- 

 ber number of The Garden Magazine, Mr. Wilson 

 says it has no fragrance. I remember my first 

 disappointment in this, as it is scentless by day. 

 But after watching daily the rapid growth of the 

 purplish stems and fine glaucous foliage so beauti- 

 ful when hung with rain-drops or dew-covered, I 

 made the following notes: 



"Two clusters of pink Honeysuckle (L. Heckrotti) 

 are on the table here to-night, and I am pleased to 

 find they are fragrant after all. Scentless by day, 

 now the delicious fragrance fills the room and makes 

 me think of some flower — Cape Jasmine? But it is 

 too light and uncloying, and more of a spicy, nut- 

 meg scent. The flowers themselves are beautiful, 

 a pink shaded lilac outside, and yellow inside by 

 day; but when newly opened at the hour of fra- 

 grance they are blush white and the stamens orange- 

 pink. Evidently a night-bloomer for all its gay 

 color — and such large clusters!" 



Orlando, Fla. Mrs. Geo. I. Russell. 



Keeping the Greenhouse Full 



I HAVE a greenhouse 25 feet long attached to 

 my residence. Every year it is empty between 

 June and September; last summer I concluded to 

 utilize it and did so very profitably, too. I planted 

 on one bench lettuce and have since had a con- 

 tinuous supply of it. 



My greatest pleasure, however, was in the 

 growing of the bush muskmelon. I started them 

 in small pots in April, later transplanting each vine 

 to a 12-inch pot, the soil for which was made up of 

 leafmold, well rotted cow manure, some sand and 

 rotted sod. I put two pots nearly side by side, so 

 spacing them that the entire 24 pots occupied one 

 bench. Between the pots I nailed strips of laths, 

 and as the vines of these bush melons are only about 

 eighteen inches long there was plenty of room for 

 them. I could watch them closely, keep them well 

 -watered, and free from all insects. 



Ohio. Albert Herzing. 



Budding Seedling Pecans 



SOME "back-to-the-landers" try pecan culture, 

 and they avoid paying nurserymen's prices 

 for named varieties by growing seedlings. Seed- 

 lings are not a profitable form of pecan tree to 

 grow; they come into bearing late and, like seedling 

 apples, are usually of little use commercially. 



To make these seedling trees productive was a 

 task that Prof. W. N. Hutt of North Carolina 

 undertook to solve. Several years of experiment 

 work has pfoven that the common forms of grafting 

 and budding are not a success on pecan trees, there 

 being too great a mortality among the buds and 

 cions put in. Patch budding, however, succeeds 

 when carefully and accurately done. A piece of 

 bark is lifted from the stalk and another piece of 

 bark of the same size is taken from a bud stick, 

 inserted in the hole, and bound in place. Vigorous 

 young wood is the best in which to insert the bud 

 patches. 



The branches of the seedling trees are cut back 

 severely. The tree is pollarded during the dormant 

 season and, as a result, new wood starts out the 

 following spring, producing a strong growth on 

 which buds will take better than on vigorous one- 

 ^ear old seedlings. The bud sticks should, if 

 possible, be of wood the same size as the stalks, for 

 the bark fits better. Each branch is budded with 



buds from a desirable variety. The buds must be 

 watched after they have taken to see that they are 

 not overcrowded by other branches. Too many 

 competing hranches must not be allowed on the 

 same limb; neither should they all be removed else 

 the bud may be drowned by a flood of sap. These 

 buds will produce wood which will give some fruit 

 the second year and a good crop the third, year. 

 New Jersey. Phineas Nolte. 



Dynamiting Hardpan 



I HAVE read in the September issue of The 

 Garden Magazine, page 49, your notation 

 about dynamiting hardpan. You mention that it 

 cannot be done in wet ground. It can. If the ground 

 is wet it must be first drained — this is a point on 

 which people are misled. Some think that if water 

 stands on the ground it cannot be subsoiled at all, 

 which is true while it is wet. It must first be 

 drained; then it will subsoil all right. 

 New York. Thos. J. Graham. 



[Exactly! But, when the land is drained, it is 

 no longer wet! — Ed.] 



An Old, Old Rose Bush 



I WANT to add to the "Story of the Rose" one 

 that belongs to history. As far in the past as 

 1811, more than a century ago, a bride, Ann Way- 

 man Crow, left her father's home "Poplar Springs," 

 an old stone mansion built early in the life of Mary- 

 land, with her young husband, Dr. Chas. McCuery, 

 afterward to serve his country as a surgeon in the 

 war of 181 2. She drove with him across Virginia 

 in a "buggy" drawn by two horses, followed by a 

 covered wagon in which were two Negro slaves, 

 man and wife — general worker and cook — to 

 Wheeling, Va. From here they floated down the 

 Ohio River on a flat boat to Louisville, and from 

 there drove to Hartford, Ky. Here Dr. McCuery 

 made for himself a name as the best surgeon in the 

 state. The bride had brought with her, from her 

 mother's garden, a rose bush Musk Cluster. This 

 same bush I, the grand-daughter, have in my rose 

 garden, at Valley Home, Arcadia, Mo., in the 

 Ozark Mts., 92 miles from St. Louis. The rose 

 grew in the garden at Hartford until my mother, 

 in 1851, married and came to St. Louis; it was 

 then transplanted to another daughter's home in 

 Kentucky, and in 1892, at the death of that 

 daughter's husband, was sent to me in Missouri, as 

 mine was then the only countryplace in the family. 

 One of my daughters, and her daughter, will in the 

 future care for the bush. 



The Rose is a light pink, a little larger than the 

 Dorothy Perkins, but not a climber, and grows in 

 clusters. From July until November the bush is 

 covered with bloom. 



St. Louis, Mo. Annie L. Thomson. 



The Value of Sulphur on Asparagus 



FOR the past two years it has been my practice 

 to use sulphur on my asparagus bed with good 

 results. About the last of November or early part 

 of December I cut off the asparagus stalks to within 

 two or three inches of the ground, and burn them to 

 destroy any lurking pupae of the asparagus beetle. 

 Each row is then carefully sprinkled with sulphur. 

 For this purpose ordinary ground sulphur is used 

 which, when purchased in quantities of 25 or 50 

 pounds at a time, costs 5 cents per pound. This is 

 about three times cheaper than the refined flowers 

 of sulphur and serves precisely the same purpose 

 for plant stimulation. The sulphur is used at the 

 rate of about one pound to a 36-foot row of as- 

 paragus. 



After the sulphur has been put on the rows, they 

 are covered with barnyard or chicken manure to the 

 depth of two or three inches. Asparagus will stand 

 thorough manuring which, in fact, is absolutely 

 essential in order to maintain sufficient plant-food 



151 



in the soil for its growth. Asparagus cannot be 

 deeply cultivated without destroying the crowns 

 and buds, in which case the next season's crop would 

 be ruined. Consequently, the plant's food must 

 reach the roots by leaching through the soil, and 

 top-dressing has to be practised. The manure lies 

 on the rows all winter, the rain and melting snow 

 leaching out the plant-food elements and bringing 

 them in contact with the sulphur. 



Sulphur is not directly a fertilizer, though it 

 serves the very important function of assisting 

 soil bacteria to render more soluble nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid, and potash. By this means, these 

 plant-food elements can be more readily assimilated 

 by growing plants. This was discovered in 1912 

 by Boullanger and Dujardin, two French experi- 

 menters who made tests on sterilized soil with and 

 without sulphur. In a report to the French Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, they say: 



"The results of these tests prove that the fer- 

 tilizing value of sulphur is due to the influence it 

 exerts on the ammonifying bacteria as well as on 

 the nitrifying micro-organisms. In the presence 

 of sulphur the plant finds larger quantities of 

 directly assimilable ammonium salts, and this 

 favorable modification of nitrogenous plant-food 

 is followed by important increases in crop produc- 

 tion, analogous to thsse which followed the use of 

 ammonium sulphate. Nevertheless, it is a matter 

 of importance to bear in mind that the ammonia 

 thus formed by the ammonifying bacteria is pro- 

 duced exclusively from the nitrogenous substances 

 in the soil and that the addition of organic nitro- 

 genous fertilizers to the soil is necessary in order 

 to counterbalance the greater withdrawal of nitro- 

 gen by the plants." 



Thus the role of sulphur in plant production con- 

 sists in rendering more active the bacteria and other 

 organisms in the soil. It was at one time thought 

 that salt served the same purpose, but the fer- 

 tilizing value of salt on asparagus is now doubted. 

 Salt, however does aid in keeping down weeds and 

 adds a small quantity of sodium to the soil. In 

 the absence of potash salts, sodium is a help to 

 asparagus. 



With the use of sulphur on asparagus as described 

 during the past two seasons, a marked increase in 

 the yield and quality of asparagus has been notice- 

 able. The spears are thicker and grow more 

 rapidly, and the cutting season is also prolonged. 

 This proves that plant growth has been stimuated 

 as a result of the application of plenty of organic 

 fertilizer and the presence of sulphur. From the 

 results secured, there can be no doubt as to the 

 useful purpose sulphur serves on the asparagus 

 bed. 



Kensington, Md. James B. Morman, 



Permanent Garden Labels 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE some time ago 

 had an article on how to make imperishable 

 labels for rose bushes from narrow strips of alumi- 

 num in which were cut the names of the plants. 

 These labels were good, no doubt, but could not very 

 readily be procured by many amateur Rose growers. 

 A few years ago a friend told me that he made his 

 labels from sheet zinc, and wrote the names on 

 them with a lead pencil. I make all my labels 

 that way now and find them very durable. Scrap 

 sheet zinc from the tinner, cut to the required 

 shape, costs very little; I write the name of the 

 plant on it with a Number 2 pencil (indelible pencil 

 will not do). If the sheet zinc has a high polish, 

 roughen with sand or emery paper where the name 

 is to be written. 



A few days' exposure to the weather will set the 

 name so that it will not come off by the rain or 

 washing. I have labels that have been in use 

 more than four years and the names on them are 

 nearly as distinct as when first put on. 



Washington, D. C. E. H. Brunner. 



