130 



The Garden Magazine, April, 1922 



In testing out five varieties of Tomatoes last season I found them 

 blight resisting in the following order: Globe, Manyfold, Matchless, 

 Bonny Best, Ponderosa. Mr. Adolph Kruhm places Bonny Best 

 second, but it did not prove so with me, although the plants seemed to 

 recover later in the season. — A. A. Knoch, York, Pa. 



Some Last Year's Successes 



To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 



OUR chief success in plant raising last summer was in Zinnias, 

 which convinces me that good flowers are worth while and that it 

 pays to make an extra effort. The Zinnia is pretty nearly worthless 

 when allowed to degenerate as it will if careful selections and new seed 

 are not looked after every year. We have a bunch of them now that 

 were presented by a friend which look very sorry contrasted with the 

 regal colors of our prize plants. We fancy the staying qualities of the 

 flower. It is pretty nearly an Everlasting and has none of the objection- 

 able strawy quality of the Everlasting proper. 



Roses have been a great success. Clay soil, plenty of fertilizer, a 

 steady war on insects, and the plants did the rest. As late as the mid- 

 dle of October, Ophelias, a Columbia or two and some others were still 

 coming into flower. A word as to insecticides. In fighting slugs the 

 ordinary potato-bug spray — arsenite of lead, somewhat diluted so that 

 it will not spot the leaves, has proved very efficacious; a good treatment 

 with this as soon as the slugs appear will usually settle them for the 

 season. Without it I have seen even Rambler Roses skeletonized by 

 one sort or chewed up by the other sort, which does not like the Ramblers 

 quite as well as it does most other Roses. After that, tobacco solutions, 

 made very strong and well followed up, will settle the sucking parasites. 

 We still like the cross supports with a pole laid in from one " X " to the 

 next for the Ramblers, especially the trailing Wichuraiana sorts. The 

 method is not elaborate, but it is easy and very effective. Decorative 

 arches are desirable, but they will not work always and they require 

 extra time and space. — John W. Chamberlin, Buffalo, N. Y. 



Before It's Too Late ! 



To the Editor o/The Garden Magazine: 



IT IS not pleasant to have to criticize an article containing so many 

 fine ideas as are embodied in that by Mark Daniels on "Shore-line 

 Gardens of the Pacific" in the December issue of The Garden Maga- 

 zine. Yet what reader who has ever known and loved the incompar- 

 able natural beauties of the Monterey Peninsula can fail to be struck 

 with the paradox of including a proposition for the artificial planting 

 of these primeval headlands with such unassailable views on essential 

 congruity as those expressed at the beginning of the article! 



It is this very tract of "forty or fifty miles of tawny beach and flower- 

 festooned cliffs," with the addition of the glorious but now terribly 

 be-picnicked Point Lobos to the southward, which is showing (alas, 

 with ever increasing emphasis!) how truly it is said that "it is the new 

 countries that suffer most from this lack of propriety and the eternal 

 fitness of things." To this I would say a fervent Amen and underscore 

 the "eternal." For this selfsame bit of shore stands absolutely unique 

 among all the world's loveliest natural beauty spots. Nature has been 

 more than usually lavish here with her own landscape gardening. 

 Once destroyed, what puny effort of man can ever replace it or bring 

 any sort of recompense for the loss? Here are the venerable and 

 absolutely unique Monterey Cypresses, beloved of naturalist and artist 

 alike, in their picturesque confinement to the barest foothold on a few 

 rocky headlands, hemmed in by the dense forest of Monterey Pines 

 (Pinus radiata). In the natural state, except for a few trees which 

 are said to exist farther inland on the peninsula, they are found nowhere 

 else in all the world. 



In a vain effort to improve upon the already sufficient inherent in- 

 terest of these trees, the drivers of the old hotel tally-hos used to be 

 fond of linking them with that other sadly persecuted, but magnificent 

 tree, the Cedar of Lebanon. The Monterey trees are in fact as well 

 as in name a true Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) while the Cedars of 

 Lebanon and true Cedars generally belong, along with the Pines and 

 Firs, to an utterly different group, the tribe Abieteae. Although there 

 are several species of Cypress endemic to the Pacific Coast, not one of 

 them compares with this one in romance and picturesqueness. Nor 

 is this single tree all, but it stands as the most conspicuous example of 

 the floral life that is either wholly confined to this same delimited region 

 or here attains the peak of its development. 



Cypress Point being cut up into villa sites ! .What is the matter with 

 us in America anyway? Are there not already horrible examples of 



this sort of thing in sufficient plenty in old Europe that we must tread 

 the same blind path? Once in a while we are able to point to some 

 puny remnant still left to us of the glory that once was ours, like Muir 

 Woods, and feel ourselves nigh to bursting with pride at our wonderful 

 self-control in not having cut it down. Without in any way depreciating 

 Muir Woods, I can truly say that I have tramped and camped through 

 many a mightier Redwood grove than that, whereas this little stretch 

 of coast line stands absolutely alone — or did! 



It is to the lasting shame and disgrace of Monterey County, the 

 State of California, and this nation, that no way has been found to 

 preserve intact, both for ourselves and the myriad generations to come, 

 this most exquisite piece of shore, perhaps, in all North America. It 

 is not yet too late to save much of the best. Is it not time to stop and 

 ponder a little before we have "improved" beyond recall the last of our 

 noblest treasures! — S. Stillman Berry, Redlands, Cal. 



Will the Madonna Lily Winter Over in Saskatchewan? 



To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 



COULD you tell me if the Madonna Lily (Lilium candidum) would 

 grow and stand the winters of this western country where we get 

 it as low as 40 degrees below zero? My Tiger Lilies survive the cold 

 and I had a fine show of them last summer. — George Higgins, Sas- 

 katchewan, Canada. 



Answering Indiana 



To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 



YOU might remark to the query from Indiana, page 262 (January 

 issue) that the June Rudbeckia must be Gaillardia, and that all 

 Helianthus (perennial) spread readily except the tall H. orgyalis, H. 

 grosse-serratus and H. Maximiliani. — Stephen F. Hamblin, Lexington, 

 Mass. 



MORE AVENUE A GARDENS 



'^UST too late to be described in this issue of The Gar- 

 den Magazine is taking place the graphic illustration, 

 at the National Flower Show, of the inspiring work done 

 through the Avenue A Gardens towards moulding the 

 character of tenement children on the East Side of New York 

 and giving them a love for gardens and out-of-door gardening. 

 It is an early sowing in the child mind of a very practical anti- 

 dote to Bolshevism and kindred ailments. 



The unique exhibit will have been seen by many of our readers 

 but in the May issue it is hoped to give those who have not at- 

 tended the Show an idea of what was demonstrated. 



THE generous list of gardens, with the interesting names given to them by 

 their donors, which was printed in The Garden Magazine for March has 

 not been increased to the extent desired. It is expected, however, that the list 

 to be printed in the May issue will be an imposing one. 



Ten dollars puts a tenement child in control of a garden, 5 by 10 feet, for the 

 entire spring, summer and harvesting season. Some of the gardens are culti- 

 vated by several children. Competent instruction and supervision are provided, 

 as well as fertilizer, tools, seeds and sets. The children and their families get 

 the crops they raise which are no inconsiderable aid to the family maintenance. 

 Donors may give what names they select to the gardens they endow. 

 Mrs. Thomas E. Kilauff of Ridgefield, Conn., has provided funds for 



The Mitchell Garden. 

 Mrs. Arthur H. Scribner, Mt. Kisco, N. Y., for 



The Women Voters' League Garden. (This garden will doubtless be 

 assigned to a future woman voter.) 

 The Larchmont (N. Y.) Garden Club for 



The Larchmont Garden. 

 The Garden Committee of the Community Club of Garden City and 



Hempstead for the Peter Pan Garden. 

 Mrs. George G. Haven, Ridgefield, Conn., Mrs. Chauncey Olcott, Sar- 

 atoga Springs, N. Y., Mrs. George B. Agnew, South Salem, Conn., 

 Mrs. Francis M. Bacon, Mrs. H. H. Rogers, Mrs. Lydig Hoyt, Mrs. 

 Felix M. Warburg, Mrs. Ivy Lee, Mrs. Henry Tilford, Mrs. 

 Macdougal Hawks, Mrs. J. H. Crane, Mrs. Henry I. Parsons and 

 Mrs. R. T. Auchmulty, New York City, for gardens not yet named. 

 The Garden Magazine hopes to print in its May issue a much longer list of 

 acknowledgments. 



Checks for ten dollars or multiples of that amount, may be sent payable to 

 the order of Avenue A Gardens Fund, The Garden Magazine, Garden City, 

 N. .Y., and will be acknowledged in the next issue going to press after receipt. 

 Contributions will also be received by the Plant, Flower and Fruit Guild, 

 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 



