88 
THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
and snowdrops naturalized among the shrubs. In April 
we gave ourselves and them a Tulip Show. Are there 
any Tulips more glorious than those one grows oneself? 
Clara Butt — a group of fifty ; Pride of Haarlem — another 
fifty ; Bouton d'Or — another colony ; Rev. Ewbank — still 
another mass. We kept the colors or varieties by them- 
selves, and that is the most effective way. 
The whole spring and summer we had successional 
bloom. Snapdragons and roses followed closely the feast 
of Rhododendrons and Irises. Peonies are fine, but com- 
paratively soon over, and in a smaller garden they take 
up so much room. Still, Festiva ma.xima, if no other, 
must be grown. So must the Madonna Lily, the Anchusa, 
Hollyhocks, Delphiniums, Sweet Peas in clumps or 
hedges. Lobelias (tall), the long-continuing scarlet 
Lychnis, and other glorious plants. These we had and 
many, many another. Tea was taken on the lawn : the 
children played in the arbor in the lower corner of the 
garden ; it was, in the best and truest sense of the word 
a withdrawing room out-of-doors. This is what we 
want for everybody. This is what the Gardeners' 
Chronicle preaches, instils, encourages. This is what 
the trade must foster all the time. It is a work for all 
of us. Start now ! 
* ^ * 
There can be no mistaking the value of frames in 
gardens in all those regions of our country where winter 
lingers over into April. They are time savers. We can 
get along with our sowing, transplanting and growing-on 
of stock when we have a few frames. Some of these are 
like miniature greenhouses, as they have glass sides as 
well as top. I am not sure that there is so much gain in 
the glass sides : the double-glazed sash frames are, how- 
ever, fine protectors. Then there are the ''plant forcers'' 
by the Cloche Company, of New York, which, while so 
small, are easily handled and do afford protection to 
young seedlings and plants at a time when heavy rains 
would beat down the soil or when keen winds would 
injure the plants. We must have frames. 
^ ^ ^ 
Recently I visited the establishment of an ordinary 
suburban florist, one of those who grow thousands of 
Geraniums, Coleus and Salvias for summer bedding. He 
had one long house filled with big Coleus plants in 6-inch 
pots. From these he told me he would in a very few 
weeks propagate several hundred thousand young plants. 
Each of the existing big plants would furnish practically 
as many young ones as there were pairs of leaves. Each 
stem growth is made into six or eight cuttings simply by 
cutting through the stem below each pair of leaves. I 
asked whether the stem below the internode of the leaf 
wouldn't rot, and he said no. Wonder what the old-time 
gardeners would have thought of this? Most certainly 
they would have regarded my friend as a story-teller. 
The commercial grower has riddled many of the pet 
theories of the old-fashioned private growers. The latter 
always had to have scrupulously clean washed flower 
pots, which, moreover, must be "crocked" with pot-sherds 
with the utmost care. Many a time the commercial fellow 
uses a rag to rub out the inside of his pot and totally 
forgets drainage, unless it be some cinders or rough fibre 
or leaves. 
^ ^ ^ 
Long ago the writer started a discussion in a horticul- 
tural paper calling in question the advice generally given 
to mix so much loam, so much leafmold, or so much peat 
or spent mushroom bed manure and sand as potting 
composts for dift'erent kinds of plants. Some private 
gardeners and amateurs carry their mixing to extremes. 
What difference can it make to the plant to prepare a 
special compost for it alone? A soil that is good for 
Cinerarias is, to my mind, equally good for Geraniums, 
Primulas or even Carnations, yet there are those who 
will add a half portion more of leafmold or of loam, or 
a dash more sand or oyster shells, charcoal, bonemeal, 
and think the thing an absolute necessity. There is no 
necessity. If you have plenty of time and help and a 
variety of materials you can go on making up fanciful 
composts for each different plant you grow, but it is 
not necessary. For ferns, yes, use a little peat. For 
cataceous plants, Gerberas and some of the South African 
bulbs add old spent lime from the joints of demolished 
brick or stone walls — if you can get it. For many of 
the orchids peat and sphagnum are the natural rooting 
materials ; while for Rhododendrons we avoid lime, but 
with these well-defined families the compounding fad may 
stop. The commercial man who is hard pressed for a 
coarse, clean sand will use fine screened hard ashes and 
this he will mi.x with his soil — not always a fibrous loam, 
by the way. 
* * * 
Looking over some of the volumes of Bailey's new 
''Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture" has impressed 
the present writer as never before with the magnitude 
of the study of horticulture. After a quarter of a century 
and more at gardening I did not realize, for instance, 
that there were so many recognized types of our friend 
the cabbage. A man I know well gives a most interesting 
lecture entitled "The Cabbage Tribe." This family in- 
cludes Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli and Cauliflower, Kohl- 
Rabi, Borecole or Kale and a few other subjects more or 
less freely grown, and all are evolutions or developments 
from one species, Brassica oleracea, the wild cabbage. 
Reminds one of Darwin's many pigeons all developed 
from the rock pigeon. Then again take the grape vines — 
varieties of Vitis americana and V. vinifera, the one the 
American vine, the other the European. What innumer- 
able varieties ; what a study grape production is. The 
best cultural book on grape vines was written by Archi- 
bald Barron, father of our Leonard Barron, of Garden 
City, L. I. Mr. Barron was a high authority on fruit 
and fruit cultivation. He was for many years superin- 
tendent of the experiment gardens of the Royal Horti- 
cultural Gardens at Chiswick, London. Another great 
pomologist was Dr. Robert Hogg, author of "The Fruit 
Manual," a book long since out of print. I once counted 
descriptions in that book of over 700 varieties of apples, 
and several hundred varieties of pears. Another au- 
thority at that time — the time of Hogg and Barron, both 
Scotsmen, by the way — was R. D. Blackmore, author of 
the far-famed novel "Lorna Doone." Of present-day 
novelists Eden Philpotts and Marie Corelli are noted 
gardeners : nor can we forget Sir Rider Haggard. Once 
in reviewing a garden book by Philpotts the writer sug- 
gested that the author had adopted a very suitable 
pseudonym, not then having known of him in his wider 
literary capacity ! 
The point I wanted to emphasize in the preceding 
paragraph was that any one of a dozen branches of 
horticulture can be made a sufficient study for the spare 
time of most of us. Who has not known specialists in 
bulbs, and not only in bulbs but in a given family, as 
Tulips and Narcissi. Who has not known the fern crank, 
the expert in alpines, the expert in hardy herbaceous 
perennials, the rosarian who pores alone over roses, or 
the man who makes Sweet Peas, Dahlias, Gladioli. 
Chrysanthemums and Carnations the limit of his special 
study? There are men for all of these and many more. 
We need them ; they are the ones who carry in their 
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