June, 1915 
T HE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
2G5 
Following the crumpled twisted leaves, the flower 
stalks show the disease. Short, club-shaped 
flower heads, with the florets thickly clustered at 
the top, and blasted in the calyx, later blackening 
as they bloom, show the progress of the disease. 
The blackening does not always appear, though it 
is common enough to have given the name “black 
disease” to the trouble. 
Drought, over feeding, fungus, insects, root 
maggots, are all given as causes, but no one really 
has yet found whether the disease comes from one 
or all. Too much manure in the soil is possibly 
considered by most growers as the cause. What- 
ever brings the disease, of course, is the first con- 
sideration, but as long as no one yet knows, what 
will cure it is of equal importance. 
Selecting a new place in the garden which was 
practically virgin soil, having been covered with 
sod for forty years, I had a new border dug. The 
soil was good average garden soil; no manure was 
added, only a little ground bone meal. In Sep- 
tember the little plants were set out in the new bed. 
The following summer not a trace of the disease 
showed, and I boasted that by my drastic methods 
I had rid the garden of the trouble. 
The second spring, when the plants were in their 
prime, here and there among the choicest varieties 
were dwarfed and blasted flower stalks, twisted 
foliage and unmistakable signs of the old trouble. 
Hellebore and everything else that was suggested 
proved useless. 
I wrote to the best authorities in our own country 
and in England, and received various suggestions 
but no real help, as all frankly said they knew of no 
real cure for the trouble. But the idea of giving 
up delphiniums entirely, or even sacrificing my new 
bed, was more than I could bear. 
Accidentally, I came across a short article in a 
florist’s trade paper, written by a man in Nevada, 
entitled “Root Maggots,” in which he suggested 
a simple remedy which he had used with success 
on annual larkspur, dianthus and asters. Thinking 
that if the remedy was good for annual larkspur, 
it might be good for perennial, I ventured to try 
it. The remedy was as follows: 
Four pounds of lump lime, and one pound of 
powdered tobacco dust, to which was added a 
gallon of boiling water to slack the lime. Let the 
mixture boil as long as it will and add more water 
if necessary to completely slack. When the mixture 
has ceased to boil, add water enough to make five 
gallons. In applying, use one quart of the solu- 
tion to eleven quarts of water, pouring about a 
cupful around the roots of each plant, repeating 
every ten days if necessary. 
The author had experimented with the solution 
until he had secured what seemed to him just the 
right proportions. 
I lost no time in getting the lime, which cost me 
four cents, and a pound of tobacco dust for ten 
cents. The solution when made almost filled a 
wash tub. I very carefully cultivated around 
each delphinium and applied a cupful of the 
solution. 
The angle worms and every other creeper and 
crawler came to the surface, wiggling and writhing 
at the first application. In ten days I repeated 
the dose as directed, though not in the least san- 
guine of results, and kept on dosing every ten days. 
It seemed to check the trouble and I took courage, 
grew bold, and increased the cupful to a pint, for 
each of the large sized plants. 
In a few weeks no trace of the disease showed. 
After the first blooms were cut back and the second 
bloom came on, not a twisted leaf showed in the 
entire border. 
The following spring, the plants looked splendid. 
I made a new tubful of the solution for fourteen 
cents and began to apply it as soon as the plants 
were well out of the ground. 
The border, which contained one hundred plants 
of named varieties was, when it bloomed, a sight 
to rejoice the heart of any gardener. The spikes 
of bloom were tall and stately, the best of them 
between six and seven feet high, and many to 
each plant. Not a blighted bloom nor a twisted 
leaf appeared. 
When the show was over and I cut down the 
stalks to force the second bloom, I grew a little lax 
in applying the remedy. Along in August I 
noticed slight indications of the trouble returning, 
and began again. One making of the solution 
lasted throughout the season, liberal as I was in its 
use. 
Ohio. B. McG. 
Effective Planting on Poor Soil 
W HAT to plant in really poor, dry soil is always 
a problem to gardeners, and in every garden 
there is always such a corner. I had poplar tree 
roots right back of my border, which not only took 
the moisture but all the nourishment from the soil. 
I tried shrubs, but they failed me; and, as it was so 
shady, I tried heavy fertilizing and phlox, but it, 
too, sickened. 
One spring in my seed bed I grew Dianthus 
plumarius, commonly called clove pinks, and after 
twice transplanting they would make, I thought, an 
effective border plant with their lovely gray foliage. 
So I put them along the edge and decided for May 
they must have blue forget-me-nots against that 
foliage, so Myosotis Distinction was my choice. 
This became a mass of pale blue behind the gray, 
and lasted until the pinks were covered with bloom. 
I pulled out all the pinks of a magenta hue and 
kept only the pale colors and whites and pheasant- 
eyed. 
I scattered cornflower seeds during May, and 
when the pinks finished blooming a cornflower here 
and there gave character with its intense blue and 
graceful foliage. Such planting is practically 
perennial and, although there is nothing very choice 
in the kind of plants selected, the effect is so lovely 
that it is well worth trying. 
Utica, N. Y. Mary L. Gibson. 
Clove pink, forget-me-not, cornflower and vines very pleasantly transformed a poor soil site into a garden of flowers 
