130 
The Garden Magazine, April, 1921 
Mr. Egan a birthday banquet in Chicago on the evening of 
April the first. 
Let there be no mistake about this 8oth birthday and the 
tribute of The Garden Magazine to the honor of this great 
gardener. Mr. Egan is still carrying on his service to horticul- 
ture, and the benefits derived from his work will continue to in- 
crease in the long years to come. 
THE OPEJf^COLUMTJ^ 
Readers’ 1 nterchange of Experience and Comment 
Colonel Roosevelt’s Favorite Rose 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
IT WAS with much interest that 1 read Mr. McFarland’s notice of 
t Col. Roosevelt’s favorite Rose, Duchesse de Brabant. This variety 
has been known in this section for nearly fifty years. In my own 
garden, specimens have been grown for a number of years. It has 
proved fully as hardy as any of the Hybrid Teas, and although not a 
large flower, its continuous bloom, perfectly shaped buds, beautiful 
clear rose color, and delightful fragrance make it a variety worthy of 
far more general cultivation. It has long been one of our favorite 
Roses. — Emma Cowles Veitch, New Haven, Conn. 
Bittersweet Berries Improve With Age 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
Q UITE bv accident we discovered that Bittersweet Berries improve 
_ in beauty with age. We have a bunch of them in a brown basket 
that were gathered three years ago. There is little trace of their orig- 
inal color left, but the rich browns and tans are even more attractive 
than the orange. The berries are shrunken and have the appearance of 
having been varnished. — Mary Rutner, Traverse City, Mich. 
Poor Flowering of Narcissus Odorata Alba Plena 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
O NE of the chief reasons why this variety goes blind is lack of 
moisture. Being a late bloomer, the bulbs are apt to suffer just 
when the buds are pushing up. Another factor is that dryness has an 
injurious effect upon the bulbs when they are making their buds for the 
following year. Too rapid drying off of the foliage prevents the embry- 
onic buds from reaching their proper stage of development and while 
the root action of the following season enables the bulbs to push up 
flower stems, the buds are still-born. Fairly deep planting, no dis- 
turbance, and moisture during the period the foliage is ripening will 
usually result in an annual display. — T. A. Weston, New Jersey. 
The Earliness of Early Malcolm Corn 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
JONG ago we adopted, as our garden motto, that common American- 
ly ism, “The best is none too good for me.” So each year finds in 
our gardens a considerable number of vegetables new to us that we are 
trying out in our search for the best. Last year we had nine varieties 
of Sweet Corn in our various gardens. Seven of these were new sorts — 
that is, new to us — and six of them are early strains. 
Among these is Early Malcolm, which was offered that year (1920) 
to the American public for the first time. This was advertised as a 
55-day Corn, and as maturing two weeks ahead of any standard variety 
then on the market. The seed was planted May 10th, which is fairly 
early for our latitude. It was actually 73 days before we had our first 
ears, but the Early Malcolm was way ahead of any of the other varieties 
that went out with it. The season, however, was just about the worst 
possible that could happen for Corn. We had cold, wet weather for 
weeks. All heat-loving vegetation stood still. Possibly if we had 
pushed the Corn, it’might have come on faster. The ground was well 
manured and frequently cultivated with a wheel cultivator. That was 
the extent of our corn culture. We feel certain that in a good season, 
and particularly if it were pushed, this Corn would come to maturity in 
close to 55 days, certainly in 60 days. Golden Bantam is advertised 
as a 60-day Corn, but very rarely can one get it through in less than 
70 days. We believe that Early Malcolm is easily ten days ahead of 
Golden Bantam. The quality of the Corn was excellent. Its sugar 
content was high. The ears were a full six inches long and of good 
girth. Many of our plants had two ears to the stalk. 
Early Malcolm is a type-bred sweet Corn originating from the Early 
Malakhoff, which was brought to Canada many years ago from Russia. 
The stalk is slender and about three and a half feet high. The ears are 
borne perhaps fifteen or eighteen inches from the ground. It is claimed 
that if this Corn is planted May 10th it should be ready for us by 
July 4th. Our experience leads us to think that in an ordinarily 
good corn season that should be entirely possible. Early Malcolm 
will become a permanent fixture in our garden. — Lewis E. Theiss, 
Muncy, Pa. 
Aesthetic Feeling in the Vegetable Garden 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
TN AN inconspicuous place in the January number of The Garden 
* Magazine (on page 234) a hint is given for beautifying the vegetable 
garden which has been so successfully worked out here that I wish it 
could be emphasized. Our gardens are extensive and the paths run 
north and south, east and west. The central line is a four foot path, 
the space of eighteen inches on either side is for flowers. All of our 
Dahlias, Gladiolus, Antirrhinums, Poppies, Marigolds, Cockscombs, 
Kochias, Salvias, Scabiosa, etc., keep these gay until frost. A mob of 
Cosmos banks the high west fence. The rose and hardy perennial 
gardens are on a terrace, where choice collections thrive. This place 
has been developed from an abandoned farm, fourteen acres in all. 
Ramblers deck the fences; Rhododendrons, now fifteen feet high, 
border one driveway; Hydrangeas and other blooming shrubs border 
another. Wide lawns with choice plants of Conifers, Retinisporas 
and many old forest trees look north and south, with Boonton back of 
the Palisades a dozen miles away. Who would live in the great New 
York babel when they can have a country home? — Elizabeth Stuart 
Cromwell, Summit, N. J. 
The Amateur Grape Grower; Help Wanted 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
A FUNNY thing happened here last autumn. I have kept bees for 
fifty years, but a very short time ago I turned them over to a friend 
in the country. A neighboring physician who has a few Grape vines dis- 
covered the bees working among his Grapes and telephoned to inform 
us that our bees were making honey out of his Grapes, and he thought 
that maybe we would give him “a cake of honey.” He supposes that 
bees make honey. It is strange how ignorant a learned man, such as a 
physician is supposed to be, sometimes is. He does not know that 
honey bees can not get the grape juice until the skin is previously 
broken and that only then can they carry it home and deposit it for 
their own eating. 
Mr. Editor, can’t you induce some qualified vineyardist to write an 
article on training the Grape vine for best results? Many people have 
a few Grape vines but they have no conception as to what to do with 
them. Not one in a hundred knows even that the fruit and the shoot 
the fruit grows upon, develop the same season, but suppose that the 
new vine which grows this year produces the fruit next year. Hence 
in trimming all they do is just to shorten the last growth, with the result 
that very soon there is such a jumbled mass of vines that no sunshine 
ever gets to the fruit. A clearly written, illustrated article on man- 
aging the vine, showing the principles of proper training and trimming, 
would, it seems to me, be worth a great deal to your subscribers. A 
good many people have a few vines, but as they use no rational method 
in training they get a few small and inferior grapes. The whole thing 
with the unskilled grape grower is a practical failure, and sooner or 
later the owner says the grapes have so deteriorated that they are not 
worth raising and the vines are destroyed. — A. W. Foreman, III . 
— Such a note, which should help, appeared in the March Garden 
Magazine. — Ed. 
One Article Worth a Year’s Subscription 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
Y OUR magazine rarely has anything that is an aid to gardening 
in this dry place with a range of temperature from twenty to one 
hundred and twenty degrees F., but the article on Pruning at Cornell 
in the September number is worth the year’s subscription to me. Why? 
Because it gives the weights and measures and talking points on what 
I have done for years but had only individual instances to prove the 
injury that defoliation causes. This is particularly marked in growing 
Date Palms. — W. R. Faries, Coachella, Calif. 
