The Horticultural Society of New York gives the following 
directions for keeping cut flowers, especially Dahlia blooms. 
Into a clean quart bottle, place one tablespoonful of bicar- Keeping 
bonate of soda, chemically pure, and one tablespoonful of house- Cut 
hold ammonia. Fill the bottle with pure water and shake until Flowers 
it is dissolved. One or two tablespoons of this mixture added to 
the water of the vase, according to the size, will do much to 
lengthen the life of the cut flower. 
Crops can be forced for a certain date and flower blooms Artificial 
given exceptional color and size by a judicious use, in summer, Fertilizers 
of the proper artificial fertilizer. Lettuce and all leaf crops are 
enormously helped by using nitrogenous fertilizers such as nitrate 
of soda, sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of lime. . All are very 
soluble in water and remarkably quick in action. They produce 
leafage and nothing else and can be used at the rate of one ounce 
to a gallon of water, or if dry, about half an ounce to the square 
yard. 
Potash fertilizers are exceedingly valuable for application 
throughout the summer and do not make plants "run to leaf" as 
do the nitrogenous fertilizers. Sulphate of Potash can be used 
at the rate of one ounce per gallon of water and applied spar- 
ingly around plants to be forced. 
Potash fertilizers increase quality — while phosphates induce 
earliness and the best known of the later and the most often used, 
is superphosphate of lime. 
Dissolve one pound of this in eight gallons of water and of 
this stock solution, use one part to two parts of water. This 
makes a liquid fertilizer strong enough for daily purposes and 
will bring flowers into bloom much earlier than would ordinarily 
happen. Sulphate of Iron intensifies the color of flowers and 
foliage. It is very poisonous and can only be used at the rate 
of less than half an ounce to a gallon of water. — The Garden. 
Ants do no damage whatsoever on Peonies. They drink the Ants on 
syrup that exudes from the buds. If any fastidious gardener Peonies 
objects to ants, she will find that sprinkling pepper on the 
plants soon drives them away. 
This small and deadly pest has been particularly active this Cutworms 
summer in its attentions to Canterbury Bells and Delphiniums, 
sometimes cutting the plant off at the root and sometimes eating 
the buds from the top. 
I find in "Popular Gardening" the following remedy, a 
poisoned mash: 
5 pounds Bran. 2^ quarts Thin Molasses. 3 quarts Water. \ pound 
Paris Green. 1 Lemon. 
Mix bran and Paris Green dry. Squeeze the juice of the lemon 
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