46 CULTIVATION 
alone a small monkey wrench, or a bicycle wrench, is 
helpful in holding the lath tips together for wiring. 
There is no objection in taking advantage of a wire 
or paling fence for the support of dahlias. If there is 
plenty of light and air on either side the plants may be 
set only two feet apart, if hiding the fence is desired. 
If you cannot cultivate both sides of the fence plant 
ten inches away from it and cultivate a strip of ground 
twenty inches wide. 
Dahlia enthusiasts living within easy distance of 
saw mills, planing mills and carpenter shops equipped 
with power machinery, will find it worth while to visit 
them often. Trimmings, odds and ends accumulate 
now and then, according to the work in hand, and some- 
times can be purchased cheaply. Make your visits at 
least monthly the year round. Those happy amateurs 
who grow half a thousand to a thousand fine varieties 
might obtain fence pickets. There is a woven wooden 
picket fence manufactured, the pickets about the length 
of a lath, but five times as strong, and pointed at one 
end, exactly right for dahlia stakes. They could be 
purchased without the wire in quantity. Several grow- 
ers could unite and purchase advantageously, and prob- 
ably through any large hardware and woodenware 
store, whose trade catalogs would furnish manufac- 
turers' addresses. One careful grower saturates the 
driven end of such stakes with creosote, not only to 
preserve the wood, but to prevent fungus growth about 
