6 CULTIVATION 
knowledge), to delay their dahlia planting when the 
first sweet lures of the garden beckon in April. Yet 
there is not only a Spring, but a Fall of man. These 
Early Birds can joyfully and triumphantly cut their 
first dahlia blooms in late June. If a hot, dry spell 
follows these easy successes, and irrigation is neglected 
or impossible, flower buds blast; the foliage goes into 
an untimely sere and yellow; the stalk and branches 
1 'wood-up ' ' hard and dry. Joy is turned into mourning. 
Bloom-bearing ends for that season, because the dahlia 
will only flower on soft, succulent, green growth. 
Climate conditions averaging from season to season 
near New York and Philadelphia, allow farmers to sow 
oats on St. Patrick's Day, plant potatoes April 9th, 
and the first planting of sugar corn May 10th. The 
first killing frost, except in extreme lowlands, may not 
come until November. In such a climate and season 
dahlias should not be planted until the last week of May, 
and the tenth of June is still better. You will not get 
flowers as early, but you will certainly have more of 
them, and far finer ones, particularly in September and 
October, when the dahlia is at its best. Planted late 
your plants are younger when the hot, dry summer 
days come, and just as a vigorous youth can endure the 
heated spells with less likelihood of collapse, or other 
serious effects that would overcome an elderly person, 
strongly growing dahlia plants, because they are young, 
go safely and successfully through the trying, drouthy, 
