December, 1919 
possible to improve upon the varieties 
already existing. There is the possi 
hility of a few having reached the acme 
of perfection. It is hard indeed to 
realize how it would be possible to im- 
prove upon Le Cygne, Therese, Solange, 
Martha Bulloch and a few others, but 
who had the temerity to suggest a few 
years ago that the airship would be a 
commercial possibility. Even though 
they cannot be improved upon, they 
can possibly be equaled in some other 
type of flower, or color or combinations 
of color that are now unknown in the 
Peony offerings of today. 
W. F. Christman, Sec’y. 
American Peony Society. 
We are in receipt of Bulletin of Peony 
News No. 9, August, 1919, edited by 
Secretary A. P. Saunders, Clinton, N.Y. 
It consists of sixty pages and in addi- 
tion to giving a full report of the pro- 
ceedings of the society for 1919 and a 
write-up of the annual flower show in 
Prof. Saunders’ customary thorough 
way, it reports other Peony exhibitions 
and shows, and gives a complete roster 
of the members of the American Peony 
Society. 
Weed Seeds in Soil. 
I wrote recently of weed seeds in soil and 
the long time such seeds will remain dor- 
mant when buried in the earth. I have just had 
another interesting example of this in my 
own garden. There is a rough Grass bank 
sloping to a moat which runs partly round 
the house. This spring I stubbed out a very 
large Blackberry of a poor sort and planted 
some Lavatera Olbia, tall hybrid Verbas- 
cums, and other rough perennials likely to 
hold their own as the Grass grew back over 
the soil I had bared in removing the Bram- 
ble. Near by I planted two or three stan- 
dard Apples and Plums in the Grass, leaving 
four feet beds round each. A thick crop of 
scarlet Field Poppies and Charlock has 
sprung up all over the site of the old Bram- 
ble, and also round each fruit-tree. I know 
the ground to have been under turf for 30 
years, and no fresh soil was introduced in 
turning it up this spring. Before that time 
the ground was a farmyard. So it seems 
pretty clear that the Poppy and Charlock 
seeds must have lain buried under the turf 
for 30 years and sprung up directly it was 
dug over. 
This gives me an idea with regard to the 
transport of seeds. Some seeds travel very 
badly. Many of the New Zealand plants, for 
instance, are extremely difficult to raise from 
seed sent from their native home. Would 
it not be worth trying the experiment of 
mixing such seeds with a handful of moist 
loam and then packing the loam in an air- 
tight tin and sending in that way? On ar- 
rival the loam might be spread thinly on a 
box of soil and the seeds it contained germi- 
nated in the usual way. In the case of very 
valuable and specially difficult seeds the tin 
box containing the seed-soil mixture might 
have an outer covering of asbestos or some 
non-conductor of heat in order to keep the 
soil packing at an even temperature. Or the 
package might be put into cold storage dur- 
ing the voyage. Such a precaution as this 
soil packing would only be worth trying in 
the case of a few valuable seeds which have 
hitherto been found difficult to germinate 
when imported in the ordinary way. Bury- 
ing in soil certainly seems to have the effect 
of maintaining the germinative power of 
certain seeds for an almost indefinite time. — 
Clarence Elliott in Gardening Illustrated. 
t3be Slower (Brower 
The Glad Philosopher’s 
Musings. 
What an unreasonable, domineering 
demon is prejudice. Prejudice against 
a person blinds our discrimination and 
prevents our seeing any good in him, 
or recognizing the worth of any of 
his talents. “ Can there any good thing 
come out of Nazareth ? ” reflected a 
prejudice that almost cost Nathaniel 
the glory of apostleship. “ Deliver us 
from prejudice,” is a prayer it were 
well to offer frequently. 
It denotes a noble character when a 
person is noted for always speaking 
well of others — overlooking or forget- 
ting all their faults, for “ there is so 
much bad in the best of us” that 
faults may be quite easily discerned, 
and the “knocking” habit is easily ac- 
quired. 
Jimmy King was one of those royal 
good fellows that might be termed a 
“good mixer.” Deservedly, he had a 
host of friends, because besides being 
genial and courteous, he was never 
known to speak evil of anybody or see 
anything but the good in everything. 
For a great many years he had been 
manager of the Opera House, but a 
change in the ownership threw Jimmy 
out of his position. Shortly after his 
retirement a show played at the Opera 
House that was absolutely without a 
single redeeming feature — so punk that 
the audience guyed the players. At 
the Elks’ club that night after the play 
the boys were discussing the badness of 
it, but Jimmy, who had also attended, 
uttered not a word. Finally, one of 
the party said, “ Jim, in all your ex- 
perience, did you ever see anything 
quite as rotten as that performance?” 
“Well, now,” said Jimmy, “That set 
scene in the third act impressed me as 
being a fairly clever piece of scene 
painting.” 
I know people who are deterred from 
enjoying success in growing certain 
flowers because of some mistaken prej- 
udice. So many do not care to grow 
Peonies because they claim the season 
of bloom is too short, when by judi- 
cious selection of varieties they could 
have a full month of enjoyment with 
that most exquisitely beautiful flower. 
Some will not take up Rose culture be- 
cause somebody who neglected his 
Roses made a failure of Rose growing. 
While it is true that no flower can give 
more disappointment than the Rose if 
neglected, no flower rewards with 
greater satisfaction the care and atten- 
tion it exacts. Some refuse to grow 
the Gladiolus because the bulbs have 
to be dug and cared for every autumn 
and replanted every spring ; but the 
enthusiasm this lovely flower inspires 
makes such work truly a labor of love. 
Then we have the prejudice of color. 
Some people cannot see much beauty 
in a bouquet of mixed colors, when as 
a matter of fact, a mixed bouquet is 
seldom inharmonious, and need not be 
so at all, if magentas are omitted or 
used sparingly and white predomi- 
131 
nates. Some might even exclude Pur- 
ple Glory from their Gladiolus collec 
tion and miss its majestic beauty 
because they do not like a dark red 
flower. It is well that these prejudices 
and idiosyncrasies appear contradis- 
tinctively as preferences in some na- 
tures, as in the old, old story that 
grandfather used to tell of the Dutch- 
man that ordered his barn painted, 
and having been asked by the painter 
what color he desired it to be, replied, 
“Veil, make it any color so it’s red.” 
The Glad Philosopher. 
Soot as a Fertilizer. 
We have a good many questions from 
market gardeners who ask about the value 
of soot as a fertilizer. Some of our people 
live near manufacturing towns, and the 
factory chimneys, when cleaned out, yield 
quantities of this black material. The soot 
is deposited on the chimney from the smoke 
arising from the coal or wood. It contains 
small particles of unburned fuel, and in 
these are found small quantities of nitrogen, 
potash and phosphoric acid. There is no 
standard composition of soot, although some 
samples run high in nitrogen. English gar- 
deners make heavy use of this material. It 
is good to use on cold, heavy land, as it 
darkens the color of the soil and thus in- 
creases its power to hold the heat. In Eng- 
land soot is considered a stimulant, some- 
what the same as nitrate of soda, although 
of course with very much less nitrogen. 
The English gardeners use it early in the 
season, scattered between the hills or drills, 
and well worked in with hoe or cultivator. 
Such crops as onions, cabbage, and root 
crops generally, respond quickly to an ap- 
plication of soot, and it has some value for 
keeping down certain insects, such as cut- 
worms, wireworms and grubs. It is not a 
good plan to use lime with the soot, as the 
effect of this mixing would be to drive off 
part of the ammonia. After the soot has 
been worked into the ground, however, the 
lime can then be added with good results, 
and this combination is said to be useful for 
fighting insects. Some gardeners make great 
use of soot as a liquid manure. In prepar- 
ing this liquid, a peck of soot is put in a 
weighted bag and suspended in a barrel 
of water, where it is permitted to soak 
for a week. The black liquid produced in 
this way makes a good application for the 
garden. In England soot is bought and sold 
by measure, and not by weight. It is said 
that the heavier samples are the poorest, as 
they are mixed with brick and mortar— Rural 
New Yorker. 
Although there is quite a wide di- 
vergence in the prices which appear in 
the price lists and catalogues already 
received, yet we note that apparently 
there is a great tendency toward uni- 
formity, and this surely is a healthful 
symptom of the trade. One thing is 
sure; those who offer flower stocks 
this year at low prices are going to 
sell out so quickly they will not be a 
factor in the business by mid-winter. 
The editor has been searching for 
information on the use of charcoal as 
a fertilizer. No exact facts are avail- 
able so far, but a clipping from an 
Australian paper gives some sugges- 
tions which we expect to print next 
month. Anyone having experience 
with charcoal should tell us something 
about it. 
