February, 1920 
and thus unwittingly gave to the Iris 
world its greatest breeder. For the 
three score and ten varieties that Mr. 
Bliss has saved from the more than 
ten thousand seedlings he has raised, 
represent a greater advance in the Iris 
as a garden flower than all the other 
Iris breeders up to the present time 
have given us. 
I have pointed out in the foregoing 
pages some of the characteristics which 
have marked the work of the other 
breeders. No such single characteris- 
tic of the Bliss seedlings can be given, 
but rather it must be said that 
his varieties have no single strong 
point, but that they combine vigor, 
height, size, freedom of bloom and 
clear color. Since 1917 Wallace has 
introduced 31 of the Bliss seedlings 
among which may be mentioned Azure, 
Benbow, Camelot, Cretonne, Dominion, 
Knysna, Phyllis Bliss, Sweet Lavender 
and Tom Tit. Mr. Bliss has kept 
records of the parentage of all his seed- 
lings. 
In America few Irises were grown 
before Mr. B. H. Farr, of Wyomissing 
imported his famous collections from 
Barr, later adding the G. & K., and 
Vilmorin novelties. This collection 
began to attract attention before 1909 
when he sent out his first seedlings, 
and his introductions during the next 
few years, which included such varie- 
ties as Anna Farr, Glory of Reading, 
Mount Penn, Mary Garden, Quaker 
Lady and Wyomissing, made him justly 
famous throughout this country, and 
also abroad. His work was pioneer 
work, however, and many of his seed- 
lings have already been surpassed. 
Miss Grace Sturtevant, of Wellesley 
Farms, Massachusetts, was the next 
American breeder to attract attention, 
her first seedlings' being introduced 
about 1916. Among them are Afterglow, 
Shekinah, Dream, Empire, Avalon, and 
Queen Caierina. About this same time 
Mr. W. E. Fryer, of Mantorville, Minn., 
introduced a number of seedlings of 
variegata and squalens type, which had 
proven very satisfactory in his severe 
climate. Among them are Fryer's Glory, 
W. J. Fryer, Minnesota, and Golden 
Plume. About this time also Bobbink 
& Atkins introduced a set of six Irises, 
apparently descendent of some of Goos 
& Koeneman’s varieties. The well 
known Secretary of the American 
Peony Society, Prof. A. P. Saunders of 
Clinton Vt., has introduced one seed- 
ling, the beautiful While Knight. 
Mr. E. B. Williamson, of Bluffton, Ind., 
an amateur, has raised many seedlings 
of Susiana or Korolkowi crossed with 
Pogon varieties, and has introduced at 
least one tall bearded variety, Lent A. 
Williamson. Another amateur, Mr. J. 
M. Shull, near Washington, D. C., is 
making many crosses of Trojana and 
variegata. Mr. D. M. Andrews, of 
Boulder, Colorado, has been making 
crosses for some years, with a Mende- 
lian program in mind. While he has 
secured several good seedlings, he does 
not intend to introduce any of them 
until his experiment is complete. It is 
known that Mrs. Jenkins and Miss Van 
Name of New Haven, Conn., Mrs. Mc- 
Kinney, of Madison, N. J., and Mr. 
Tb be Slower (Brower 
Mohr, near San Francisco, and other 
amateurs, have been growing seed- 
lings for some years, but they have ap- 
parently not yet reached the stage of 
naming or introducing any of them. 
This is probably true also of various 
nurserymen throughout the country. 
This review of the history of Iris 
growing shows how very much we do 
not know, and how many gaps there 
are to be filled in. Such work should 
be done by the Iris Society. Mention 
of Japanese varieties has been pur- 
posely omitted, as the situation is too 
hopeless to be attempted until the so- 
ciety is older. 
I THE ROSE. I 
Animal Food for Roses. 
By M. Downing Brainard. 
[Written expressly for The Flower Grower . ] 
“Talk about your fertilizers for 
Roses! If I could get sufficient blood 
from the slaughter-pen I would not 
have any other,” was the assertion 
made to us some years ago by a Rose 
specialist. 
“Sometimes, I am able to get the 
fresh blood from the pen, and when I 
do, I mix the blood with water in the 
proportion of one-third blood to two- 
thirds water. With this mixture I 
water the bushes very carefully close 
around the roots.” 
“ This mixture gives a beauty and 
intensity of color to the Rose that 
nothing else will.” 
Taking in the scientific analysis of 
blood, I realized the great virtue of the 
experiment, for, the specialist was 
using a formula, rich in nitrogen, phos- 
phate and potash, a combination be- 
yond a doubt, the best that could be 
made. 
It is useless to say that I tried the 
experiment with a most wonderful 
success. However, I must say, with 
the blood application, I had the ad- 
vantage of a natural deposit of iron 
in my garden soil. 
Bone-dust comes nearest to the blood 
effect, or, for that matter any animal 
matter is good, but nothing takes the 
place of blood. 
This calls to my mind a story about 
“Beef- tea and Roses” : 
A gardener grown gray in the service 
of the old Roman Palace in the “Via 
Sistini” was a worshipper of Roses. 
Rome was called the City of Roses ; 
for the Romans in general loved Roses. 
This old man’s love for the queenly 
flowers amounted to almost paganism. 
He never tired of coaxing, petting, 
feeding and growing his beautiful Roses 
until their perfection was known every- 
where. Their odor was passionately 
intense, their forms perfect, their petals 
exquisite in the fineness of texture. 
The color of some was crimson, some 
blood-red, some cameo-pink, changing 
to cream ; no color, mottled or muddy. 
They were marvels of beauty. 
There was a secret attached to their 
food and development, but the wor- 
shipper guarded it well. Detectives 
were set to watch as universal interest 
23 
increased in the marvelous beauties. 
The old man was wary and hard to 
catch. One day, however, the secret 
watchman caught him watering the 
bushes very carefully at the roots— a 
little to each bush— with a clear dark 
fluid. 
Further investigation proved the 
mysterious libation to be a strong beef- 
tea made from fresh beefsteak and 
strained. 
While discussing the beauty of my 
own Roses in my own Western home, 
one day, I repeated this story to a 
friend who had traveled much through 
Europe and lingered long in some of 
the old palaces of Rome. He had this 
to say : 
“The Roses of Rome are certainly 
very beautiful, but, in my travels 
through Europe I was as forcibly struck 
with the luxuriant growth of even the 
most delicate ferns in Germany in 
spots where the brewers had thrown 
their refuse malt.” 
Awards by the General 
Bulb Growers of Haarlem. 
The different Floral Committees 
made the following awards during 
August, 1919 : 
FIRST-CLASS CERTIFICATES. 
GLADIOLI.— 
Primulinus Salmonea — bright salmon- 
shaded orange. 
*Marechal Foch — soft lilac rose. 
V bnmaculee — pure white. 
AWARDS OF MERIT. 
Primuliangexanthia — Bright orange, 
the lower petal striped orange red. 
Victor— Large flower, salmon red. 
Odin— Rose salmon, spotted carmine. 
Edith Cavell — White, feathered lilac. 
Elta — Soft rose. 
Sydonia — Purple in the centre, feath- 
ered lilac. 
White City— Pure white. 
Crinum Krelagei — Bright rose, flower 
large. 
Decorative Dahlia Jacques Urlus — 
Salmon rose. 
Peony-flowered Dahlia Morgenster — 
Bright scarlet, shaded orange. 
CERTIFICATE OF THE HAARLEM TRIAL 
GARDENS. 
GLADIOLI. — 
Gen. De Wet — Clear orange. 
Hecla — Bright red. 
Pandora — Orange salmon. 
* This variety is figured on page 200 of the Garden- 
ers' Chronicle (London) of the 18th Oct., 1919, and in 
a note on the same page it is said to flower three 
weeks earlier than the varieties America and Panama. 
One of our subscribers in San Diego, 
Calif., W. H. C. Lawrence, writes that 
by making a succession of plantings 
he was able to have continuous Gladi- 
olus bloom for practically three years, 
and there seems no reason why this 
could not be duplicated indefinitely by 
careful attention to quality of stock 
planted, and planting at proper inter- 
vals throughout the year. 
