80 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 8, 1891. 
[C 
Stopping or Cutting Back Chrysanthemums. 
In some places I have seen single stemmed plants for cut blooms 
and groups reaching the inconvenient height of 7 to 8 feet and much 
higher, and it may be asked, Is this mode of growing a step in the right 
direction? At the Chrysanthemum Show at Sutton Coldfield, near 
Birmingham, a very fine group of cut-back plants took the first prize, 
each having from three to five shoots with excellent thick dark green 
foliage to the pots, and truly fine blooms, but not so large as some 
grown on a single stem. Then I saw on two or three occasions fine 
plants grown on the cut-back system in the gardens of A. F. Osier, 
Esq., Edgbaston, Birmingham, where Mr. J. Hughes, the Secretary of 
the Birmingham Chrysanthemum Society, is gardener. I did not count 
them, but there were fully 200 plants not one more than 4 feet, many 
at 3 feet, bushy, with wonderfully stout leathery dark green foliage 
to the pots and well flowered, and Mr. Hughes sees no reason why 
exhibition blooms cannot be easily grown from cut-back plants. 
Certainly for grouping or conservatory decoration such plants are 
much to be preferred to the very tall unsightly plants so often 
seen. Chrysanthemum Committees, why not encourage such yearling 
cut-back plants ? Those I have referred to were “ winter struck,” and 
cut back about the middle of May. Mr. Falconer Jameson, in writing 
on “ cut-back Chrysanthemums ” at page 52.5 of the Journal of Decem¬ 
ber 11th, says, “ One of the great objections to the majority of the 
Chrysanthemums when grown with exhibition blooms is the great height 
to which they grow. Why should not societies encourage the system of 
cutting back by oflEering prizes for them ?” And he alludes to a group 
of cut-back plants at the Hull Show, and I am very pleased to see he is 
strongly advocating the cutting-back system for exhibition plants. Our 
system of growing either purposely for large blooms or for trained 
exhibition plants is so general that at exhibitions we do not see as 
we ought examples of how to grow smaller plants for conserva'ory 
or room decoration, especially for small greenhouses. 
Single Chrysanthemums. 
I predict for these a considerable amount of popularity for decora¬ 
tion work when their beauty and value is more known. Mary Anderson 
is well known as a white variety of excellent form. Miss Kose is 
another very pretty variety of a pale rose colour and fragrant. Scarlet 
Gem is a charming variety, so also is Mrs. Langtry, pale pink ; and 
Gus Harris, deep pink with lighter base, and bright yellow centre, and 
very fragrant. I wish to see them encouraged at exhibitions as specimen 
plants, and I should like to see prizes offered for, say, a dozen or half a 
dozen plants in not larger than 32-pots, to show what can be done with 
them as decorative plants. I have repeatedly seen large plants in con¬ 
servatories, and glorious specimens they are with such masses of flower, 
and so good for cutting, and the fact that some of them possess a 
most pleasant fragrance is a sufficient reason why they should be more 
promptly acknowledged as autumn decorative plants, and there are 
other desirable varieties besides those I have named.—W. D. 
Large versus Small Prizes. 
Since the day when large prizes for cut blooms of Chrysanthe¬ 
mums was offered, many remarks have been made by gardeners and 
others expressing astonishment at the large amount of money offered for 
just a few cut blooms of a plant which can be grown to perfection in 
rather less than a twelvemonth. The saying is, “ Why should not 
equally as good prizes be offered for other classes of plants and flowers ?” 
Now that the Chrysanthemum has reached its perfection as exhibited 
in a cut state, w'hy not offer equally as good prizes for the best dwarf 
Chrysanthemum plants with largest number of first-class blooms ? It 
is well known many ladies and gentlemen would much more appreciate 
their gardeners having some good dwarf bushy plants of Chrysanthe¬ 
mums, rather than a number of tall plants grown to display about two 
or three large blooms. I have lately heard several ladies remark that 
they fail to see any usefulness in such large flowers. 
However, my object in writing is, not to call the attention of readers 
altogether with regard to large amounts offered from year to year for 
cut blooms of Chrysanthemums, because it is known to all, but to point 
out what paltry prizes are offered for classes of plants which require a 
greater amount of skill to grow than Chrysanthemums. Observe the 
difference in prizes for stove and greenhouse plants in comparison to the 
large amount for blooms of Chrysanthemums. As a rule £5 is offered 
for nine good specimens, and that too for plants which take years to 
grow. I am aware there are one or two shows that offer £20 for a collec¬ 
tion of stove and greenhouse plants—even this is a small sum compared 
with a few cut blooms of Chrysanthemums having the same amount. 
Again, look at the noble Azalea, what years it takes to grow a small 
Azalea into a good specimen ; not only time but skill as well, then 
expect a man to show a dozen specimens for about £G to £8. A £5 
cup offered for nine large Fuchsias, certainly these are easy plants to 
grow compared with Azaleas or stove and greenhouse plants, at the 
same time the prize is small compared with what is offered for 
Chrysanthemums. 
Independent of the time and skill required to grow the plants I have 
mentioned, observe the labour and expense required to convey such 
plants to the show as compared to a man running off with a box 
of Chrysanthemum blooms, and no doubt some can carry them under 
their arm. There is a time for most things, and I think the mania for 
growing large Chrysanthemum blooms ought to now pass away, and let 
something else have a chance. Gardeners must not be a one-sided class 
of men, but endeavour to promote what is fair and just among them ; 
therefore I feel sure no sensible gardener, whether he be an exhibitor of 
Chrysanthemums or not, can admit that committees are at present acting 
fair in the way they offer prize money. The saying is, Pay a man 
according to his worth, then I say. Offer prizes proportionate to the 
worth of the plants required. Therefore, as a non-exhibitor, but as an 
observer of things in general, I trust growers of choice plants will soon 
have their due.—F. 
IRON. 
Its Use in Connection with Fruit Culture and Diseases. 
(Continued from ^^0 
The subject of canker, its cause and prevention, is so important 
that it appears to demand still further consideration. All the 
savants agree that canker is due to poverty. “ Sickly trees are 
just the media for the development and growth of parasitic fungi,” 
writes Dr. Glriffiths, and “parasitic diseases ‘ take hold ’ through 
the crops being imperfectly nourished.” Canker unfortunately 
does not confine its attacks to the needy, but is equally prevalent 
on the full fed, or perhaps we might say, not properly fed. The 
remedy is phosphorus, sulphur—stimulating the living substance— 
causing it (protoplasm) to build up the cellulose of the Apple and 
Pear instead of the micro-parasitic cellulose, animal or vegetable. 
It does not matter which, for “ fungi live, like animals, upon 
organic food consisting of complicated combinations of carbon, 
which they assimilate, and, like animals, they inhale oxygen and 
give out carbonic dioxide.” It seems a principle of protoplasm of 
interchanging some of the fundamental attributes of the two 
kingdoms—plants and animals. If the protoplasm is weak the 
growth corresponds, and if strong the growth is luxuriant. It 
depends on the food and power of assimilation. There is poverty 
at the root. Want of material to build with in case of the weak— 
too much, more than the foliage can elaborate and assimilate in 
the strong—there is poverty of sap, result canker. Unfortunately 
the full fed tree is equally liable to the dry gangrene. It is the 
nature of the disease. The Elm similarly affected oozes gallons of 
fluid as a ferment. That, however, is not canker, but gum, for 
canker in trees is analogous to cancer in animals, most frequent 
amongst the underfed, overworked, and badly sanitated. Treatment: 
Active caustics, good food, warmth, air, exercise—in a word, expulsion. 
For canker in Apple and Pear trees, careful cultivation, favourable 
circumstances of soil, drainage, temperature, and good living. Of 
course hereditary tendency does not admit of entire prevention or 
great modification of the disease. Indeed cinker may be defined 
as a loss of vitality in some part from some latent disease, and in 
the case of the Apple and Pear a remedy is found in much the 
same way as in canker in animals. For canker in Cucumbers and 
Melons we cauterise with quicklime ; for infected Auriculas, 
believed to be infectious, yet caused by superabundant nourish¬ 
ment, we apply charcoal, and prescribe a less luxurious regimen. 
For Parsley grown in a poor soil Mr. Barnes found no remedy 
equal to “ soot and slaked lime thrown over the plants. The cure 
is complete in a few days, and the vigour of the plants restored, 
indicating that this species of ulceration arises from deficient 
nourishment.”—(“ Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionary,” page 1G9). 
Wherever a cure for canker obtains iron comes in ; even scab in 
Potatoes is a canker, bearing a great analogy to canker in Apple 
trees. It is sometimes accompanied by a fungus (Tubercinia 
scabies), and sometimes no trace occurs of the “action of fungi, 
and it has been conjectured that the cracks followed by scabbing 
are due to contact with irritant or corrosive substances in the soil, 
and that the scabs are due to efforts at healing the injury, but new 
cracks form in them, and so the mischief goes on.”—(Nicholson’s 
Dictionary of Gardening, div. vi., page 207). Why should new 
cracks form or the tubers scab after they are stored ? Where is 
the “ irritant or corrosive substances” then ? In the spore of the 
fungus of which “ there is often no trace at harvest time, but 
during the winter it developes, and the spores form a layer beneath 
the skin, often extending over a great part of the tuber. After a 
time the spores are set free by the bursting of the skin.” Iron 
sulphate destroys this fungus. 
The analogy between canker in Parsley roots and scald in 
Potatoes is that it begins with a swelling—the seat of the fungus 
is between the bark and alburnum. “ The swelling is caused by a 
rupture of the sap vessels by frost,” say the believers in cold 
causing canker in winter trees, but wherever sap vessels are 
ruptured by frost there is immediate shrinking of the bark after a 
