December 19, 1889. J 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
537 
the foliage for a day or two to prevent evaporation than to saturate the 
soil before root movement commences ; but flagging must not be per¬ 
mitted through lack of moisture at the roots. When the soil is too dry 
the roots shrivel, when too wet they decay, the result in both cases being 
the same—plant enfeeblement. Avoid the two extremes, and healthy 
growth follows. Injury is often done to Chrysanthemums by heavy and 
continuous rains occurring just as the Anal potting is completed in June. 
Ample drainage and raising the pots from a close wet surface minimises 
the evil. 
Fresh surface roots induced by a generous top-dressing when the 
petals are forming are of service, with judicious feeding, superphos¬ 
phate of lime dissolved in soot water being good at this stage. I must 
leave practical cultivators to say what else is needed on this subject. I 
am going on too long. When plants are housed the syringe is often of 
more use than the water pot for a few days, and root stagnation must be 
particularly guarded against ; but so must drought, though I have seen 
many plants kept too wet at the roots in October and November. At¬ 
tending to Chrysanthemums well is intellectual work, and reminds of 
the famous agriculturist who, when asked what he manured his crops 
with replied, “ Brains, sir, brains and you may depend upon it 
there is nothing like brains for Chrysanthemums. 
The Damping of Blooms. 
Nothing is more disappointing than to grow Chrysanthemums for a 
year, produce handsome blooms not long before an exhibition, for which 
they may be reasonably expected to “ keep,” then in a night to find 
them suddenly and unexpectedly collapse, blackness and decay follow¬ 
ingfreshness and beauty as if at a bound. The great scourge known as 
damping has ruined the blooms of the best of Chrysanthemum growers 
—men who have adopted the best means known to them for their pre¬ 
servation. That being so renders it obviously the more difficult to 
assign a cause for the misfortune that can be expected to meet with 
anything like general acceptance. It were useless discussing remedies, 
for there are none. It is not in the power of man to restore freshness to 
a decaying flower, and therefore our whole resources should be directed 
towards ascertaining the origin of premature decay in the hope that 
counteracting influences may be provided for its prevention. 
In endeavouring to do this difficulties present themselves at every 
step, and as soon as one person sets up a theory another knocks ir 
down. Some varieties are more prone to the affection than others is an 
opinion widely entertained, and often, and probably with truth, ex¬ 
pressed. At the luncheon after the Kingston Show Mr. Furze, who 
won the twenty-five-guinea cup there, recounted his experience. The 
blooms were examined on a Saturday night, fresh, bright, and beautiful, 
and hopes were bright and hearts gay ; but during the night the damp 
fiend took possession, and on the Sunday morning nearly all the best 
blooms—it is always the “ best ” in these calamities—were ruined. The 
days had been dry and cool previously ; the fatal night was damp and 
murky. We may, therefore, wonder the less at the great misfortune, 
but what puzzled the owner of the plants was this—those varieties that 
had been the first to “go” in previous years were the least affected, 
while those which usually escaped were the most seriously injured. 
He regarded the whole question as mysterious, and almost seemed as if 
he would be glad to give a medal to anyone who could solve the great 
problem of damping. 
It was not the varieties as such that escaped on the one hand, and 
were overtaken on the other, but the condition—the differing condition 
—of the florets that caused one bloom to withstand what another could 
not endure : age, substance, and possibly colour having some influence 
in the case. The hard florets of Avalanche, for instance, would stand 
firm against the enemy, whilst the comparatively flimsy petals of 
Edouard Audiguier would succumb ; and the colour of the latter would 
weaken rather than strengthen it in its contest with damp. Have you 
not observed that when the first brisk frost sweeps over gardens in 
autumn, killing not all, but most tender flowers, that the darker coloured 
are the first and most affected, the whites the last and the least ? Call to 
mind any kinds you like—Dahlias, Verbenas, Asters, Zonal Pelargo¬ 
niums, no matter what—the whites remain fresh when many of the 
darks are decaying. Why is this 1 Is it not because the radiation of 
heat from dark surfaces is greater than from light, the former thus re¬ 
maining the colder? The darks both absorb heat and lose it quicker than 
the lights do, and as it is the last feather that breaks the camel’s back, 
the featherweight by which dark flowers are handicapped when the 
strain comes breaks them down. 
Just as frost must leave its mark the most distinctly on the coldest of 
surfaces, so must damp, because the colder these are the greater is the 
precipitation of moisture on them from the atmosphere. More dew falls 
on dark soil than on light, and it is the condensation of moisture on 
Chrysanthemum flowers that causes the least resisting—the thin florets, 
or those of nominally stouter kinds, but commencing to shrink—though 
this shrinkage may not be seen—to suffer the first and the most by the 
visitation In the case of Mr. Furze the previous cool clear weather had 
so lowered the temperature of his flowers that when the warm night 
came, with a moisture-laden atmosphere, his blooms were saturated — 
gorged beyond endurance—by the condensation of dew on theirsurfaces, 
and the weakest, not necessarily the smallest blooms, but more likely 
the larger, would be the first to fail. Some of the small blooms have 
stouter florets than the large, and it is in the texture of the florets indi¬ 
vidually, not the size of the blooms, that we must search for the weakest 
link in the chain. 
As evidence that damping of the blooms of Chrysanthemums is, I 
do not say in all, but in many cases, the result of moisture condensing 
on them, and that this condensation is the result of radiation of heat 
from the house, and consequently from the plants, I years ago found 
that when radiation was arrested by the use of blinds on the glass, or, 
better, elevated a few inches above it, on cold, clear nights, that the 
keeping of the blooms was prolonged. The idea was suggested by a 
number of plants in a dry vinery remaining fresh, while others in an 
equally dry greenhouse damped provokingly. The foliage of the Vines 
arrested radiation from one house, but there was nothing between the 
blooms and the glass in the other, at least not until the lesson was 
learned ; then the greenhouse blind used in summer to subdue the rays 
of the sun was drawn down on cold clear nights in the autumn, radiation 
was checked, and the blooms then kept as well in one house as the other 
in after years. 
As confirming the soundness of practice—though I think on re¬ 
flection few will dispute it—I am authoritatively informed that a 
famous Chrysanthemum grower in the South of England has this year 
had two vineries filled with plants, the leaves being off the Vines in 
one house, but on them in the other. The blooms under the Vines have 
kept fresh, while those under the clear glass only damped, the routine 
treatment as to watering being the same in both cases. Is it any 
wonder that he will in future use blinds on the roof on nights when he 
thinks they will be beneficial ? Indeed he has commenced their use, 
and found the practice good. 
Then there is the question of affording light shade from bright sur.. 
This is important, and especially when a cloudless day follows several 
that have been cloudy. It is under those conditions that Grapes “scald,” 
as it is called. It is not scalding, but shrinkage, the result of sudden 
and excessive evaporation. It is precisely the same with Chrysanthe¬ 
mums ; the florets shrink, many beyond recovery, and those that do not 
collapse are so weakened that a little precipitation of moisture on them 1 
is followed by decay. 
The same results follow on the shrinking of the flowers from any 
cause. If the roots of the plants are injured, as many are, by an over¬ 
strong dose of sulphate of ammonia or other powerful fertiliser, the 
supply of nutriment is necessarily checked, and as a consequence the 
tenderest part of the plants suffer and shrink first—the flowers. Pre¬ 
cisely similar results follow if the roots at any time shrivel from 
drought, damping following the shrinking if there is any moisture in the 
air to be condensed on the blooms. For preventing this condensation 
there are times when brisk fire heat is absolutely essential for Chrysan¬ 
themums, and scores of blooms that were lost might have been saved if 
the houses had not been too cold at a critical time. This was for 
“ keeping the blooms back,” and they went back with a vengeance. 
Mr. Tunnington of Liverpool stated in one of his practical papers 
the value of boxes of fresh lime in the house for abstracting moisture- 
from the atmosphere, and some gentlemen at Leicester told me they had 
tried the plan and found it satisfactory. 
There is probably more injury done by overfeeding after the plants 
are housed than by overdryness, though this must be carefully avoided. 
I have seen more collections kept too wet than too dry, and the damping 
of the blooms induced in consequence. I could say more, but dare not 
in the face of fleeting time, and now commend for your criticism, 
adverse preferably, my views on this subject, for it is only by opposition 
and the dissecting of theories that truth can be established ; and in con¬ 
nection with this subject I am, as you are, a searcher for truth. The 
question of sports must perforce remain in abeyance. 
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
December 10th. 
Scientific Committee.— Present: D. Morris, Esq., in the chair r 
Messrs. MacLachlan, Michael, Church, H. J. Veitch, Pascoc, Rev. W. 
Wilks, Drs. Miiller and Masters. 
Hybrid Rhododendron. —Mr. Veitch showed a hybrid Rhodoc’eadron 
between R. Malayanum, a dwarf species, with the backs of the leaves 
densely scaly, and a hybrid form named Monarch. The new hybrid 
had luminous, orange-red flowers, and was almost exactly intermediate 
in all its characteristics between the two parents. 
Deformed Carrots. —Mr. Veitch showed a large number of deformed’ 
Carrots, in which the crowns, instead of possessing a single central bud, 
had branched into several, while the ordinarily single tap-root was also 
branched into several. The roots had been grown on a dry brashy soil 
in which there were a large number of stones. During the hot dry 
weather in summer, the soil was so dry and hard that the roots had 
difficulty in penetrating it, and hence the energy of growth was directed 
rather to the formation of supernumerary crown buds and root branches 
than to the ordinary tap-root. Professor Church corroborated the view 
that the branching of the roots was due to some mechanical obstacle in 
the soil. He had found the relative quantity of nitrogenous compounds 
in excess in such roots. Dr. Masters called attention to the presence of 
a slime fungus in some cases of this kind. 
Seakale roots.— Some roots of Seakale, rotten in the centre and 
affected with fungus, were also exhibited. The Carrots and the Sea¬ 
kale were referred to Professor Marshall Ward for examination and 
Effect of Fog on Orchid Flowers. —Mr. Veitch showed flowers of 
Phalsenopsis and Oncidium, showing how the fog affected blossoms- 
which had not fully expanded, and arrested their further development-. 
The specimens were referred to Dr. Scott for examination and report. 
