The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1201 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
The Dahlias grown from seed sown in 
February in the greenhouse are now com¬ 
ing into bloom. There w r as no attempt 
to make any special crossing for the seed, 
but they were simply taken from the beet 
varieties. Hence I am having much 
pleasure in watching them bloom. There 
are nearly 100 plants, and while not half 
of them have bloomed yet there is a very 
good percentage of fine flowers, mainly 
of the decorative and peony classes. 
Growing Dahlias from seed and keeping 
only those that are at least as good as 
the named varieties on the market, one 
can get a large collection at very little 
expense, and getting one of striking 
beauty it can be named and increased and 
put in the hands of the trade. But one 
here has to dig and destroy the worthless 
ones, for if the Winter happens to be as 
mild as the last one they will live over 
and grow. I have several immense 
bunches of Cannas of the old small-flow¬ 
ered type that are now in their third 
year. I have tolerated them simply be¬ 
cause of their massive growth and great 
foliage, and I keep the flowers cut out. 
They have had no Winter protection at 
all. but being in the way where they are 
now I will lift and store them this Fall 
simply for the tall, massive centerpieces 
in beds of the more dwarf and large- 
blooming varieties. 
There are. however, some quite robust 
and tall varieties among the named ones. 
Wintzer’s Colossal is not only a colossal 
plant, but makes massive heads of very 
large scarlet flowers. Panama, a pale 
pink edged with pale straw color, is also 
rather tall growing. Orange Bedder is 
also tall and very prolific in shoots and 
flowers. The best white Canna I have 
ever seen is Eureka. Being dwarf, it 
makes a fine outer row for a circular bed 
of the tall red ones, while its heads of 
bloom are as massive as any. It makes 
a very striking contrast for a bed of the 
bronze-leaved King Humbert. The new 
Fiery Cross Canna has been very dis¬ 
appointing. Its flowers are very large 
and brilliant, but the head hangs over, 
and that spoils the effect. Wintzer’s 
Colossal right alongside of it is vastly 
more showy. 
The tomato canners have given up all 
hopes of enough tomatoes to go around, 
and some of them are canning peaches 
now. The tomato crop is not only small 
in area but very late. I have seen num¬ 
bers of fields that do not promise to fur¬ 
nish a ripe tomato before the first of 
September, and of course that means that 
only a partial crop can be matured. My 
early tomatoes trained on stakes made a 
wonderful crop before the leaf blight 
struck them. Now they have only green 
tips of a foot or more near the top of 
the stakes. Plants of same age allowed 
to tumble on the ground have not blighted, 
though not sprayed as those on the stakes 
were, more than once. And yet in a 
station bulletin I have seen it stated that 
plants on stakes are less liable to leaf 
blight. With me they have always been 
more liable to the attack. 
We are now in the rush of the canta¬ 
loupe season. For weeks motor trucks 
and horse wagons have been busy hauling 
the crop to the stations. From our sta¬ 
tion alone 50 to 75 carloads a day have 
been going North. In my garden I tried 
some seed a friend got from Colorado 
under the name of Burrell Gem. They 
are large, with orange-colored flesh. They 
vary a great deal. Many of them have 
very large interior and shallow meat, 
while others have fairly thick flesh. In 
quality they are decidedly inferior to the 
Pollock right alongside of them. Here¬ 
after I shall stick to the Pollock. It has 
green flesh with a tint of salmon next to 
the seed, and is very thick-meated. 
Losing my Pimiento pepper plants from 
my own seed. I bought some potted plants 
and now have not a single pure Pimiento. 
The plants produce pods that seem to be 
a cross between the Pimiento and the 
Bull Nose. A friend gave me some plants 
of the Neapolitan. These are productive, 
bear the pods pointing upwards, are pale 
green and very thin-fleshed. They may 
do for stuffing for pickles, but for salad 
purposes are far inferior to other sweet 
peppers. 
Peaches are plentiful and line, but the 
price keeps up wonderfully, $1 a peck. 
W. F. MASSEY. 
Stock for Grafting Cherries 
Mr. Hartman, page 1157. writes pleas¬ 
antly of his boyhood cherry grafting on 
wild stocks, and calls them Mahaleb. He 
is in error there, for the Mahaleb is not 
a native of this country; the seed and 
the stocks are imported by nurserymen 
and used mainly for working sour cher¬ 
ries on. Mr. Hartman’s wild stocks were 
seedlings of the cherries growing around 
and dropped by birds. They make very 
good stocks, too. Most of the nursery¬ 
men bud the sweet cherries on the Maz- 
zard stock. This Mazzard is a small 
black cherry similar to the old Black 
Heart, but inferior in size and quality. 
Cherry growers in the North do not ap¬ 
prove of the Mahaleb stock for sweet 
cherries, but prefer the Mazzard. The 
Mahaleb does better in the South, where 
sweet cherries are a very uncertain fruit 
outside the mountain sections. It has 
been used with the idea of dwarfing the 
trees, but why, I cannot see. for the 
Mahaleb is a rampant grower, and will 
make large trees, but they are always 
shorter lived than trees on Mazzard stock. 
W. F. MASSEY. 
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FOR YOUR SPARE TIME THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, Dept. “M” 333 HW 30th Street, N. Y. 
