The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
925 
The Farm Flower Garden 
There are several flowers which seem 
to be particularly well adapted to the 
farm garden, inasmuch as they do not 
require a great amount of attention, and 
flower freely. In the list are included 
peonies, climbing roses, Dahlias, Gladioli, 
larkspurs, hollyhocks. Irises and Phlox. 
Peonies of the old-fashioned type are 
found growing beside farmhouse doors 
everywhere, but there is no reason why 
the newer and in some ways better 
peonies should not have a place in the 
farm garden, too. So much is heard about 
the high prices charged for fancy peony 
roots that one forgets sometimes that 
among the older peonies, which are not at 
all expensive, are some quite as good as 
those of more recent date. Pestiva Max¬ 
ima still remains unsurpassed as a white 
peony. It is a strong grower, a free 
bloomer, and very handsome. Yet a strong 
root can be 'bought for only 50 cents. An¬ 
other good variety at the same price is 
Torquemada, soft rose pink in color and 
excellent as a cut flower. At $1 there is 
a wide selection, including Avalanche, 
ivory white and blooming rather late: 
Felix Crousse, deep cherry red, a very 
choice variety and fairly late to bloom; 
Venus, a mid-season variety, with com¬ 
pact, delicate shell pink flowers ; Grandi- 
flora, a very late variety with pointed 
pink petals. 
If one were going to pay $2, there are 
such splendid varieties as the bluish white 
La Perlc; Etta, deep shell pink and very 
late, and Neptune, a fine mid-season white 
variety. For $6 one can buy Therese, a 
free blooming, soft pink variety, and one 
of the most satisfactory, if not the very 
best peony in commerce. Solange, Walter 
Faxon and Lady Alexandra Duff are 
among the other stars in the peony firma¬ 
ment, and are not out of the reach pf 
many buyers. 
Peony plants last for years, and there¬ 
fore should be chosen with care. It is 
well to have a few early and late varie¬ 
ties, and few flowers yield more genuine 
pleasure. It should be remembered that 
the time to transplant and set out peonies 
is in the Fall, from the first of September 
on. They can be transplanted early in 
the Spring, but Fall suits them much bet¬ 
ter. 
Of late years the climbing roses have 
won great popularity, and with good rea¬ 
son. They are among the most satisfac¬ 
tory of all flowers that one can grow, 
especially when they can be trained over 
a fence or an arbor. Unfortunately, many 
farmers’ wives know only the old-fash¬ 
ioned Crimson Rambler, which is by no 
means as good as some of the modern va¬ 
rieties. Among the best of the climbers 
which I have tested in my own garden are 
Aunt Harriet, American Pillar, Silver 
Moon, Excelsa, Dr. Van Fleet, Wichmoss, 
Dorothy Perkins, Paul’s Scarlet Climber 
and Christine Wright. By choosing early 
and late varieties one can have a display 
lasting for weeks. If I were to recom¬ 
mend a limited few, with this point in 
view, I would suggest Aunt Harriet, 
Christine Wright, Silver Moon, American 
Pillar and Excelsa. These varieties give 
a wide range in color as well as covering 
a long season. Aunt Harriet and Excelsa 
are red. Christine Wright is a very 
double pink variety, and American Pillar, 
while pink, is single. Silver Moon is 
semi-double, white and very large, with 
beautiful foliage. For a rose to climb 
over a fence or on a stone wall there are 
few, however, to surpass Dorothy Per¬ 
kins, shell pink. Climbing roses need 
much less attention than bush roses, and 
produce a tremendous mass of bloom 
when well established. About all you need 
to do to these climbing roses is to keep the 
old and dead wood cut out. 
The hollyhock finds its ideal home along 
a country fence or at a farmhouse door. 
If you cut the plants down to the ground 
just before the last blossom fades, a lot 
of new growth will be made, so that the 
plant will come up and bloom again next 
year. By this method you can practically 
make a perennial out of what is normally 
a biennial. 
It isn’t necessary to say much about 
Gladioli and Dahlias except to emphasize 
the necessity of keeping the latter staked, 
as they are easily blown over in high 
winds. 
The German Iris, so-called, 'is one of 
the indispensable plants in the farm gar¬ 
den. It makes a fine display in the Spring, 
and goes on blooming year after year, 
with but little attention. Moreover, it 
revels in a hot, sandy location, although 
it will bloom in partial shade. You can 
readily divide the old plants by pulling 
the roots to pieces, and can do this -work 
right after the blooming season, although 
probably Fall is a better time. 
Pruning the Shrubs. —This is a good 
time to prune the early flowering shrubs. 
All too often home-makers let the work 
go until Fall or Winter, with the result 
that the flower buds are cut off. If such 
shrubs as Spiraeas, Weigelas, bush honey¬ 
suckles, Deutzias, syringas, and climbing 
roses are pruned shortly after flowering, 
they at once start making new growth, 
which will bear more flowers next year. 
Pruning at this season also helps to keep 
the bushes shapely, for which reason 
hedges can be trimmed now to good ad¬ 
vantage. Neglected shrubs become tall 
and droop in an untidy manner. But 
make a point when pruning of cutting out 
the old wood close to the ground and re¬ 
moving Weak and twisted branches. If 
you are going to prune at all, do a good 
job. Merely cutting off the ends of the 
twigs accomplishes nothing except to 
make the bushes look a little more tidy 
for the time being. E. I. Farrington. 
The Cluster Honey or Buckwheat Fly 
On page 479, under “Fly Notes,” there 
are four different people inquiring about 
the same kind of fly, a kind that has been 
familiar to me for many years. They 
gather on garret windows, the windows of 
outbuildings, and also on second-story 
windows in houses in the Fall, and if 
the house ie heated they remain in cracks 
or some other place and come out on 
the windows and ceilings sunny or warm 
days. No screens will keep them out; 
they seem to flatten themselves and go 
through invisible cracks. They may in 
the evening come in small numbers 
around lights on the first floor, or a few 
on windows, but you will not see them 
gather in a kitchen around food like the 
house-fly, nor deliberately crawling on 
food to eat it, as the house-fly does. They 
are called buckwheat flies or honey flies 
and when they come in first in the Fall 
are full of honey and smell like buck¬ 
wheat honey. They seem to come from the 
buckwheat. None of my friends who live 
where buckwheat is never raised know 
anything about them. They are not 
poison like the house-fly, but spoil wall 
paper by gathering in bunches in cor¬ 
ners of upper rooms. I never let them 
gather, but twice each day when they 
are thick I take a basin or pail of hot 
water and with a whisk broom sweep 
them into the water before they gather 
in bunches but are still buzzing on the 
windows. Later in the season in the 
Winter they no longer are full of honey 
and a great many fall dead on the floor 
and can be swept up, but they will not 
then gather in bunches on the wall paper. 
The life of a housekeeper is strenuous 
during the buckwheat-fly season and it 
is a long one. If a house is closed or a 
room darkened they will gather in the 
bed', under pillows or in clothes rooms 
in the clothes, and discolor them if left 
long, as they do wallpaper. 
New York. matilda .tacobs. 
The common house-fly constitutes 90 
per cent or more of all the flies that are 
found in dwelling-houses in the United 
States during the Summer months. 
There are, however, a few other kinds 
of flies that find their way into the rooms 
of our homes, and one of these is the so- 
called cluster-fly or as the correspondent 
calls it, the buckwheat fly, or honey fly. 
The correspondent has described the 
habits of this fly so accurately that there 
is very little that I need add. Nearly 
every housekeeper will recognize it as 
the fly that comes into unused bedrooms, 
or other rooms in the Fall and gathers 
in clusters beneath the curtains or be¬ 
neath clothes hanging in closets, or even 
under the pillows on beds and in cor¬ 
ners of the rooms. 
This fly is widely distributed in the 
United States and certainly does occur 
in regions where buckwheat is not grown. 
I cannot say positively that the cluster 
fly does not sip the nectar from the flow¬ 
ers of buckwheat when these can be 
found, but I do believe that the honey 
odor has nothing to do with buckwheat 
itself, but that it is simply characteristic 
of this fly, just as the etink bug, bed 
bug and cockroach have each its peculiar 
and distinctive odor. 
One of the most interesting things 
about this fly is that it breeds in cer¬ 
tain earthworms, and is a parasite on 
these earthworms while it is in the mag¬ 
got stage. This fact was first discovered 
by a European observer, but it has since 
been confirmed by investigators in this 
country who have actually reared the 
flies from the earthworms. At first 
thought this seems rather remarkable, 
but many flies, as we know are parasitic 
during their immature stages. 
The cluster-fly as already indicated, 
passes the Winter in clusters or bunches 
in attics, closets, unused rooms and in 
crevices beneath the shingles on the 
roofs of buildings. During warm daya 
in the Winter the flies become lively and 
buzz actively about the panes of windows 
where they are often mistaken for com¬ 
mon house-flies. This has led many per¬ 
sons to say off-hand that the house¬ 
fly passes the Winter hidden away in 
attics and similar places. All of the 
correspondents on page 479 of The It. 
N.-Y., D. W. Skellie, E. H. of West¬ 
chester Co., N. Y., M. A. of Ohio, and 
J. R. Job of Canada, were talking of 
the cluster-fly and not of the common 
house-fly. A good way to settle a ques¬ 
tion like this would be to send some of 
the flies when found to a competent en¬ 
tomologist, who would be only to glad to 
examine them and determine what they 
were. No one is more anxious to know 
just how the house-fly passes the Winter 
than the entomologist, and he will wel¬ 
come any real accurate information on 
the subject. 
I would suggest that those' readers 
who are especially interested in house¬ 
hold insects write to the Agricultural 
College, Ithaca, N.-Y., and request a copy 
of the pamphlet on “Household Insects.” 
It costs nothing and will be sent imme¬ 
diately on request. This pamphlet does 
not treat of all the insects that invade 
the household and those whose interests 
go farther will find much additional in¬ 
formation in a book on “Household In¬ 
sects” written by the author of this ar¬ 
ticle and published by the Macmillan Co., 
New York. This is a work of several 
hundred pages, fully illustrated and con¬ 
tains a chapter on poisonous insects. 
GLENN \V. HERRICK, 
An Agricultural Ink 
A short time ago I saw an inquiry in 
The R. N.-Y. for some method of writ¬ 
ing labels on zinc that would be perma¬ 
nent. Ten or 15 years ago I got from 
the Scientific American Supplement the 
following formula for what the paper 
denominates as agricultural ink. I have 
used it for many years, and know it to 
be fadeless and permanent, never wash¬ 
ing off. I have used it with an ordinary 
steel pen, but a quill pen is better, as the 
letters can be made smoother and more 
distinct. I do not remember what the 
ink cost, but it is but a trifle compared 
with its durability and usefulness. Any 
druggist who has the chemicals can make 
it in a very short time. It is absolutely 
perfect for the object for which it is de¬ 
signed. Rub the blank labels clean and 
dry, and write on them what you wish, 
and you will always find it where you 
wrote it: Here is the formula : Potas¬ 
sium chlorate, 1 dr.; copper sulphate, 2 
dr.; aniline blue, 5 gr.; acetic acid, 2 dr.; 
distilled water, 4 oz. 
Dissolve the chlorate and sulphate in 
3 oz. of the distilled water and the aniline 
bine with the acetic acid in the remaining 
ounce of water; mix all together. Keep 
in a well-corkeil bottle. It has kept for 
me standing on a shelf in my library for 
more than 10 years, and is just as good 
and permanent as ever it was. 
Illinois. A. W. FOREMAN. 
The Blowers Blackberry 
In connection with the discussion of 
the Blowers blackberry on page 732, it 
might be of interest to state that in 1919 
the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tion secured plants supposed to be 
Blowers from five different nurserymen 
for setting in a varietal test plot of black¬ 
berries. As these, with the exception of 
a few plants which are palpably wrong, 
1 ‘esemble each other closely in appearance 
and behavior, it is safe to assume that 
they are true to name. This Spring 
orange rust was discovered in the nlot, 
and an examination showed that, each of 
the five lots of Blowers was affected, in 
some cases half the .plants showing the 
disease. Strange to say not another case 
of rust can be seen anywhere else in the 
test plot. The thought came up that 
the five nurserymen might have secured 
their plants from a common source, but 
•correspondence shows that the plants 
were grown in five widely separated sec¬ 
tions. This would seem to indicate a 
marked susceptibility to rust in this 
variety. PAUL thayer. 
Ohio Experiment Station. 
Destroying Wild Honeysuckle 
What is the best way to get rid of 
wild honeysuckle? It is getting to be the 
worst of all noxious weeds in these parts. 
It will throw roots many yards in length 
during the Summer, and 1 each part taking 
root soon makes one tangled mass. The 
roots, penetrate deep in the ground 1 , mak¬ 
ing it hard to kill, and digging it out 
is hard and slow work. I have been 
advised to spray with a strong solution 
of salt that will make the leaves wither, 
then burn it up. This will not kill the 
roots, so it will grow again. Do you 
think goats will eat it? In the open field 
it is not so bad; it can be plowed and 
got out with the hoe, but it runs worst 
along hedgerows and fence corners that 
cannot be plowed, also along ditches and 
chokes them up. Any suggestions would 
be very welcome to the farmers of this 
part of Virginia. It is the worst weed 
we have to contend with. Every little 
root left in the ground grows again, mak¬ 
ing it so very hard to kill. The bird's eat 
the seeds and scatter it everywhere. 
Petersburg, Va. h. d. 
A Group of Single Peonies. Fig. 378 
Climbing Roses for Porch Decoration. Fig. 379 
