The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
911 
Horticultural Notes 
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It is Easy to be a Good Cook 
With a Range Like This 
Culture of Sweet Peas 
I have grown sweet peas for a num¬ 
ber of years, but I am always troubled 
with the shortness of stems. Can you 
advise me what fertilizer to use to get 
length of stems, as well as lots of bloom? 
North Adams. Mass. J. w. H. 
Sweet peas like a cool deep soil, rich 
and well prepared. The short stems are 
usually the result of deficient fertility 
and moisture. Fall preparation of the 
soil is desirable, because in early Spring 
the ground may be too wet to work. Dig 
a trench 2 ft. deep and a foot or more 
wide. Place several inches of manure in 
the bottom, and fill in with good soil so 
that the filled trench is rather rounding 
at the top. Sow as early as possible in 
the Spring; the plants grow best in the 
cool moist months. The row should be 
raked level, and the seed sown half an 
inch deep. If the soil is not very good, a 
dressing of bonemeal may be given when 
the plants are several inches tall. Scat¬ 
ter the bonemeal on both sides of the row 
so that the ground is white, and then 
rake it in. When the blooming season is 
on, and the flowers begin to come with 
short stems, a light dose of nitrate of 
soda may be given, dissolved in water, a 
tablespoon of the chemical to the gallon. 
A mulch of lawn clippings along the rows 
will prevent the soil from baking. Free 
watering during a dry spell is desirable. 
The flowers should be picked regularly, 
and the plants should never be allowed 
to form seed pods. It is the opinion of 
good authorities that regular cutting of 
the flowers is even more necessary than 
watering, and the cutting of some foliage 
with the flowers, which may be regarded 
as light pruning, is advantageous, as it 
induces the plants to branch. 
Lice on Rose and Snowball Bushes 
What can I do for lice on rose bushes 
and snowball plants? Our plants are 
full of them. B - 
Woodhaven, N. Y. 
Spray the roses with whale-oil soap so¬ 
lution. 1 lb. of soap to five gallons of wa¬ 
ter, or with tobacco extract or Black Leaf 
40, one ounce to five gallons, with 7 y 2 
ounces soft soap to make it stick. 
The common snowball or guelder rose 
is so subject to plant lice attacks that 
many gardeners have now discarded it in 
favor of the Japanese snowball, Vibur¬ 
num tomentosum. The Japanese variety 
has handsomer foliage, rarely troubled by 
insects, and very fine flower clusters. It 
is difficult to treat the snowball foliage 
effectively, as the leaves curl up with the 
insects inside, where the spray does not 
reach them. Spraying should begin as 
soon as the leaves unfold, and should be 
repeated during the season, using the to¬ 
bacco extract or whale-oil soap solution 
advised for the roses. 
A Roadside Flower Bed 
I am intending to put out a plot of 
ground beside the road, 100 or 150 ft. 
long by 3 ft. wide, for roses. Of course 
I must have the best thing on earth. Is 
there something better for beauty than 
one ever-blooming, then one Dorothy lei- 
kins, then a Crimson Rambler, in suc¬ 
cession? I read of new roses in The R. 
N -Y., but do not know if they have been 
tested. How far apart should they be 
set; 3 or 4 ft.? How would it look to 
fill the whole plot with asters, after the 
roses have been set? I wish to have 
something a little extra fine, although out 
on the farm. Thousands of people pass 
bv going to see the Marshall I arm apple 
trees when in blossom, as they have some¬ 
thing like 7,000 trees. How would you 
arrange such a plot? Could make it 
wider if necessary. s. 
Fitchburg, Mass. 
Rambler roses will make an attractive 
background, trained on a fence or special 
trellis; 8 or 10 ft. will be amply close 
for planting. Bess, Mary and Alida Lov¬ 
ett are three of the best and most beauti¬ 
ful of a long list. Crimson Rambler is 
very seldom planted now, there being too 
many others very superior. Excelsa is a 
better red. Dr. Van Fleet is beautiful 
and Paul’s Scarlet is the best scarlet in 
existence. 
There are many flowers that can be 
planted in a long narrow plot paralleling 
a roadway. I have seen Zinnias so used 
to excellent advantage. Asters would 
only bloom for a short period. Zinnias, 
annual Phlox, Salpiglossis, Clarkia. Ver¬ 
benas in front, and Cannas or Dahlias, 
or both, in the front of the roses would 
make a show all season. 
There are many beautiful perennials 
that could be planted to give varied flow¬ 
ers all season. Hollyhocks, Ilelenium, 
Eupatorium, Hibiscus, would make good 
tall background, and Alyssum saxatile, 
Armeria, Phlox divaricata, low growing, 
for the front, would bloom very early. 
The center of the bed could be made 
up of plots of Dianthus. Coreopsis, Digi¬ 
talis, Campanulas, Veronica. Gaillardia, 
Stokesia, and so many beautiful flowers 
that are easily grown that a thousand 
feet of bed would not exhaust them all. 
ELMER J. WEAVER. 
Winter Injury on Apple Trees; Brown 
Rot on Stone Fruits 
1. I have about a dozen McIntosh ap¬ 
ple trees 12 years old, mostly grafted on 
thrifty sprouts growing along the fences. 
They seem to be in fine condition except 
the lower portion of the trunks, from 8 
to 20 in. from the ground, where the 
outer bark is flaking off and the inner 
bark is not looking healthy. 2. I also 
have two apricots which bloom freely and 
set fruit some years, but the fruit rots 
and drops when about the size of large 
hickorynuts. H. A. s. 
Carmel, N. Y. 
1. McIntosh is a hardy variety, yet 
under some conditions it is subject to 
Winter injury. If the grafting was done 
several feet above the ground so that the 
part of the trunk affected is seedling 
stock, then the probability of the trouble 
being due to Winter injury is more likely. 
The southwest side of the trunk is the 
side most apt to be injured from this 
cause. In such cases moderate pruning, 
good cultivation and applications of some 
such nitrogenous fertilizer as nitrate <f 
soda are found helpful in restoring the 
vigor of the tree and helping the tree to 
overcome the injury. 
2. The rot is due to the brown-rot 
fungus. Applications of self-boiled lime- 
sulphur when the shucks are off, and 
again two weeks later, will help to hold 
the disease in check. H. b. x. 
Rose Bugs in the Garden 
During the past two years my rose 
bushes have been almost covered with 
bugs. These bugs eat the roses and also 
the leaves of the bushes. This year, al¬ 
though the bushes have not as yet pro¬ 
duced any flowers, I find that these bugs 
are already making their appearance, and 
I would appreciate any information you 
can give me that will enable me to de¬ 
stroy these pests. Last year I used a 
preparation recommended by a seedsman 
(this was a liquid to be mixed with wa¬ 
ter) but this mixture burned badly. It 
seemed to help a little as far as destroy : 
ing the bugs, but did not exterminate 
them entirely. What will control these 
insects? C. B. H. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
No doubt the insects referred to are 
the common rose bug or rose chafer—a 
long-legged ungainly beetle, rusty brown¬ 
ish black in color. This is a common 
nuisance, and very difficult to control. It 
is very destructive to grape blossoms, and 
in commercial vineyards a spray of ar¬ 
senate of lead is used to control it, 5 lbs. 
of lead arsenate to 50 gallons of water, 
to which one gallon of molasses is added 
to make it stick. One spraying is given 
about the time the insects are due, and a 
second application is made a week later. 
This is said to give good results, but we 
should not like to use it in the rose gar¬ 
den. for a sticky poison is not pleasant 
on flowers that one may touch. In the 
ordinary home garden, hand-picking is 
the only thing we think desirable, and 
this seems futile when the insects come 
in their usual swarms. Still, one can de¬ 
stroy a great many by taking a conveni¬ 
ent vessel containing water with a layer 
of kerosene on top, and shaking the crea¬ 
tures into this. The insects breed in 
sandy ground that lies uncultivated and 
overgrown with weeds, and Fall plowing 
of such ground is helpful. Goldenrod and 
other weeds are host plants, so the clean¬ 
ing up of waste land, and the general 
elimination of weeds, will in time lessen 
its numbers. 
A casualty insurance company that 
had required some additional evidence to 
support a claim recently received a let¬ 
ter from the widow of the insured, which 
ended : “I have so much trouble getting 
my money that I sometimes almost think 
I wish my husband were not dead.”— 
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The Rural New-Yorker, 333 West 30th St., New York 
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