The Garden Magazine, December, 1923 
231 
For instance, in the test cultures that we inspected half the root 
was in acid soil and half in an alkaline soil. The plant responded 
half and half. Where a plant had been grown in one kind of soil for a 
given period so that the buds were partly formed and then changed 
the centre of the flower-head was one color and the outer portion 
another. It is possible that your particular plant is growing in a 
situation where the condition varies according to the flow of water from 
a different level or some other source. The matter is rather fully 
discussed on page 106—“Why Pink Hydrangeas are Blue’’—of our 
October issue.— Ed. 
Moving Roses in Midsummer 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
EING an amateur gardener I did not know there was anything 
unusual about moving Roses in the Summer, and 1 have read 
Mrs. Miller’s account of her experience of late August to October 
moving in October Garden Magazine. 
On July 3rd I received by parcel post eight two-year-old Roses from 
West Grove, Pa., and planted them at high noon in a temperature of 
102 0 . 1 was careful not to let the sun hit them more than a few minutes 
during the time I was setting them in a muddied hole and immediately 
covered them with large pasteboard cartons with holes cut for ventila¬ 
tion, leaving them covered for 10 days. 1 did not prune the tops at 
all. During July and August we had no rain and I watered them every 
night with the hose. The temperature every day rose to more than 
100 and on several days to 107. Six of the plants lived, and for more 
than a month now as I write, October 5th, we have been getting beauti¬ 
ful Roses.—A. R. Teeple, Oklahoma City, Okla. 
The Bluebells of Scotland at Home in Wisconsin 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
N YOUR October number is an interesting little article about the 
Harebell, or Hairbell, or Bluebell (Pay your money and take your 
choice!) Fortunately the Scotch can’t keep all good things to them¬ 
selves and the beautiful airy Campanula rotundifolia or Scotch Blue¬ 
bell is one of these. 
Here in Wisconsin we find it growing wild in the crevices in the rocks 
on our quartzite cliffs, and on waste sand stretches that are not actually 
inpoverished and sometimeseven on themoss hummocks in our swamps. 
One might judge from this that it loved poor sandy soil, but such is 
not the case. On our heavy clay soil it grows strong and vigorous, 
with a flowering season of nearly three months, but it will not stand 
crowding with weeds or other plants, and Kentucky Blue Grass is 
not its friend. This is the reason we find it wild only in the poorer 
ground or in rocky clefts—these being the only places where it can 
find room and freedom to grow in its own airy graceful way.—W. A. 
Toole, Baraboo, IVisconsin. 
All Seeds are not Alike 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine 
AVING been struggling for a couple of years or more in growing 
perennials from seed, wasting seeds to the number of at least 
ten times the plants obtained although following as closely as possible 
all of the many directions of seedsmen and of articles in The Garden 
Magazine, and having been kept busy during the same period of time 
weeding out the undesired growth of seedlings, the question arises, 
is such tremendous care required? 
Every year I deeply dig a certain bed in the vicinity of which is a 
Honeysuckle and all season the seedlings come popping up as fast as 
they are picked; once 1 pulled one up, and its length of stem so im¬ 
pressed me that I measured it from root to ground level and found 
it to be just 45 inches. The general rule for sowing seeds being about 
at a depth of four times their size, how is it that these and other out¬ 
laws which receive all kinds of rough treatment can spring up from 
any depth at all and why do the seeds so carefully sown and tended 
often fail even to germinate?—E. Carmichael. 
—Just as there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon 
so the seeds of different plants vary in their response to cultivation. 
Some seeds are notoriously easy to germinate. These are the weeds 
that grow up and infest the earth. Others are naturally difficult to ger¬ 
minate and the plants are correspondingly rare and difficult to obtain. 
One hundred per cent, germination is hardly expected from a quantity 
of any given seeds. Indeed if all the seeds produced were to grow into 
plants, everything else would soon be pushed off the face of the earth. 
Witness for example the millions of seeds produced by some of the 
Orchids—very few of which become plants. There is the eternal 
struggle, the fight for existence going on in the plant world as 
elsewhere, and all the gardener attempts is to avail himself of 
the best opportunities in the light of his knowledge as he sees 
them. Seeds of herbaceous perennial plants that may germinate 
strongly if allowed to fall naturally around the parent plant will germi¬ 
nate in lesser quantity when sown in ordinary cultural routine the 
next season after the drying that is inseparable from artificial handling. 
Therefore, the gardener sows such seeds in flats and nurses them along, 
as far as possible shielding them from their natural enemies and from 
the trials and vicissitudes of the budding life. Further, the more 
highly developed strains of very variable plants are likely to be very 
delicate in constitution and weak in viability; and even after germin¬ 
ation there are the trials of babyhood to be encountered.— Ed. 
Does Danger Lurk in Seeds? 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
OR some time past we as garden lovers have taken a keen delight in 
raising plants from seed which we secured from every corner of 
the world little thinking, of course, that there was anything to fear in 
that endeavour, but apparently we have been playing with fire as the 
Federal Horticultural Board is convinced that to introduce seeds is 
dangerous and since April last has decreed that no seeds of trees or 
shrubs or hardy perennial plants shall pass through the garden gate. 
This is an additional clause to Quarantine 37, otherwise known as the 
horticultural act of prohibition, and affects us all. 
We were somewhat discouraged over “Q. 37” but now we begin to 
wonder if we shall be allowed to continue propagation at all in our 
gardens—we are getting nervous and furthermore we are still wondering 
why this latest blow has been struck at the seeds. It might be that 
owing to lack of inspectors who would have to work overtime examining 
these seeds with the aid of X-Rays as they entered by mail, etc., that 
the F. H. B. has seen fit to discourage the wholesale importation of the 
above mentioned seeds except by special permit and by special tags. 
A survey of this drastic order gives one the impression that this 
second revision, as it is called, of Quarantine 37 was promulgated in a 
hurry, for it is hard to understand the why and wherefore as it is drawn 
up and the lines are drawn in queer places. In regulation 2 (page 5) 
we read that permits are not required for plant products capable of 
propagation imported for medicinal, food, or manufacturing purposes, 
and field, vegetable, and flower seeds In regulation 3 (page 5) we 
read that permits are required for the importation of seeds of fruit, 
forest, ornamental and shade trees, seeds of deciduous and evergreen 
ornamental shrubs, and seeds of hardy perennial plants. 
We have always thought that many thousands of acres are devoted 
to Apricots, Pears, Prunes, Apples, Figs, etc. Nuts, also prohibited 
except by special permit, are also a highly nutritious food and these are 
used for food. Why vegetable and flower seeds should be allowed in 
under regulation 2, and seeds of hardy perennials also usually classed 
as flowers, should be allowed in only under permit as per regulation 3 
is beyond our imagination even. Under regulation 1, we are given the 
definitions of the F. H. B.—“flower seeds,’’ we read, are “seeds of 
annual, biennial, or even perennial flowering plants which perish an¬ 
nually down to and sometimes including the root. (i.e. soft succulent 
plants). Seeds of hardy perennial plants are seeds of woody or other 
plants which are not herbaceous and are either of a hardy and woody 
growth or are not killed to the ground in temperate zones.” 
Having carefully perused all these definitions and regulations which 
are to apply from henceforth to the humble seed, we wonder why this 
drastic order? Has some member of the F. H. B. discovered that some 
fungus disease lurks in the seed and traced it back to the third and 
fourth generation? This department has unearthed some fundamental 
truth which it has not yet seen fit to publish in a bulletin. It has reason 
to suspect even a tiny seed, and the garden gate is being closed and 
locked bv the F. H. B., the originators of prohibition!— Albert 
R. Gould, Santa Barbara, Cal. 
Questing for a Pure Blue Delphinium 
To the Editors oj The Garden Magazine: 
AN you tell me where 1 can get the seed or plant of a very dark, 
pure blue Delphinium with a black centre? Have tried a number 
of the leading dealers here (as well as Sutton in England) but cannot 
find a blue free from purple. Three or four years ago I had a plant 
such as described, given me by a friend, but it died of the disease so 
many Delphiniums have.— Josephine E. Smith, St. James, L. I. 
