110 
House & Garden 
The NEW Hardy Flowers 
of 1923 
will be in bloom in your garden next summer if you 
sow seeds now. New and very rare Perennials for 
gardens of individuality! 
1. Viola (Tufted Pansies) Cyclops. 
Beautiful pansy-like bowers of deep 
violet bl'ue, with conspicuous white 
eye. Blooms as freely as a violet and 
continues throughout the summer. 
Pkt. 50c. 
2. Viola (Tufted Pansies) Lord Bea- 
consfield. Upper petal rich dark 
purple — pansy violet — lower petals 
pure white shading to cream at edges 
with light-blue lines through the 
center Pkt. 50c. 
3. New Double Hollyhock “Exquisite.” 
The charming new feature about this 
variety is that every flower petal, out¬ 
side as well as in the center, is ex¬ 
quisitely curled and fringed. The 
finely-laced petals, white at the mar¬ 
gin, are adorned with a large blotch, 
much like a Pelargonium. Present 
range of colors includes shades ^of 
rose, violet and purple. Pkt. 35c. 
4. The Lovely Potentilla. Charming 
hardy plants for the rockery or bor¬ 
der. resembling giant double butter¬ 
cups. in art shades or bronze, orange, 
apricot, chestnut brown, violet. As¬ 
sorted colors. Pkt. 35c. 
5. A new Cardinal 
Flcwer, Illumi¬ 
nation. Glowing 
scarlet, heavy 
thick spikes on 
firm stalks, 2 V 2 
to 3 feet high. 
Wonderfully ef¬ 
fective. Pkt. 50c. 
6. New Siberian 
Hardy Wallflow¬ 
er. Hardy every- 
where, and a 
plant of great 
beauty with gor- 
geous orange 
flowers and shin¬ 
ing dark green 
foliage. Branches 
Fringed Moon- 
penny Daisy 
freely, in bloom all summer. Pkt. 50c 
7. Scabiosa Caucasica Blue Perfection. 
A new bluebonnet, with flowers fully 
4 inches across, of a lovely shade of 
azure blue. Very long stems. Pkt. 35c. 
8. Fringed Moonpenny Daisy. A beau¬ 
tiful white Marguerite with plume¬ 
shaped finely laciniated petals on 
long stems. Superb for cutting. 
Pkt. 50c. 
The above novelties sold separately 
at the prices named or the entire 
collection of eight at $3.00 
A valuable chart giving cultural directions, height, and time 
of flowering of all Perennial plants, sent free on request with 
each order. 
26 West 59th St. 
New York 
$cKliivg$ Seeds 
How Do You Trim Your Lawn? 
Our “Clean Edge” Lawn Trimmer will 
save you a lot of time and hard work 
EASIER :—Just push it 
QUICKER: —Trims as 
fast as you walk 
BETTER :—So easy you 
will not neglect trim¬ 
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Works Like a Shear 
Trims closely around 
Trees, Shrubbery, Walks, 
and edges. No cutting 
of turf or preparation 
of any kind required 
Price, $8.50 
$9.50 West of the Mississippi 
IT TRIMS ’EM ALL 
The Heimann Trimmer Co. 
Urbana, Ohio 
When to Water Plants 
(Continued from page 108) 
for the transpiration of water and the 
absorption of gases), give off more 
moisture than can be compensated by 
the absorption of water through the 
roots. This means that more water is 
given off by the plant than it is able to 
take up. These plants will recover their 
vigor in the night without watering 
them. 
The watering of potted plants should 
be accomplished with water that has 
been standing for some time until it has 
taken the temperature of the air. When 
water is taken which is colder than the 
soil, the plant will refuse to take it until 
it has attained the temperature of the 
soil. This is especially the case when it 
is necessary to water before the heat of 
the day has passed or the sun still shin¬ 
ing brightly. 
For out of door plants it is advisable 
not to let a heavy soil crack when the 
moisture has been withdrawn, either 
after watering or after a heavy rain. 
Under these conditions the roots cannot 
receive a sufficient supply of air, on the 
other hand it also hinders water from 
penetrating into the soil, no matter how 
much it may be watered. Here the hoe 
should first be used to loosen the soil 
and then watering the plants. Hoeing 
also has its advantage in that the garden 
does not have to be watered so fre¬ 
quently, since an open soil takes up the 
night moisture very readily and so 
makes it available for the roots. 
There is another very important fact 
to be taken into consideration in the 
watering of potted plants. This is that 
when these are watered care should be 
taken that that part which has drained 
is not allowed to remain standing in the 
saucer. It has filtered, and has given up 
all of its soluble salts to the soil. In 
this condition water is more injurious 
than beneficial. Therefore a stand 
should be attached to the flower pot so 
that the pot does not rest in the saucer 
but a short distance above it. Such 
specially constructed pots are on the 
market and are to be preferred to the 
flat bottomed type. 
A flower pot standing in water is in¬ 
jurious to the plant, especially to the 
root system, since they not only require 
moisture but also air. No garden plant 
will thrive in a soil supersaturated with 
moisture except swamp and bog plants, 
and these are seldom cultivated in the 
window garden. Dr. E. Bade. 
PROPAGATING FERNS 
T HE' ferns are the largest and the 
most beautiful of all the crypto- 
gamiae. The height of their de¬ 
velopment lies in the far distant past, 
the Coal Age. At that time all plant 
life was flowerless. The Equisites as 
well as the Lycopodiaceae gave a dismal 
appearance to the carboniferous land¬ 
scape, while the innumerable ferns with 
their bright light-green, lace-like foliage 
were of a more pleasing appearance. 
The lower varieties of ferns formed a 
thick carpet which covered the dead 
yellow-brown leaves lying on the black, 
turfy top-soil, while the more slender 
tree ferns spread their feathery capitals 
of spirally-formed shafts far above their 
humbler relatives. 
Still to-day the fern tree forests along 
the damp coasts of southern Australia 
and New Zealand are of the most won¬ 
derful beauty and grace. There the 
plants depend more upon air which is 
saturated with moisture than they do 
upon heat. On the western coast of 
New Zealand fern trees even occur in 
the immediate vicinity of glaciers. 
Other varieties, as the Cyathea deal- 
bata, Cyathea medullaris, Alsophila aus¬ 
tralis and Dicksonia antarctica, are 
found in certain regions of southern 
Australia and Tasmania where snow 
falls at stated periods. This is con¬ 
vincing proof that fern trees can be cul¬ 
tivated in the house if a sufficient quan¬ 
tity of water is provided, and if the 
leaves and the trunk are often sprayed. 
In summer the plants should be some¬ 
what shaded against the burning rays 
of the sun but in winter they should 
receive their beneficial warmth. 
Ferns thrive best in a coarse unfer¬ 
tilized humus which should be kept 
damp constantly. But care must be tak¬ 
en that the water does not remain in 
the container. For this reason the vent 
of the flower pot receives a foundation 
of potsherds which allows the surplus 
water to drain through the root balls. 
Standing water is just as fatal to the 
fern as an insufficient supply. If the air 
of the room is not well ventilated 
thrips will make their appearance. 
The majority of the ferns which are 
cultivated in the dwelling room belong 
to the Polypodiaceae, which approxi¬ 
mately embrace 3,000 species. These, 
as far as they are considered as house 
plants, closely resemble the tree ferns 
in their mode of life. No fern varieties 
are especially fitted for the dwelling 
room since a moist atmosphere is of 
more importance than heat. 
The trunks of the Polypodiaceae are 
hidden in the ground. The fronds, on 
the other hand, reach much nobler pro¬ 
portions. Their ideal outline and tex¬ 
ture, which is found on no other plant, 
charms the love of nature. In regard 
to growth, the fronds resemble twigs, as 
the green soft tips do not stop their de¬ 
velopment when the leaf surface has un¬ 
folded itself. In some varieties, where 
a periodical growth of the leaves takes 
place, the mid-rib takes up the func¬ 
tions and the appearance of twigs. 
A characteristic of all fern varieties 
are the coiled leaf buds, which are not 
unlike a bishop’s staff. When their de¬ 
velopment has stopped these leaf buds 
unfold themselves, each leaf then being 
divided and subdivided into two, three, 
four, or five and sometimes even more 
parts. In many cases they require more 
than one year for their full develop¬ 
ment. 
The apparently highly developed fern 
is only an unsexual plant. The sexual 
plant is very small, consisting of a 
heart-shaped leaf the size of a small 
coin. These grow from spores found in 
uncountable numbers within little pro¬ 
jections on the under-surface of each 
frond. To the eye the contents of 
these little mounds appear as a pulveru¬ 
lent mass. When one of these spores 
has found a favorable place to grow, a 
tube-like short thread makes its ap¬ 
pearance. The upper part flattens and 
produces a green leaf called the pro¬ 
thallium. On the under part of this 
leaf, long unbranched hairs are found 
which attach themselves to the ground 
thus becoming an independent seedling. 
This is the true fern. It produces an- 
therids, the male organs, in which the 
spermatozoids are formed, and the arch- 
egonii, the female organs, which en¬ 
gender the egg cells. The spermatozoids 
become free after the cell wall which 
contains them bursts. If they come in 
the vicinity of a ripe female egg, they 
penetrate and fertilize it. The egg then 
divides itself into two hemispheres, then 
into four equal parts, and so on until 
it has grown into a young plant, the 
embryo, in which we can distinguish 
(Continued on page 112) 
