68 
House & Garden 
THE BRAND PEONIES 
Originated by O. F. Brand and Son 
America’s Foremost Hybridizers of the Peony 
500.000 PEONY ROOTS 
W E now have an immense stock of over 500,000 peony 
roots such as we send out at retail, of the very choicest 
varieties. This great stock permits our customers the 
selection of almost any variety they may want in any size they 
desire from divisions to four and five year clumps. 
OUR METHODS 
We have made it a practice ever since the growing of peonies 
has become a specialty with us never to grow peonies twice in 
the same soil without a long period of years intervening. 
In this way we have avoided many of the difficulties and 
disappointments encountered by other growers who have 
grown their stock continuously year after year for many years 
on the same ground. 
This practice has kept our stock free from disease and has 
enabled us to supply our customers roots that for size and 
constitutional vigor are unsurpassed. 
OUR GUARANTEE 
We guarantee our peonies absolutely true to name. And as 
fine stock everything considered as can be purchased in the 
world. 
We are able to make this guarantee because our business is 
handled entirely by experts. Not only is Mr. Brand thoroughly 
versed in every phase of the business but every person who 
has anything to do with our peony business is an expert in 
his or her line. Many of our men have been with us for 
over twenty years. The father of our peony field foreman 
handled peonies for Mr. Brand’s father away back in the sixties. 
OUR IMMENSE INSULATED STORAGE BUILDING 
The Largest Storage Building in the World devoted to the handling 
of peonies enables us to remove our roots immediately from the field to 
a place where they can be properly cared for away from sun, wind, and 
air until shipped to our customers. 
PERSONAL INSPECTION 
Mr. Brand gives every order personal inspection before it is boxed. 
A business handled in this way must give satisfaction. 
If you desire peonies so handled I suggest you write for my beautiful 
new 1920 Peony and Iris Catalogue. 
Forty-one years a professional Peony Grower 
A. M. BRAND Faribault, Minn. 
The Attic As Guest Room 
(Continued from page 66) 
book cases. The room is not cheaply 
done. It has a certain elegance, and 
much dignity. After a formal dinner 
it is an entrancing spot in which to 
spend the evening. The music seems to 
have a particularly mellow, caressing 
resonance under the roof. 
If the walls of the attic are not in a 
fit condition to paint, a landscape panel 
paper gives the effect one should get— 
the effect of there being no break be¬ 
tween the wall and the ceiling. The 
trees rise into an indefinite sky. I 
should think that with scenic paper 
bought by the roll a rather good effect 
could be had if the pattern was cut 
out at the top, letting the trees silhouette 
against plain paper put over the ceiling 
and carried down the walls. The wall 
strips would overlap the ceiling paper. 
The same could be done with a large 
floral design. 
The exposure of the attic is the de¬ 
termining factor in the choice of the 
color. On the other hand, it must be 
remembered that most attics are hot 
in summer and consequently the color 
must help counterbalance the heat. 
In an attic with a north exposure we 
might use a pinkish yellow side wall 
with deep rose cotton voile curtains and 
furniture painted blue green. This 
would be soft and warm and yet com¬ 
fortable at all seasons of the year. 
Roses Planted in the Fall 
(Continued from page 46) 
spireas, get out from the Federal De¬ 
partment of Agriculture.) 
In the 1920 American Rose Annual 
there appeared a “Rose Zone Map”, 
prepared by the Department of Agri¬ 
culture to indicate those portions of 
the United States in which the various 
classes of roses would prosper. Any 
aspiring fall-planter living near or north 
of the Great Lakes ought to see this map 
before planning a rose-garden. 
Planting Roses 
The detail of fall rose planting is 
simple and fairly definite. Buy the 
plants of a nurseryman who actually 
grows them, rather than of a dealer, so 
that fresh plants may be expected; the 
rose is not happy out of ground, despite 
its endurance. If ordered before the 
first frosts have removed the leaves, ask 
to have the rose plants “stripped” of 
foliage before they are shipped to you, 
for every live leaf is evaporating water 
to the air every minute it is on the 
plant, and roots out of the ground are 
not able comfortably to provide this 
moisture. Good rose plants look like 
the pictures here, one of which shows 
the “Multiflora” root, and the other 
the “Manetti” root. 
Prepare the ground thoroughly for 
the roses to be planted in the fall. It 
is heretical, I know, not to insist on 
preparation by trenching or complete 
removal to the extent of 2' or 3' in 
depth for the hybrid teas, but I have 
begun to think that such deep prepara¬ 
tion is not entirely necessary, save in 
soils that do not drain easily. Fifteen 
to 18" will do very well, and I have 
seen good results where the digging was 
just to the depth of a spade with a 12" 
blade. Nor is the elaborate layer sys¬ 
tem of soil and manure and sand, etc., 
essential, unless the rose grower is head¬ 
ing into the super-expert class, and en¬ 
deavoring to do the unusual thing with 
varieties of known difficulty. 
Plenty of well-rotted manure is es¬ 
sential, however, and only in heavy soils 
which have been thoroughly and re¬ 
cently treated with manure is it proper 
to omit the addition of a liberal por¬ 
tion of that desirable form of plant 
food. Note, please, that I bespeak well- 
rotted manure, which means that it is 
all at least three months from the ani¬ 
mal. It is not necessary to insist on 
cow-manure, though that fertilizer can 
be used fresher than horse-manure with¬ 
out danger. The latter, when well- 
rotted and “cool”, is just as valuable, 
and mixed stable manure does very well. 
Enough of it, and well enough rotted, 
are the important items. 
Manuring 
“Plenty of manure” doesn’t mean a 
thin coating spread over the rose ground 
and then buried out of sight—and often 
entirely out of reach of the rose roots— 
by turning it over with a spade. 
“Plenty” is a fourth or a third of the 
whole bulk, and to be actually plenty 
for the rose plants, it must be dug in 
and over and through until it is thor¬ 
oughly mixed with the soil. Roots, gen¬ 
erally, and rose roots particularly, do 
not travel to find food while they are 
pushing up sap for a newly set top. 
The food must be handy and available, 
and well-rotted manure thoroughly 
mixed with the soil is both handy and 
available. 
Where suitable manure cannot be had, 
or where it is desirable to supplement 
a scant supply of it, bone-dust or 
ground bone can be used to advantage. 
In soils already well pulverized by good 
culture, a liberal dose of bone-dust and 
sheep manure—both easily obtainable 
at any wide-awake seed-store—may be 
used instead of manure. These fertil¬ 
izers are in the coarse powder or grain 
form, and will easily mix with the aid 
of enough elbow grease applied through 
a digging fork. The unpleasant odor of 
the dried sheep manure will disappear 
promptly when the mixing with the soil 
is completed. As to the quantity to use 
of a mixture of equal parts “sheep and 
bone”, take into account that this con¬ 
densed fertilizer is about four times as 
strong as good manure, and act ac¬ 
cordingly. 
What I have here written about prep¬ 
aration and fertilization has been writ¬ 
ten countless times, and is trite to the 
expert; yet I constantly find rose fail¬ 
ures occurring because neither prepara¬ 
tion nor fertilization is well enough 
done. It is necessary to insist, even at 
the risk of being tedious, that roses are 
not dainty but gross feeders, that their 
roots need the food that makes growth 
and bloom right close by, and that 
thorough mixing and solid planting are 
essentials. 
I have gone rather thoroughly into 
the simple detail of rose planting be¬ 
cause, simple as it is, it has very much 
to do with the home rose-garden pros¬ 
perity I want to promote. Better to 
have one rose well planted and well do¬ 
ing than a dozen merely stuck into the 
unprepared ground toward a slow death 
and a discouraging disappointment. 
The Roses to Plant 
With this essential emphasized, and 
on the basis that the reader is a be¬ 
ginner in rose-growing, the inquiry may 
well be made as to what roses to plant 
in the fall. The answer may be put in 
a progressive sequence, based on con¬ 
ditions about the home to be rose- 
improved. 
Is there a doorway, an arbor, a per¬ 
gola, a kitchen screen, a division fence, 
an old stump, a garden entrance, a gate¬ 
way, about the home that is vacant of 
plant beauty ? If such opportunity ex- 
(Continued on page 70) 
