Outside view of House on Previous Page showing rope and pulley method of adjusting 
cloth. 
would, of course, make it unnecessary to 
have it on in the morning. All that is 
important is the total number of dark¬ 
ened hours. 
Only objection we can see to this is 
that during early evening hours light is 
stronger than early in the morning, 
making a better grade of cloth necessary 
to get the same degree of darkness to be 
had after 6:00 P. M. and before 7 A. M. 
Excessive atmospheric moisture en¬ 
courages any form of rust or rot. For 
this reason, don’t do any overhead spray¬ 
ing on shaded beds late in the day. 
EARLY AND MID-SEASON 
MUMS IN SEPTEMBER 
Most mum markets were not fully 
cared for with good stock during the 
last half of September of the past year. 
California had to supply many flowers 
that could have been grown locally. The 
production of good shaded stock in the 
Middle West and East is not difficult, but 
some points must be watched or second 
grade flowers that are always in over¬ 
supply will result. Probably the most 
important point is planting early, in our 
latitude May 15-20; for some naturally 
long stemmed kind June 1 will do, if 
they take hold and grow on unchecked. 
Reason for early planting is that when 
buds are set a month or more earlier 
than normal, the stems will of course not 
have time to get so long as when they 
form normally. Our earliest shading date 
has been July 12th. Next season this 
will be advanced to July 5. The height 
of big mums when shading starts should 
be 2% to 3 ft., depending on heighth 
the variety naturally grows. When in 
flower they will have drawn up to 4 and 
4 Mj ft. For the pompons when shading 
starts, the height should be around 16 
to 20 in. They will lengthen 14-16 in. 
These figures for all classes should be 
accepted as minimum. If your stock is 
substantially below them when shading 
should start, better let them come natur¬ 
ally, for most markets are oversupplied 
with short or poor stock, especially pom¬ 
pons. 
SHADING 
Mums belong to what is known as 
“short day” plants. By this is meant 
they will not set buds until the days are 
shortening. This is easily demonstrated 
by the fact that if daylight hours are 
lengthened with artificial light, setting of 
buds is delayed. This is taken advantage 
of by flowering especially desirable late 
varieties beyond their normal season. 
This will be discussed further. 
Methods of applying shade vary with 
most growers. It depends on the ma¬ 
terial on hand and the location of the 
beds. With a small house devoted en¬ 
tirely to this shaded crop, the most 
efficient method we find is the one pic¬ 
tured in cut on this page. When this 
method is used, the planting should be 
arranged so the shading on all the house 
can start on the same date. If but one 
house is grown and a succession of 
flowers is wanted, this can be arranged 
by planting early and late varieties. Late 
ones require more time to finish than do 
"Enclose Your Mum With Your Seed Order" 
20 — 
