APPLYING SHADE 
With new cloth that produces a maxi¬ 
mum shade, we roll the cloth over them 
at 6 P. M., leaving it until 7 A. M., 
following morning. If the cloth is worn 
some thru several seasons use, we apply 
it an hour earlier. If this isn’t done, it 
will require longer to get buds set. With 
large mums, a few days over three weeks 
is ordinarily required to set buds, after 
which, discontinue shading. With the 
pompons, the shading must be continued 
after the first or center bud is set. This 
is necessary to get the side buds set, and 
usually calls for 10 days or 2 weeks 
longer shading. On October pompons, 
around 60 days can be safely figured 
from the start or shading to cutting of 
crop. November varieties will run a 
week or 10 days over this. Big mums 
will cover about the same time from 
shading to cutting, tho varieties vary in 
this class. In shading there is, of course, 
no need for it after dark; so if it blows 
off, no harm will be done. In fact, if you 
miss the covering entirely a night or two, 
it will make no material difference. 
TO DELAY FLOWERING 
This is done thru prolonging daylight 
with electric lights as already suggested. 
For mid-season kind, turn on lights about 
Aug. 20. For December varieties, start a 
week later. Do not start later, or finished 
stock will tend to have long necks and 
sometimes, malformed flowers. Use 40 
Watt bulbs with reflectors. Space lights 
5 feet and high enough to spread the light 
well over the bed. Turn lights on when 
darkness is reached and for 3 hours daily. 
Continue the lighting for three-fourths as 
many days as it is wished to delay flower¬ 
ing; in other words, if you wish to defer 
flowering 20 days, keep the lights on 
them 15 days. It is not considered prac¬ 
tical to delay flowering more than 3 or 4 
weeks. Take first bud showing after light 
treatment stops. While the behavior of 
varieties varies under this treatment, suc¬ 
cess with the above suggestions has been 
fairly uniform. 
BLACK CLOTH MECHANICS 
“Over the top” shading, as we call it, 
requires much less time to operate and 
takes even less cloth than covering beds 
individually. The large 18 foot strips can 
be rolled up by pulleys in a fraction of 
the time it would take to cover the 
space doing each bed separately. It’s 
simple, too. In effect, we simply start at 
the ground and roll each 18 foot width 
of cloth on up the ridge, pictured on 
page 20. Here it stays all day. As you 
will see in the photo, this is done by a 
rope and pulley, operated from the 
ground. Here are details: 
Cut cloth in lengths long enough to go 
clear across house, from ground, over 
ridge and down other side; we find 18 
feet the most convenient width. Before 
you spread cloth over the house, fasten 
a rope to the ridge 4 feet inward from 
each edge of each 18 foot width. Make 
it plenty long (see later) and let it trail 
on the ground. Now spread the cloth 
over the house, on top of the rope, and 
fasten it to the ridge with a strip of 
lath. To prevent light leaking thru, allow 
one foot overlap between eighteen foot 
sections. Now staple two pulleys to the 
ridge above the cloth at the same point 
where ropes were tied previosuly—4 feet 
inward from each edge of each 18 foot 
strip. Now, for a “core” to roll the 
cloth up on, nail an 18 foot strip of 2 in. 
x 2 in. along the edge of cloth near the 
ground. Then, so that you can pull the 
cloth down from the ridge, attach a cord 
to this pole and make it long enough to 
reach clear from ridge to ground even 
when rolled up in the cloth. 
Now make it work. The long (remem¬ 
ber?) rope you tied to the ridge pole 
should reach down under the cloth to the 
ground, up over it to the ridge, through 
the pulley, then back to the ground— 
and your hands. Pull it, and the 18 foot 
strip of cloth should roll nicely up the 
side of the house. 
"Enclose Your Mum With Your Seed Order" 
