Pure White "Betsy Ross" one of the finest for second Early, either shaded or grown natural. 
CULTURAL NOTES 
Geo. J. Ball 
Lack of space makes it necessary to 
confine these notes to a few important 
fundamentals. But let us digress long enuf 
tho to say that in no country in the world 
does Chrysanthemum culture and improve¬ 
ment approach the accomplishments of our 
enthusiastic American growers. But,—^we 
frequently meet with cultural failures. 
We find that the type of soil is rather 
important in that varying types call for 
different management. Quite light or sandy 
material seems to produce as good results 
as a clay soil. This is demonstrated by 
pure sand culture that produces excellent 
results. However, with ordinary soil meth¬ 
ods, a light or sandy material should have 
humus added to it freely in the form of 
decayed or straw manure. This gives body 
and fertility to such soil. Very heavy soil, 
on the other hand, needs the same material 
to open it up for freer air and root pene¬ 
tration that assures the ALL IMPOR¬ 
TANT good root action which, of course, 
applies to any of our greenhouse crops. In 
preparing fresh soil, it is much better to 
compost it outdoors a year or two in ad¬ 
vance. If such isn’t available, it would be 
safe to suggest adding manure to fresh 
soil at the rate of 1 part manure to 3 or 
4 parts of soil, depending on how strawy 
or well decayed it is; and after this is 
leveled in the bed, add acid phosphate, 
20% grade, at the rate of 10 lbs. per 100 
sq. ft. of bed. We should add nothing fur¬ 
ther to such a preparation until high sum¬ 
mer temperatures are past and growth is 
stimulated by cooler weather. At this re¬ 
viving stage and about 2-3 weeks apart, 
we top-dress with a balanced fertilizer, 
5.15.5, about 2 lbs. to 100 sq. ft. Be sure 
the soil is on the wet side before applying 
this concentrated stimulant. Raised beds 
of 4-5 in. of soil are generally safer than 
ground beds. Such beds can and generally 
do produce a better character of growth 
because soil dries out more quickly, allow¬ 
ing frequent thoro watering. This drying 
of the soil stimulates formation of new 
white roots and the necessarily more fre¬ 
quent watering introduces more air to the 
roots—aeration, and that’s very necessary 
in promoting any growth. However, nearly 
— 18 — 
