After putting the plant in place, apply water liberally, and then mulch the soil about it with grass-clippings or manure. Of course removal at that season will check the growth of the plant to a considerable extent, and probably end its usefulness for the remainder of the season. Unless absolutely necessary, I would not attempt the work at this time, for spring and fall are the proper seasons for doing it.
In a letter recently received a lady asks this question: "Do you believe in flower-shows? If you think they help the cause of flower-growing, will you kindly tell me how to go to work to organize such a society?"
To the first question I reply: I do believe in flower-shows and horticultural societies when they are calculated to increase the love and appreciation of flowers as flowers, rather than to call attention to the skill of the florist in producing freaks which are only attractive as curiosities. I sincerely hope that the day of Chrysanthemums a foot across and Roses as large as small Cabbages is on the wane.
The thing to do in organizing a floral association is—to paraphrase Horace Greeley's famous advice as to the resumption of specie payment—to organize! In other words, to get right down to business and give the proposed society a start by bringing flower-loving people together, and beginning to work without wasting time on unnecessary details. If you make use of much "red tape" you will kill the undertaking at the outset. Simply form your society and appoint your committees, and you will find that the various matters which perplex you when looked at in the whole will readily adjust themselves to the conditions that arise as the society goes on with its work. Put theories aside, and do something, and you will find very little difficulty in making your society successful if you can secure a dozen really interested persons as members. I would be glad to know that such a society existed in every community.
I would advise my readers never to have anything to do with plant-peddlers. Of course it is possible for the man who goes about the country with plants for sale to be as honest as any other man, but we see so few indications of the possession of honest principles by the majority of these men that we have come to consider them all unreliable, and, as a matter of protection, we have to refuse to patronize any of them at the risk of doing injustice to those who may be strictly reliable. They will sell you Roses that have a different colored flower each month throughout the season, blue Roses, Resurrection Plants that come to life at a snap of the finger, and are equally valuable for decorative purposes and for keeping moths out of clothing, and numerous other things rare, wonderful, and all high priced, every one of which can be classed among the humbugs. Patronize dealers in whom you are justified in having confidence because of a well-established reputation for fair dealing.