The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-02-05

she would request her brother and friends
to do their smoking where her plants
We're in order to destroy the aphis that
might be on them. This she asserted was
the only good accomplished by smoking.
TEMPERATURE.
An important condition of success with
house plants is the temperature of the
room. 1t should be kept as regular as
possible, excepting that it may be a few.
degrees lower at night, but not more than
five to ten degrees. Most living rooms
are kept at temperature much higher
than can be maintained during cold
nights, the effect of which is bad. The
plants ordinarily grown indoors do not
require more than sixty degrees. If low
cred during the night to fifty degrees it
will not lnjure them.
Considering the difficulty of controlling
the temperature at regular even heat, l
would suggest maintaining a range OF
from 80 TO 65 degrees, when the plants
may be grown quite satisfactorily.
In our greenhouses where we have alb
solute control the average temperature
for our rose houses for producing buds is
go TO 20 degrees at night, according to the
varieties in each house, and few de-
grees higher in the day time. When the
sun shines it is raised to so or even 90 de-
grees in the middle of the day, but this
natural heat is not injurious unless hot
enough to scorch the foliage. To prevent
this the ventilators are opened.
House plants should have also the ben
eft of ventilation when the weather is
mild. Avoid direct draft of air upon the
plants, which can be done by lowering
the sash from the top.
From October until May we are careful
to keep the doors of our plant houses
closed. We give fresh air by lowering the
ventilators at the highest part of the
houses, SO that the air is tempered before
striking the plants.
HOW TO KILL THE APHIs.
The most troublesome insect, yet the
one easiest to destroy, is the aphis; it is
readily killed by immersing the entire
top of the plant in warm tobacco water,
easily made by STEPPING tobacco stems in
boiling water, until the water is the color
of rather weak coffee. Use it about as
warm as one can bear their hands in. By
| placing the hands over the top of the pot,
with the stem of the plant between the
| fingers, and inverting the plant and dip
ping the foliage in a bucketful of the liq-
uid and Immediately out again, the in
sectS are instantly killed and no injury
done to the plant even if the water is too
hot to put the hand in.
A few minutes after they have been so
submerged the plants should be syringed
with clear water to wash off the tobacco
stain. This operation should also be per-
| formed in the evening. If the plants are
exposed to sunshine soon after they have
been treated the foliage is apt to be in
| jured and become brown and spotted.
This treatment leaves no offensive odor
around the plants or in the room as
fumigating with tobacco does.
If these few directions are followed, re-
membering that all plants need all the
\ lirrl,f Il hi, fn
quite satisfactorily. Remember to select
the plants that succeed best in the house,
and also remember that roses are among
the most difficult to manage either in
house or greenhouse. B. A. ELLIOTT.