The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1906-05-22

l
color and with . tendency to edges
beautifully cut or crimped. and an In
creasing number of petals. which by
further cultivation for this end, will
produce perfectly double flowers.
Mrs. Shepherd has been even more
distinctly successful with the petunia,
producing seed that come nearly three
fourths of them double out of the
number planted, while the ordinary
double petunia seed produces only a
little more than ore-fourth double of
all seeds put into the ground. Petunias
are naturally single, like morning
glories. and to make them come dou-
BILE is a proof of the scientific flower
growers skill in assisting nature to
vary her original plans. Sometimes
a simple petunia will come slightly
double and there begins the change
to the full petticoated, crimped and
crinollned petals that make up per-
fectly double flower But these extra
petals are produced at the sacrifice of
the pistil and ovaries of the flower.
They are the plants organs of repro
duction, and with them gone, or near
ly so, the seed is scarce and their pow
er of termination uncertain. In work
ing to improve or change a double
petunia Mrs. Shepherd notes that
single flowers produce all the double
seed but they must be cross fertilized
with pollen from double flower. 10
do this she selects the single flower
and with soft brush takes the pol
len from the double flowers she wishes
to cross with it and dusts 1t over the
pistil of the other after removing
the stamens from it, so that none of
it's own pollen may be allowed to fer
tiliZe the seeds. The pink. white and
more delicate tints appear, from Mrs.
Shepherds experiments, to yield bet
ter results in cross-fertilization than
the deeper and more characteristic pc
tunia shades. One of the things never
produced yet in petunias is COM
pletely yellow flower. Mrs. Shepherd
is experimenting in that line, using
petunias that show a tendency to this
color in the throat or in markings
of yellow on the petals, which are not
uncommon in the flower at the present
time. Another thing that Mrs. Shep-
herd is ambitious to produce is pure
white nasturtium. There are cream
white and pale yellow tints in plenty,
but to get, by crossing, a pure white
flower. is impossible for the pale
cream is the nearest to white at pres
ent known. The way that Mrs. Shep-
herd is working is to plant every year
the seed of the lightest blossoms that
appear, until gradually by this process
of selection the flower will approach
a pure white, and by and by the de-
sired perfection will be attained
"At one time Mrs. Shepherd expert
mented extensively with cosmos, pro-
ducing from the three commonly
known magenta, white, and pink varl-
eties over 35 variations of this beauti-
full flower. Because her seeds were
carried off by hundreds of pounds
every year by birds. whose favorite
diet they were, she gave up this crop
and devoted her attention to other
!
is the name of a wonderful tree. be-
gonia that this mother of new species
has produced. The rich, pink blooms
are borne in great clusters on full
| foliaged branches with Ginning ten
| dency, but robust and characteristic
of the plant, 'Margery Daw' was the
child of 'Rubia,' well known stand
ard begonia with waxy, red blossoms,
and less known creeping variety,
] whose flowers are salmon pink. Mrs.
! Shepherd has created over so varieties
of the begonia, but this production is
her special pride. One of the plants
in her own garden grows to height
of fifteen feet, bearing some times as
many as $50 blossoms of brilliant
coral hue.
What joy to a woman it must
be to think that her genius has act
ually created such thing of living
| beauty. This human flower no doubt,
gets from her flower production the
| same kind of satisfaction that a great
painter or sculptor feels when he looks
upon WOHueIIul picture OF statue
that he has produced.
This story of how this human
! flower happened to take UP this work
| is very simple. A little more than 20
years ago her husband met with finan-
cial losses which determined her to
help him out if she could; to help the
ends to meet. If any human flower
protests against women helping the
ends to meet, l can not agree with
him as much as | can with the wise
| professor, who was too wise and busy
to bother about such things as clothes.
One time, when his wife by mistake
laid out two undershirts for him, In
stead of one and a pair of drawers,
j lraasad ix. thana Liz s.a1.d x..las