Horticultural Society

A photo of 21 people posing in a garden Backrow Harold Earp Edwina Earp Bette Hartge Nancy Chance Susan Fifer Canby Rudi Hanel Elie Rogers Lydia Haviland Leslie Rogers John Hartge Ellen Hartge Peter Austin Caroline Hussman Buzz Hussman Iduna Hanel Front Row Tom Farquhar Mary Grady Nancy Preuss Mo Chance Ari Preuss Elizabeth Thornton missing - Tom Canby, Bill Hartge, Jim + Beth Bullard, Peter + Polly Conlon and Harry + Flora Goff Incomplete SSHS July 5, 1988

H/9/1988-1-

September 6, 1988; page 1

Our 873rd meeting was held at the Cedars, home of Helen Farquhar as well as Mary Grady, Tom Farquhar and their two children, Kate and Andrew. It was a splendid late afternoon, perfect for viewing the lovely grounds and Tom and Mary's wide, ambitious, and productive garden. The house itself sported a new paint job and looked appropriately grand and glorious in preparation for hosting the October 8th wedding of Miss Brooke Farquhar who attended the evening's meeting and Victor Bullen. The meeting was made distinctive by the attendance of previously active members Mary Moore Miller, Sylvia Woodward, Martha Nesbitt, Betsy and Herb Kinney. Guests included Hal and Anne Cope, and Pat and Fred Mills. Missing were the Earps and the Goffs.

The meeting started off with a remembrance of George Coffee who passed away recently. Mr. Coffee was never a member of the Horticultural Society but his contributions to the community and his horticultural abilities were easy to appreciate and will be sadly missed.

The previous month saw the annual appearance of the Montgomery County Fair. We were pleased to hear through the grape vine that the Fair bestowed on Elie Rogers the title of Grand Champion for his wine making expertise. Tom Farquhar was also honored for submitting the 2nd heaviest tomotoe and given a Blue Ribbon for a large onion.

Unfinished business included an update on Flora Goff's medical state - she is said to probably be in the hospital for another 2 months. More unfinished business dealt with the group pictures taken at the Chances last July. These photos along with those taken after this meeting's garden tour should be a good representation of the 125th season's membership.

Elie Roger was the chosen speaker. He presented us with selections from the Commissioner of Agriculture's report to Present Lincoln in 1863. Most notable was the fervid recommendation the southern states turn their energies toward the cultivation of tea and coffee, opium poppy, vanilla, ginger and castor bean, wax, and quassia plants, silk cocoons, gum arabic, mastic and camphor trees, chinese yams, sweet chestnuts, almonds, Persian walnuts, cork and gall-nut oak, the arrow, licorice, and orris roots, hemp, prune, fig, date pomegranate, olive, tamarind, guava, nectarine, shaddock, pineapple, pistachio, Iceland moss, indigo, frankincense, balsam, Egyptian senna and others.

John Hartge read excerpts from a letter he received from the New York State department of health. This notice warned of sporotricosis which is a skin disease acquired from handling sphagnum moss. Ths symptoms are skin bumps that ulcerate and persist until treated.

Polly Conlon offered a poem penned by her daughter Hannah. A copy will be included with these minutes and the original returned to the Conlon archives.

Missing the minutes from 100 years ago Elizabeth Thornton read a short History of the Society written by Mary Moore Miller for the October 1, 1963 meeting.

H/5/1987-1-

May 5, 1987

The second meeting of our 184th year was held at Clifton, home of Jim and Beth Bullard. It had been a splendid spring day and the evening was graced with the elements of benign weather. The house and outbuildings were a pleasure to behold and both flora and fauna were at the threshold of full spring exuberance.

Missing from the meeting were Lydia Haviland and Mary Seiler. The guests were Henry and Esther Thornton, Jan Westervelt, Wayne and Melba Paris, and Steve Keach.

The minutes from the last meeting were read and the treasurer reported that the coffers veritably bulged with the sum of $64.10. Despite the greatness of our wealth the yearly dues of 50 cents per family were collected.

The reader for the evening was Buzz Hussman. Drawing his inspiration from the Roger's bat house, the report dealt with bats. It was a worthy defense of a widely maligned and deeply misunderstood creature. The bat is a friend and ally to the gardener. It eats perhaps 3,000 insects a night and in some parts of the world it is the sole pollinator for valuable cash crops.

Over the centuries bats' nocturnal habits and strange appearance has caused them to be vilified and wrongly treated as filthy, vicious, and often rabid vermin. Contrary to their reputation they are not dirty flying mice but mammals that closely resemble humans and possess intelligence and highly sophisticated systems for navigating, flying, and catching prey.

Among the many falsehoods long held as reasons to victimize bats is the belief that they occasionally get entangled in people's hair. A comment was made by Polly Conlon that in the days of outrageously expansive hairdos centuries ago even bats with their superb sonar were unable to avoid coiffure collisions and the poor little beast has been badmouthed ever since.

The article gave us all a greater appreciation for a truly fascinating and beneficial animal ...vampire bats of South America excluded.

The report from 100 years ago impressed us as usual with the industry and productivity of our predecessors. The temperature was reported as 100 degrees at noon and the poultry report was below that of the year before.

The forethought presented us with another useful but dizzying array of tasks to be undertaken. Evergreen candles should be pinched back for fuller growth. Bulbs should be

H/6/1987-2-

20 on the 1st. May had 3.24 inches of rain and a high of 90 on the 30th and a low of 36 on the 5th. No one was able to comment as to whether the rain fall was up or down but Polly Conlon mentioned that Sweetbriar's resident honeybee hive swarmed 4 time so far this year.

The bird report mentioned a scarlet tanager sighted in Pennsylvania. Caroline Hussman told of a friend who raised a robin from 2 days old to adolescence and freedom. Robins were mentioned to be good birds to foster parent. There was a part albino sparrow sighted at Friends House. The second brood of bluebirds has been started at Quailhill. The feistiness of housewrens was discussed - they were said to be vicious. Carolina wrens have disappeared at Quailhill but are doing well at Clifton and Jack Pine. Some had feared that last winter's copious snowfalls may have driven the Carolina wren population southward for a spell.

There were no committee reports and no new business.

Sylvia Woodward thanked Beth Bullard for making an effort to include her in the Society's activities. It was said that such gestures mean a lot to those members who have had to take on a semi-active role and can't contribute fully as they once did.

Questions; How to prune chrysanthemums - prune and pinch until July 4th. Pinch bud close to next set of leaves.. Caroline Hussman's friend wants the proper identity of a vine called Potato Vine which has big heart shaped leaves and pods. No luck - familiar sounding but a picture in a horticultural encyclopedia would be easier to identify - especially if it had a name under it. Priscilla Allen wanted to know about large scale poison ivy control. Advise is to use Roundup in a sprayer reserved exclusively for herbicides and be careful not to spray anything undeserving of a horrible death. Louise Canby wondered about the roses (Courier roses I think she called them) growing abundantly along the roadside - identified as multiflora roses ranked by some along with Priscilla's poison ivy. A question was raised about the old minutes. Did they bring plants that we sometimes assume to be the actual fruit or vegetable? Yes. However, our predecessors were a very competitive and ingenious bunch whose exhibition pieces were more like veritable swordplay compared to our relaxed and goodhearted offerings. Ellen Hartge brought a piece of diseased rhubarb - the brown bumps were attributed to snail damage. Nancy Preuss following up by askimg how to repel snails short of ringing the garden with French gourmands. Snail pellets, slug & snail bait, human hair and ashes was recommended. Cicada stories were requested. Recipes were being given out in Baltimore. Said to taste like asparagus. Also good for fish bait. Shells mentioned as principal ingredient of ancient Chinese cosmetic cream. Has anyone seen any cabbage looper? No and rejoice for their absence. Anyway to take cutting from rose bush. Yes right now. Take new growth, roll in rootone, and plant in peat. Do 10 cuttings of 6 eyes maybe 8 inches, 1/8 inch under leaf. Then take leaf off. Bury 1/2 way at an angle. Leave 3 leaves.

H/8/1987-1

August 4, 1987

The year's 5th gathering of the Society met at Sweetbriar, home of Peter and Polly Conlon. The day had again been dreadfully hot but everyone seemed to shed the afternoon's torpor to enjoy the Conlon's hospitality and handsome, well-behaved children. The dramatic and seldom flattering development of the Ashton crossroads is a manifestation of the area's direction and we should be grateful that households like Sweetbriar can maintain the essence of an earlier time with such equanimity.

The guest were Polly Conlon's mother and cousin, Dorothy and John Janney, Mary Reading Miller, Hellen Farquar, Jan Westervelt, Nicolas Chavand, and Martha Nesbit. Noticeably missing at the helm was our president who was off travelling however, the gavel was in the equally able hand of Susan Canby.

The minutes from the last meeting were read. Since there was no unfinished business we proceeded to the volunteer article.

In lieu of an article Harold Earp talked about the county extension service's Master Gardener program. This program was modeled after a system started in Canada in 1968. The purpose is firstly to educate those interested in increasing their horticultural knowledge and secondly to have those people help share what they've learned. For $40 one gets classwork, tours, and intensive training in the gardening arts. As a culmination to the program the participants use and augment what they've learned by volunteering to answer related questions that are phoned into the Extension Service. Questions that the volunteers are not able to answer can be referred to higher authorities and the answers passed on to the inquirers. Harold Earp portrayed the program as a worthy and effective way to increase one's horticultural expertise and serve the county's gardeners at the same time.

The minutes from 100 years ago were read. That meeting was held at Rockland and it had been 88 degrees at noon that day.

Betty Hartge read an article by Russell Baker that described the adversarial relationship he has with his garden. Accompanied by the spirits of Walter Mitty and the Man From LaMancha, Mr. Baker with imagination and vigor sallies forth into the garden to bend plants to his will in ways he could not control human equivalents. The best metaphor identified bindweed as the lawyer of the garden - a plant that entwines all with delicate tendrils until nothing breathes and nothings grows. He recommends a ruthless approach in dealing with this litigator of the legumes, this attorney of the asparagus, this barrister of the broccoli, this lawyer of the lettuce.

The forethought advised us to stop pinching the chrythansemums and if the dirt is willing, divide primrose, daylillies, and other perrenials. Feed young rooted cuttings weekly. Remove mulch from around fruit and berry plants. Plant spinach, beets, ,corn salad, lettuce, cabbage and endives. Harvest, harvest. Get thee to the kitchen and settle in. During the furor and overabundance of August we were reminded not to forget to reseed in September.

The meteorological report listed 88 degrees the average high for July (the high being 95 on the 21st). The average low was 69 degrees (the low was 55