Mr. Reckstrom:  Would bone do that was bought for the chickens?

Mr. Hawkins:  Yes.  You understand the finer the particles the quicker it commences to dissolve.

A Member:  Where can ground bone be obtained?

Mr. Hawkins:  All first class seedsmen have it from small packages of ten pounds to 100 pound sacks.

Mr. Bell:  I tried hardwood ashes, and that seemed to be the best thing I struck.  There were some shrub lilacs that didn’t blossom.  One winter I just put the ashes right on, probably a bushel around the one large bush.  After that I had plenty of blossoms.  On peonies and roses the result seems to be very good.

[Illustration:  Residence of G. C. Hawkins, 2913 Fremont Avenue South, Minneapolis.]

Mr. Hawkins:  No question but what ashes are very fine, for the simple reason the potash in hardwood ashes is a very good fertilizer.  I would like to ask some one to give his experience in regard to rust on the tiger lily and the phlox.  The perennial phlox is one of the most beautiful flowers we have, and there has been considerable trouble this year with a rust which takes all the leaves off the stalk and is injurious to the blossoms.  I did not find any successful remedy for it, and I would be very glad if some member would give his experience.

Mrs. Sawyer:  I think you will find bordeaux mixture is good as anything for the rust on phlox.  There is another mixture given for use in the English gardens, but their conditions are not the same as ours.  It seems that changing the location of the phlox may do it good.  Phlox is a plant that wants free circulation of air.  Sometimes they get crowded in the garden, and a combination of heat and moisture produces the rust.  By changing them to some other ground sometimes it entirely disappears.

Mr. Hawkins:  Mrs. Sawyer thinks this would be a remedy, as they require a circulation of fresh air and keep down moisture.  We know this, phlox should be divided every third year.  If you lift some you will find in the middle a woody dry substance absolutely detrimental to a large, healthy growing phlox.  If you take off the little plants that come at the outside of this and replant them you will find your flowers will be much larger the next year.  If we leave bunches of phlox in the same place successive years they become small.  If you separate them it will add vigor to your plant, and the flowers will do better.  I would like to ask what success you have had with growing tritoma, the flame flower?  Have you had any difficulty in raising them?

Mrs. Tillotson:  I have one blossom that seemed to take such a long time to get above the ground I wondered what was the matter with it.

Mr. Hawkins:  Mrs. Gould, can you give us any enlightenment?

Mrs. Gould:  I never raised them, I got some bulbs this year.  I know you have to take them up in the winter and store them like gladiolus, and they do not require very heavy soil.