Book excerpt: Excerpt from Price List of Choice and Rare Varieties of Peonies and Irises, 1924 Peonies and Irises thrive in most any soil that is not too wet. Should it be inclined to be acid, a light dressing of lime will be beneficial. Never permit fresh manure to come in contact with the roots. Bone-meal is a safe proposition, and well decomposed barnyard manure may be worked around the plants but not over the crown of the plants. Peonies should be planted to 3 feet apart, and for field culture rows should b 4 feet apart. The plants should be set so the top buds are 2 to 3 inches below the surface of the soil. Deeper planting may cause shy bloom ing. September and October are the best months to set peonies, but they may be set any time be fore the ground freezes. The plants start growth too early to handle well in the spring; we there fore never advise spring setting. Irises should be planted rather shallow, just covering the rhizome, and both peonies and irises are better planted in the full sunlight away from trees and shrubs and not too close to the walls of a building, although they will endure partial shade. Give good, clean shallow cultivation and you will be rewarded with fine bloom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.