FEBRUARY 9, 1S99. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review, 



253 



House of New Carnatio i Gov. Grigg=, at Joseph Towell's, Paterson, N. J. 



A method which I have found a good 

 one for florists to pursue who have an 

 ordinary good trade with customers 

 who appreciate a good plant and are 

 willing to pay a fair price is as fol- 

 lows: About May 20 take top cuttings 

 from good large flowered dwarf 

 varieties, selecting good, strong shoots, 

 and put in sand (no bottom heat 

 needed). Water well and shade to 

 keep from wilting. As soon as rooted, 

 pot into 2-inch pots. About .July 10th 

 you will have good plants. Plant in 

 three inches of good chrysanthemum 

 soil about 7 to 8 inches apart each 

 way, according to the size foliage the 

 variety will make. As soon as they 

 begin to grow pinch the top out, the 

 lower the better, providing you leave 

 three good eyes to break from. Grow 

 three branches to each plant: most 

 varieties will make three good shoots 

 of equal strength and produce as many 

 good blooms. Leave them here until 

 they are in bloom, when you can pot 

 them, putting two to three plants in a 

 6-inch pot and three to five in an 8- 

 inch pot. Perhaps you can sell large 

 pans with ten or twelve plants in each. 

 As each plant has three blooms you see 

 each pot will have from six to fifteen 

 good blooms on it. You need not take 

 up large chunks of earth with the 

 roots, in fact, you need to leave none 

 on at all if you keep them well watered 

 after potting. They will stand up as 

 well as if they had been growing in the 

 pots all summer if they are not allowed 

 to get too dry. In this way you will 

 get larger blooms than you can grow 

 in pots and better and larger foliage 

 as well. 



The amount of labor is no greater, I 

 believe, than in growing them in pots 

 and it is certainly not greater than in 

 planting on benches and lifting Sep- 

 tember 1st. Another advantage is that 



you can pot up as many as you can sell 

 and cut the rest with stems from 15 to 

 IS inches long, which is a trifle short 

 for a first class bloom, but every florist 

 has many calls for just such stock, and 

 is able to sell all he has to spare. Here 

 are some varieties which I know from 

 experience do well this way: Berg- 

 man. Canning. Merza, Miss A. L. 

 Dalskov, Glory of the Pacific, Fred. 

 Walz, Quito, Wm. H. Lincoln. H. W. 

 Rieman, Harry Hurrell, Golden 

 Trophy, Solar Queen, Casco and John 

 Shrimpton. The old adage that what- 

 ever is worth doing is worth doing 

 well certainly applies to growing pot 

 "mums," because a good plant brings 

 a fair price, while a poor plant usually 

 finds its way to the dump heap. Such 

 is the exoerience of 



A. F. J. BAUR. 

 Pittsburg. 



STRIKING CUTTINGS. 



I From the Physiology of Plants by Dr. Paul 

 Sorauer ] 



A cutting is a portion of a plant de- 

 tached from the parent stock, and 

 which becomes an independent plant 

 by the formation of new roots. The new 

 roots take their origin either immedi- 

 ately at the cut end or at some little 

 distance from the latter. In different 

 plants the power of producing adven- 

 titious roots is very different. Speak- 

 ing generally, we may say that the 

 older the various organs of the plant 

 are, the less inclined they are to form 

 adventitious roots, and that of the 

 various cultivated plants those are 

 least liable to be propagated by cut- 

 things which have a hard and brittle 

 wood. 



« * * 



If a cutting is to form roots, and 

 therefore to develop new organs, it 

 must contain a sufficient supply of 

 plastic matter for that purpose. This 



material has either been formed in a 

 previous vegetative period and is 

 stored up in the shoot (woody cut- 

 tings), or the cutting must be able to 

 form the necessary substances after it 

 has been detached from the parent 

 plant (herbaceous cuttings). The lat- 

 ter must therefore always be provided 

 with leaves, while in the case of the 

 former it is not necessary. Woody cut- 

 tings always form callus over the cut 

 end : in herbaceous cuttings it need 

 not be formed. The formation of roots 

 in a cutting is not dependent upon cal- 

 lus formation. 



We may here repeat again that cal- 

 lus is a thin-walled colorless tissue, 

 consisting of meristematic cells ar- 

 ranged in close rows, of which the end 

 ones are still in process of growth and 

 which have not as yet become differ- 

 entiated into cork or wood. 



The first sign of life in a cutting 

 manifests itself by an alteration of the 

 tissues near the cut surface, the c;it 

 generally running obliquely across 

 the shoot and being close l)elow a Inid. 

 It w'e cut off a shoot, we thereby ex- 

 pose all the tissues of which it is 

 formed, and we bring the latter in con- 

 tact with a damp medium (wa-'e.-, 

 sand, earth, sawdust, fibre, etc.). 

 Some of the tissues which have been 

 exposed are not able to form the heal- 

 ing layers of callus; this -s always the 

 case with the old wood, often with 

 the pith and tne outermost layers of 

 the cortex. The layers which are ca- 

 pable of further division, and are 

 therefore charged with the production 

 of the protective callus, are the cam- 

 bium, the very young wood cells, and 

 the innermost layers of the cortex. 

 The larger, therefore, the area of ex- 

 posed wood as compared with the 

 other tissues, the more diflicult will 

 be the healing process. 



It is therefore essential for the suc- 

 cess of propagation by means of cut- 

 tings to bring about a sufficient and 

 natural closing up of the cut end of 

 the shoot. 



This closing takes place by two pro- 

 cesses. In the older soft tissues (pith 

 and old cortex), there will be formed 

 above the wounded cells transverse 

 layers of cork cells which protect the 

 cutting against excessive moisture. 

 The woody elements adjoining the 

 damaged wood cells and vessels may 

 become plugged up with a very re- 

 sistant brown mass (gum) or with 

 thylloses, which have the same effect 

 in closing the apertures of these cells 

 and vessels. The second process is 

 the covering in of the cut by the form- 

 ation of callus. 



Bothi processes take place (with 

 very few exceptions) more completely 

 when the cut surface is richly supplied 

 with air. Care must therefore be 

 taken that the medium in which the 

 cutting is placed is very thoroughly 

 aerated. 



When the closing of the wound be- 

 gins, cells of the cambium, of the 

 young layers of the wood and of the 

 bast begin to absorb more water and 

 to bulge out over the cut surface 



