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The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



MAY 11, IS',19. 



from which it has but recently- 

 emerged. Rocks and stones are al- 

 most unknown; and instead of soil 

 there is sand everywhere, w-hich on 

 the beach is so white as to resemble 

 snowdrifts, and affects the eyes almost 

 as much. 



Some of the finest oranges in the 

 world are grown here; and I was sur- 

 prised to learn that the russet orange 

 is not a distinct variety, but that rus- 

 set and bright oranges are picked from 

 the same tree, the russeting being 

 caused by an insect. The quality of 

 the fruit, including the thickness of 



crop of fruit should be ready to gath- 

 er, weighing from .5 to 10 pounds each 

 and which sold in .January at 5 cents 

 a pound at the pineries. At the time 

 the first fruit is cut, there should be 

 five or six suckers on each plant, 

 which may be taken off and rooted, 

 and soon there will be more to take 

 off and root; and at the present price 

 of plants it would be most profitable 

 to not allow the plants to fruit at all, 

 but to turn the efforts of the plant to 

 produce more suckers, which means 

 more plants to sell. There are also 

 some good sized plantations of straw- 



Mistletoe Growing on an Oak in Florida. 



the skin, depends largely on the kind 

 and amount of fertilizer used, and the 

 times of its application. Seventy 

 pounds of commercial manure is often 

 applied to a tree each year, the cost 

 per acre amounting to about $300. The 

 cultivation of pine apples is a very 

 important and growing industry here, 

 and the plantations are partly or 

 wholly inclosed by a close board fence 

 and slatted overhead. 



Pineapple plants were selling for 10 

 cents each when I was there, and I am 

 told that now they are worth 20 cents, 

 and .as usually set, it requires 9,000 

 plants for an acre. To buy the land 

 and clear it, prepare and fertilize the 

 soil, inclose and cover it, and plant 

 the pines, requires the outlay of near- 

 ly $3,000 an acre, and within eighteen 

 months from the time of planting a 



berries here, and they begin to pick 

 the fruit in January. The ground 

 around the plants is mulched at the 

 proper time with pine needles. 



Peaches — such as we grow — apples, 

 currants, raspberries and blackberries. 

 do not seem to do well, but they cul- 

 tivate to some extent many of the 

 tropical fruits, such as avocato, pears, 

 mangoes, guavas, melon pawpaws, Su- 

 rinam cherries, dates, etc., but they 

 are uncertain, many of them being 

 injured or destroyed by the frost in 

 February, when the mercury dropped 

 to 24 degrees, with a light snowfall. 



A number of the tropical and dis- 

 tinctly southern fruits and plants are 

 shown in the illustration of a village 

 lot with this. The tall, leafy trees are 

 avocatos; the taller plants in the rear 

 are giant bamboos; the vine at the 



left is a scuppernong grape; yellow 

 jessamine clambers over the corner of 

 the veranda; immediately in front of 

 the house is a brilliant acalypha; there 

 are loquats and bananas in view, the 

 palm is Cocos Alphonsi, and the bare 

 and branching plant near the right, 

 like our poke, is cassava. 



A great variety of wild flowers were 

 in bloom in January and February, 

 and on the coast and in the hum- 

 mocks the palmetto flourishes, some 

 of the plants being twenty feet high 

 and eighteen inches in diameter at the 

 ground. There also some of the epiphy- 

 tal orchids, and Polypodium incanum 

 luxuriate on the stems and branches of 

 the live oaks, while several kinds of 

 smilax and other climbers add to the 

 tangle. 



I visited one of the principal florists 

 of the south, of whose place I hope to 

 send you some notes soon. 



W. T. BELL. 



NEW ROSE LIBERTY. 



We present herewith an engraving 

 from a photograph of a house of the 

 new crimson hybrid tea rose Liberty 

 at the establishment of Mr. Ernst As- 

 mus. West Hoboken, N. J. We visited 

 this house last February and as a re- 

 sult were much impressed with the 

 value of this new rose. 



While Meteor is the only forcing 

 rose we have with which it may be 

 compared, it seems almost absurd to 

 class them together. Liberty Is not 

 only larger and of better shape, but 

 the color is superb, the petals covered 

 with a fine bloom, like those of the 

 old Jacqueminot, and it possesses that 

 crowning glory, a strong but delicate 

 fragrance, that would alone make it 

 popular. And most important to the 

 commercial grower, it gives every evi- 

 dence of being a very free and con- 

 tinuous producer. 



If Liberty fulfills all its promises, 

 and we see no reason why it should 

 not. Meteor will be universally 

 dropped as soon as Liberty has been 

 generally disseminated. It will be in- 

 troduced during the spring of 1900. 



The house illustrated is 15x150 and 

 contains 1,035 plants in two center 

 beds, one 5 feet 9 inches wide, con- 

 taining five rows of plants, and one 4 

 feet 7 inches wide, containing four 

 rows of plants. There are walks next 

 the outside walls in addition to that 

 in the center. 



The growth and bloom seen in this 

 house at the time of our visit were 

 certainly remarkable and bear out Mr. 

 Asmus' assertion that Liberty is an 

 even freer bloomer than Meteor. A 

 peculiarity of growth is that if cut 

 back when the wood is ripened there 

 will be only one break, always bring- 

 ing a bloom, while if a bud is pinched 

 out when the shoot is soft there will 

 be two or more breaks. The blooms 

 seen on the plants were nearly all 

 equal in quality to those shown at the 

 exhibitions and there was no variation 

 whatever in color. 



Mr. Asmus' record shows that he cut 

 an average of 22 blooms per plant for 



