170 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



ibut it often assumes more oi' a lilac 

 tint. Nearly all of the most persistent 

 lorms one meets in old gardens belong 

 to the English A. vulgaris, a feature 

 that presents a negative argument to 



the adoption of the columbine as a na- 

 tional flower. In growing a collection 

 of columbines and depending upon the 

 natural seedlings for the permanence 

 of ihe bed one soon becomes disap- 

 pointed as the species hybridizes free- 

 !.v and the bed soon runs out. There- 

 fore it is well to have isolated seed 

 plants for stock, and it is often neces- 

 sary to place netting over these. 



BELLEROPHON. 



AMONG CHICAGO GROWERS. 



Reinberg Bros. 



Reinberg Bros.' range of glass at 

 Summerdale is undoubtedly the larg- 

 est in America, containing over <jOO,0OO 

 square feet. The additions made this 

 summer have already been noted in 

 these columns. The glass is devoted 

 almost wholly to roses and carnations. 

 For the coming season they will bench 

 50,000 Beauties, 34,500 Maids, 2!>,M0 

 Meteors, 23,000 Brides, ll,fK:K) Perl-js, 

 ]1,.500 Kaiserin and 4.0(J0 La France. 

 They have dropped Testout. which 

 didn't pay. A large percentage of the 

 flowers were short stemmed, and they 

 found they could grow 3 or 4 Maids 

 where they got one Testout. 'I'he 

 Testout was a poor shipper, too. Oar- 

 not has also been discarded. "A pret- 

 ty rose, and all right for summer 

 hlooming, but no good in winter, " is 

 the verdict here. Siebrecht came too 

 short stemmed and Maids sold better 

 in the market. Kaiserin does well 

 with them up to Christmas, and after 

 getting a holiday crop they throw them 

 out to make room for young rose 

 stock. They are trying a hundred 

 plants of the new pink rose Mrs. Robt. 

 Garrett. It has made a vigorous 

 growth and they hope it will prove a 

 satisfactory winter bloomer. They are 

 replanting a few houses with Maids 

 that were forced last winter. Their 

 experience has been that the old plants 

 come into bloom quicker, but are lo 

 hetter otherwise than young .ilants, 

 and that there is no saving in labor 

 as young stock can be benched much 

 more easily than the old plants, whi.^h 

 must be carefully lifted, pruned, etc. 



For staking their Beauties they use 

 five-foot lengths of No. S telegraph 

 wire, secured near the top by smaller 

 wires running lengthwise, in the usual 



way. and when an extension of this is 

 necessary they set a cane stake on top 

 of the wire rod. The hollow in the 

 cane fits over the top of the rod very 

 neatly and the "top-mast" can be very 

 quickly put on or removed. For other 

 roses they use lengths of 4 1-2 feet of 

 the same wire. They have recently 

 purchased S tons of the bundles of tel- 

 egraph wire known as "shorts" which 

 can be had at $18 a ton. A ton will 

 make 5,000 stakes and if purchased al- 

 ready straightened and cut they would 

 cost ?T a thousand. The straightening 

 is done by the Garland device, illus- 

 trated in The Review for June 16. 

 There would be little if any saving if 

 the wire had to be straightened by 

 hand. 



They put on a thin mulch of fine old 

 manure about August 1. This is main- 

 ly to protect the surface of the soil 

 from the burning sun. They would 

 put this mulch on as soon as the rosos 

 are planted if it were not for fear that 

 even this slight fertilization might be 

 too much before the plants have made 

 roots in the new soil. They feed liquid, 

 generally fresh cow manure with a 

 slight admixture of horse. This is 

 soaked for 24 hours in barrels and the 

 clear liquid then strained into the tank 

 where it is much diluted before lieiug 

 used. They begin feeding in October 

 or November and renew the applica- 

 tion every month. They find that 

 plants with vigorous root action will 

 stand quite liberal feeding. Brides 

 and Maids seem to be less liable to 

 damage from overfeeding than the oth- 

 er varieties. 



They believe that mildew is nearly 

 always due to a lack of ventilation. In 

 fall and spring they carry moderate 

 heat on the pipes and leave the ven- 

 tilators open a little till late at night. 

 Since following this method they iiavo 

 had little trouble from mildew at the 

 seasons noted. 



They have used both steam and 

 water in beating, and are this year 

 changing all to hot water, retaining 

 four lengths of 1 1-4 or 1 1-2-inch 



steam pipes in each house. These 

 steam pipes are arranged so they can 

 use only two or the four as required. 

 They don't expect to use the steam 

 pipes more than a dozen times during 

 the winter, holding them as a reserve 

 force to be brought into play when the 

 weather is unusually severe. They 

 want sufficient heat to maintain a tem- 

 perature of 60 degrees during 

 the worst arctic storm. They 

 believe that many florists lack suffi- 

 cient heat when the outside tempera- 

 ture drops down to 20 degrees below 

 zero. The steam pipes will also be a 

 big help when the weather turns sud- 

 dently colder. They keep steam up all 

 the time for pumping and in case of a 

 sudden lowering of outside tempera- 

 ture they can meet it with the steam 

 pipes, whereas it would take som.e lit- 

 tle time to get additional heat into the 

 water. They feel they have the ad- 

 vantages of both systems. In early fall 

 and late spring they find the hot water 

 much the most economical as only a 

 little fire will supply sufficient heat, 

 while with steam much fuel is required 

 to keep up enough pressure to insure 

 circulation. They use 3-inch cast iron 

 pipe for hot water and think that 2- 

 inch would be even better though the 

 first cost of the required heating sur- 

 face is greater. In the smaller pipes 

 there is less water to heat and the cir- 

 culation is quicker. 



They find that wrought iron pipe 

 rusts out rapidly when kept wet and 

 warm; where there is drip upon a iiot 

 steam pipe, or where it is allowed to 

 be partly buried in soil, the corrosion 

 seems much more rapid, and where 

 they used steam the expense for re- 

 pairs was not only greater but the cost 

 of labor for firing was much more. 



In their houses all the benches rest 

 on cedar posts. An eight foot post is 

 cut into three lengths. They consider 

 these posts more economical than iron 

 pipe. They will last ten years and the 

 material for the posts and cross beams 

 does not tost as much as the labor 

 alone in putting up the iron pipe bench 

 frames. What they are more anxious 

 to secure is more durable material for 

 bench bottoms and think favorably of 

 trying the tile bottoms so largely used 

 by Basset t & Washburn. In all their 

 houses they have water cocks every 

 70 feet in each walk so only a 5U-foot 

 length of hose need be used. Their 

 water comes from wells on the place 

 and when these run short they run 

 city water into the wells, the city pres- 

 sure being insufficient. They have sev- 

 eral steam pumps constantly at work 

 and have large tank capacity. 



This season they will burn about 2T>u 

 cars of coal, running 30 to 40 tons to 

 the car. Last year they used mostly 

 Southern Illinois (Carterville) coal, 

 which cost 15 cents a ton less than 

 Indiana block and which proved just 

 as good. It is a large egg size. They 

 think they lose something on the In- 

 diana block through careless firemen 

 failing to break up the large lumps 



