298 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



AUGUST IS, 1S9S. 



AMONG ST. PAUL GROWERS. 



L. L. May's. 



Ij. Ij. May & Co. have aboiil 40,U00 

 feet of glass, and every inch is utilized 

 and made to produce something-. This 

 year's planting of rosijs is as follows: 

 2,000 Meteor, with which they have had 

 excellent results the past two seasons; 

 2,000 Bride, 1,300 Siebreciit, 1,200 B.^au- 

 ty, 1.500 Bridesmaid. 500 Sunset, uOO 

 Testout, 150 Carnot and 100 Perle. 



Siebrecht they consider a first-class 

 all-around rose, its only weakness be- 

 ing the stem, which is improving each 

 year. Testout is an excellent flower for 

 counter trade, but too shy a bloomer 

 and too poor a shipper to be profitable. 

 Perle has never done well with them, 

 the growth all going to wood; their soil 

 is evidently too heavy- Carnot is a 

 beautiful rose, but not considered pro- 

 fitable for winter blooming. For sum- 

 mer they are growing Kaiserin, Sunset, 

 Meteor and Beauty. 



In carnations they will bench about 

 8,000 plants of the following varieties: 

 Jubilee, Bon Ton, and Firefly, for red; 

 Daybreak, Tidal Wave, Triumph, Mrs. 

 McBurney, and Victor, pink; Flora Hill, 

 Evelina, McGowan, and Ivory, white; 

 also a few hundred plants of Mayor 

 Pingree and Mrs. Bradt. 



They have now growing 10,000 mums 

 for single stems. I noted the following 

 good varieties, and there are others: 



Frank Hardy. Bonnaffmi. V.'Uiiltiiii. 

 Mrs. Robinson, S. T. Murdock, Jerome 

 Jones, Elvena, Belle of Castlewood; 

 Glory of Pacific, Merry Monarch, Mad 



Bergman. Fitz Wygrani. Mutual Friend, 

 Dorothy Deven, Mrs: Chadwick. Mrs. 

 Geo. Peabody, Mrs. C. H. Pierce, Zu- 

 linda, Yanoma, Quito, Autumn Glory, 

 Mrs. H. Weeks. They are growing 1,000 

 pot mums, but have discontinued grow 

 ing standards, as there is no money in 

 them. 



In addition the above grown for cut 

 flowers, this firm forces upwards of 

 250,000 bulbs annually, besides growing 

 50,000 pansies and 50,000 to 75,000 bed- 

 ding plants. Nearly all of their stock, 

 or about 90 per sent, is sold at retail, 

 the balance being disposed of to dealers 

 here and in the northwest. 



Chi is. Hansen's. 



Chris Hansen, who started in busi- 

 ness nine years since, has eleven houses 

 containing 28,000 feet of glass, and is 

 now adding to this a violet house 11 by 

 120 feet. 



His stock this year consists of 1,500 

 Perles, 2,800 Bride, 2,400 Bridesmaid, 400 

 Beauties, 400 President Carnot, 1,000 

 Belle Siebrecht, 1,500 Meteor, 500 Tes- 

 tout and 700 Wootton. For summer cut- 

 ting he grows Kaiserin, Perle, Meteor 

 and Testout. Stock is all planted in 

 benches, one of the houses being sub- 

 irrigated, this being experimental with 

 him. We could see no difference in the 

 appearance of the plants in this house 

 and of those watered in the usual man- 

 ner. It is, however, a little too early to 

 decide on the merits of this system, for 

 after the blooms come its value will be 

 known. 



In carnations he grows Jubilee, Flora 

 Hill, Daybreak, Evelina, Bon Ton. Fire- 

 fly and some other new varieties. He 

 also grows a house of smilax, anothei- 

 of asparagus, and has benched .'',,500 

 mums for single stems. His trade is 

 principally wholesale, he having dis- 

 continued his city store some time 

 since. His trade is in the Twin Cities, 

 with a considerable shipping trade to 

 outside towns. 



AMONG CHICAGO GROWERS. 



J. F. Klimmer's. 



In carnations J. P. Klimmer will this 

 season bench 2,000 Flora Hill, 1,200 

 Tidal Wave, 1,000 Scott, 500 Triumph 

 and from 50 to 100 each of Evelina, 

 Dazzle, Argyle, Gold Nugget and Bon 

 Ton. 



He is very greatly pleased with Flora 

 Hill and has entirely discarded Mc- 

 Gowan in its favor. With him Hill 

 gives many more flowers and they sell 

 at a better price, too. But McGowan 

 never did do as well with him as with 

 most other growers. He finds that 

 Flora Hill blooms much more freely in 

 a light sandy soil and that it should 

 have less water than most other va- 

 rieties. If given the same amount of 

 water as McGowan requires the growth 

 of Hill will be lanky and it will not 

 produce as freely as if kept drier. He 

 got 100 plants in February, 1897. They 

 were afterward grown in the field all 

 summer, housed in September, bloom- 

 ed all winter and again planted out in 

 the field this spring. From this 100 

 old plants in the field he has cut l.SOO 

 flowers from about July 4 up to 

 July 22. 



He is very favorably impressed with 

 Triumph. With him it blooms more 

 freely than Scott and the flowers bring 

 a better price. But he finds it must be 

 housed early. He will bench his by 

 August 15. If planted in late the flow- 

 ers come short stemmed and salable 

 blooms are not pi-oduced till Christ- 

 mas. 



He thinks Dazzle will prove a paying 

 sort and likes the way Evelina is grow- 

 ing in the field. He gives Tidal Wave 

 a heavier soil than his other varieties. 

 His soil is naturally very light, but 

 finds an addition of sand good for 

 Flora Hill. 



He has tried and dropped quite a 

 number of sorts. With him Lily Dean 

 was a good fall and summer blojmer, 

 but very shy in winter. Pingree was 

 rusty and didn't produce well with him. 

 Harrison's White had a fine habit and 

 growth, but was a poor producer and 

 the flowers were small. Daybreak be- 

 came rusty and played out. Mrs. C. 

 H. Duhme was a beautiful flower up 

 to Feb. 1. but then they began to split. 

 Up to Christmas it was better than 

 Daybreak, but after that the lady's 

 conduct was reprehensible. He had 

 100 plants of Morello last season and 

 they were fine and strong, but they 

 produced only two flowers up to Christ- 



mas and so few afterward that he 

 threw them out in disgu.st. Evidently 

 his soil and conditions are unsnited to 

 it. He gives all his carnations a tem- 

 perature of 50 degrees. He also tried 

 Thos. Cartledge, but the flowers didn't 

 open well in winter and they faded 

 badly in summer. 



In chrysanthemums his varieties for 

 this season are Glory of the Pacific, 

 Yellow Queen, Bergman and Sun Clad. 

 These were propagated in February 

 and kept pinched to make them bushy. 

 He aims to get flowers of only moder- 

 ate size, but wants 7 to 9 of these from 

 each plant. They will be used to make 

 up bunches of flowers for cemetery 

 trade where a good show is wanted at 

 a moderate price. He is planting the 

 early sorts in an east-facing frame 

 that is heated by one length of 2-inch 

 hot-water pipe. After the mums are 

 cut the frame will be planted with 

 pansies to supply cut flowers during 

 winter and spring. One winter they 

 tried carnations in this frame, hut they 

 didn't do well. 



Henry Mundt's. 



Henry Mundt's is only a mile distant 

 from Mr. Klimmer's, but his soil is 

 considerably heavier. In carnatioas he 

 will this season house 2,500 each of Ti- 

 dal Wave, Daybreak and Silver Spray. 

 The only new sort he is trying is Ar- 

 gyle. He tried Jubilee, but it was too 

 rusty for him. Flora Hill had too 

 weak a stem. He gave it the same 

 quantity of water as the others. This 

 and his heavier soil may have made 

 the difference between the behavior of 

 his plants and those of Mr. Klimmer. 



He supports his carnations with 

 twiggy willow branches stuck in the 

 soil between the plants and thinks this 

 is away ahead of any method of stak- 

 ing. The ends of the willow branches 

 are first scalded in boiling hot water 

 to prevent their taking root in the 

 soil. 



Sweet pea vines are growing up along 

 the edges of his carnation benches 

 about S feet apart. After soaking the 

 seed a few days a few were plant- 

 ed early in December in the places 

 where the plants were to remain. The 

 varieties were Blanche Ferry and Em- 

 ily Henderson. He cut the first flowers 

 about May 1 and the crop from the 

 vines added materially to his revenue. 

 As to the shade cast by the vines there 

 wasn't any to speak of until so late 

 in the season that it was a benefit 

 rather than otherwise. 



For summer carnation flowers he 

 grows Mrs. Fisher and will soon begin 

 to cut bloom. He propagates these in 

 the fall and carries the plants through 

 the winter in trays until they begin to 

 make growth toward spring when he 

 pots them up. But he puts them out 

 in the field as early as possible. Dur- 

 ing the winter he makes sure the 

 [ilants have abundant drainage as but 

 a trifle surplus of water will kill them 

 off. 



(T.) be Continued. I 



