436 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



SEPTEMBER 22. 1898. 



very fine. This crop is followed by 

 cucumbers. Mr. Cummings believes 

 in being in the market the year 

 round, and has planted from 5,000 to 

 (J.OOO carnations, Mrs. Fisher, for sum- 

 mer blooming, and devotes considera- 

 ble land to asters and sweet peas. His 

 pinks are looking very well, but have 

 not made the growth that they should 

 have made up to this time. 



The foreman, Mr. Spillsbury, be- 

 lieves in using the best of material in 

 which to grow his stock, and takes 

 great pains with his compost heap. He 

 is not a believer in liquid manures, 

 but keeps his soil top dressed with fine 

 well rotted manure, which he renews 

 from time to time. 



E. N. Pierce & Sons', Waveriy. 



A small farm under glass is what we 

 found at Waverly, the Messrs. Pierce 

 having 10 houses, ranging from ISO 

 feet to 300 feet in length, aggregating 

 something over 100,000 square feet of 

 glass. Here I found Mr. E. X. Pierce 

 and his men busy picking tomatoes, 

 for they are market gardeners as well 

 as florists. 



The place is built on a side hill, 

 every house laying to the south and 

 the result is that there are no off crops 

 here, and one of the sons can be seen 

 daily in the Boston market with their 

 staples, chrysanthemums, carnations 

 and lilies. There are 7 houses planted 

 to mums, all of which are in excellent 

 shape. Mr Pierce grows these both in 

 solid beds and benches and sees no 

 difference in results, although to save 

 expense, he prefers the solid beds. 



For soil he uses, in the older houses, 

 the same soil year after year, only 

 adding plant food, mostly in the shape 

 of well rotted cow manure. In fact. 



of the Japanese type, which will occu- 

 py part of these houses. In the other 

 houses there will be planted about 35,- 

 000 carnations, the greater portion of 

 them being Scott, Mr. Pierce consider- 

 ing this a money maker. Part of this 

 stock has been grown under glass all 

 summer, another portion in the house 

 with the glass taken off, the remain- 

 der in the open ground, and so far as 

 looks are concerned, there is no per- 

 ceptible difference. 



He is building this season a house 

 300 feetx24 feet, a mate to one he 

 built last season, in which he 

 grew two crops of lettuce and 

 which he has now turned 

 over to the carnations, plant- 

 ing them in the original ground, 

 no built beds or benches or digging 

 out for walks. It looks as if the plants 

 had been put out of doors, and the 

 house built over them. The new 

 house is to be planted to lettuce this 

 season, and carnations next year. Both 

 of these houses are built of sash made 

 especially for them, which are re- 

 moved during the summer time, thus 

 giving plants the benefit of out of door 

 treatment, without the check which is 

 natural to receive when lifted in the 

 fall. (This way I consider the correct 

 method of growing both carnations 

 and violets, reducing the liability to 

 disease to a minimum.) 



There is one house 300x18 devoted 

 to growing mignonette. This is sown 

 in benches early in August and is al- 

 lowed to grow until spring. They do 

 not disbud, like most growers. For 

 soil they use about half new and half 

 old soil mixed up in a compost early 

 in the spring. 



For the summer crop these gentle- 

 men make a specialty of tomatoes, and 



week's product amounted to 90 

 pounds, while the week ending Aug. 

 21 the cut amounted to 12.000 pounds 

 a total of 36,G01 pounds up to that 

 date. The price for this crop has 

 ranged from 25 cents per pound in 

 July to $2 per bushel August 20th. 



This immense establishment is heat- 

 ed by steam, four tubular boilers of 

 270 horse power doing the work. 

 There are fifteen men employed here 

 the year round, and everything of a 

 mechanical nature is done on theplant, 

 a well equipped carpenter and machine 

 shop being a feature of the place. 

 P. 



A BIG CARNATION HOUSE. 



We present in this issue exterior and 

 interior views of the new carnation 

 lious« of Messrs. Bassett & Washburn, 

 Hinsdale, 111. We believe this house to 

 be the largest individual greenhouse in 

 the country, it being 52 feet wide and 

 IXK) feet long. There are seven bench- 

 es and eight walks, the benches being a 

 trifle over six feet wide. The house 

 contains a total of about SO.OiX) plants, 

 the planting in being completed about 

 August 15. 



The liouso is devoted mainly to the 

 newer varieties; a list of the sorts has 

 already been printed in these columns. 

 The model extension carnation sup- 

 port has been used in part of the 

 benches and Mr. Bassett is favorably 

 impressed with it so far. The only di- 

 sease that has been discovered among 

 the carnations here yet is stem rot and 

 Flora Hill has been the only variety 

 affected. Mr. Bassett is much taken 

 with Mary Wood. It is a splendid 

 flower and the plants present a fine ap- 

 pearance. It is said, though, that it 



The Big Carnation House at Bassett & Washburn's, Hinsdale, 111. 



in two of the older houses, he told me 

 that he had increased the depth of the 

 soil from the original surface of the 

 ground almost eighteen inches, this in 

 about a dozen years. 



His success in growing a good aver- 

 age commercial variety of mum Is un- 

 disputed, and he expects to cut and 

 market 75,000 cut blooms. In these 

 houses he follows his crop of mums 

 with beets, which he sells through 

 commission men, also he has received 

 and potted up 15,000 longifiorum lilies 



make use of their greenhouse plant to 



get them early. They start the plants 

 inside, and when the weather is suit- 

 able, transplant to frames out of doors, 

 these are made deep, and in such a 

 manner as to be easily removed. Only 

 one variety is grown, the Lorillard, 

 and this year they planted 15,0(.mj 

 plants. After the frames are removed 

 Ihey are trellised with wire, and 

 for this purpose twenty four miles of 

 wire was required. This season the 

 first cut was on July 10th, and that 



does not produce freely enough and the 

 coming season will determine its fate 

 here. The red sport from Bradt seems 

 to retain its characteristics all right. 

 AM the fiowers yet produced have been 

 perfectly true in color and there seems 

 no inclination to revert. If it remains 

 fixed in character Mr. Bassett says it 

 will leave Jubilee away in the rear. 



As will be noticed in the picture 

 there is an abundance of ventilation 

 at the sides of this house as well as at 

 the top, and in passing from the nar- 



