The Weekly Florists' Review. 



427 



Members of Canadian Horticultural Association at Springbank Park, London, Ont., August, 1901. 



Selagiiullas: 1st, Major Pellatt; 2na. Exhibi- 

 tion Parli; 3rd, Horticultural Gardens. 



Begonias. Rex and flowering, were captured 

 by Major Pellatt with very fine plants, as were 

 also the geraniums and fuchsias, the other ex- 

 hibit scarcely deserving mention. - 



You may wonder why the lilies and 

 other flowering plants have not come in 

 for fuller mention, but could you all see 

 them you would agree with me that on 

 the whole they are too poor and ragged 

 to mention in the same column with the 

 palms and foliage plants. 



Cut flowers and designs come in next 

 week. 



Business has improved slightly this 

 last week, with plenty of stock to sup- 

 ply all needs. C. W. 



BACK-YARD GREENHOUSES. 



Under the above title the Saturday 

 Evening Post, of Philadelphia, prints an 

 article in its is.sue of Aug. 24 that would 

 be exceedingly humorous were it nat like- 

 ly to lead people into making invest- 

 ments that could not fail to result in 

 financial losses and bitter disappoint- 

 ments. A paper "founded by Benjamin 

 Franklin" should surely be old enough 

 to know better than to print such mis- 

 information. The article opens as fol- 

 lows: 



Many a city baclt yard of ordinary size might 

 be made to yield a comfortable income it the 

 space were utilized in a common-sense fash- 

 ion—that is to say, by roofing it with glass 

 and converting it into a greenhouse for rais- 

 ing flowers and high-priced garden vegetables. 

 Such a transformation could be easily accom- 

 plished with the help of a carpenter, and 

 the cost of it would be relatively small, 

 while the labor involved in carrying on such 

 an enterprise is so light and pleasant as to 

 be particularly attractive to women. 



Most women, indeed, enjoy nothing so much 

 as pottering about among growing things, 

 and the profits to be derived from a business 

 of this kind are surprisingly 'large, consider- 

 ing the size of the investment and the amount 

 of work required. 



The writer then goes on to recom- 

 mend the growing of carnations, violets 

 lettuce, mushrooms, etc., for sale to flor- 

 ists and restaurants. The idea of flor- 

 ists being anxious and willing to pay 

 good prices for the floral product of such 

 establishments (providing a product 

 should result) is quite too funny in view 

 of existing conditions. And to stiggest 

 that an entirely inexperienced person 

 could at once attain success in the glow- 

 ing of cut flowers in paying quantities 

 under such adverse conditions is even 

 more humorous. 



The professional grower who may have 



happened to read the article in question 

 undoubtedly dismissed it with a laugh. 

 But how about any unfortunates who 

 may be led into investing their hard 

 earned savings in such a hopeless ven- 

 ture? Ought not those who know the in- 

 evitable result to take some steps to pre- 

 vent the dissemination of such misinfor- 

 mation, or to counteract it after it has 

 been disseminated? 



POLLEN POTENCY. 



The function of the pollen grain as a 

 fertilizer of the embryo seed is a popu- 

 larly recognized fact, and the biologist 

 recognizes its potency to the further ex- 

 tent that, cut of the myriad usually pro- 

 vided, a single one is sufficient for each 

 individual seed. This latter fact, how- 

 ever, has been disputed, it having been 

 claimed, on the evidence of diverse re- 

 sults in the offspring, that more than 

 one grain, or its equivalent antherozoid, 

 may influence the ovum so that in the 

 progeny the characters of more than two 

 parents may present themselves. Deep 

 research goes, however, to prove that 

 fertilization is effected on such definite 

 lines that there is no room for a ter- 

 tiary influence, the maternal and pater- 

 nal primary cells being actually reduced 

 to half-cells prior to their union, so that 

 such union suffices to make one perfect 

 cell, with all the potencies of the twain 

 within it, and thus, like the lid on a 

 pill-box, at once completes the structure 

 and excludes further addition. 



Recent research, the results of which 

 have been published in the Botanische 

 Zeitung by Herr C. Currens, points to 

 certain phenomena in this connection 

 which are extremely interesting, not 

 merely to the scientific botanist, but also 

 to the practical liorticulturist as a 

 Grosser and hybridizer, or even as a se- 

 lective cultivitor on simpler lines. This 

 investigator's experiments tend to show 

 that, in the first place, a certain per- 

 centage of the pollen grains are in some 

 cases functionally useless, so that to in- 

 sure fertilization at all a greater num- 

 ber must be applied to the stigma than 

 there are incipient seeds to be fertilized 

 and that, in the second place, when an 

 abundance of pollen is applied there 

 arises a competitive race among them 

 as their tubes traverse the tissues of the 

 stigma in order to reach the ovaries at 

 its base, and thit, eventually, it is the 

 stronger and more vigorous grain which 



effects the fertilization, this greater 

 strength and vigor finding expression 

 in the better constitution of the off- 

 spring. 



In this simple fact, for fact it prob- 

 ably is, though further experiment is 

 necessary to establish it as a general 

 law, we see at once an explanition of 

 the enormous numerical disproportion of 

 pollen grains to fertilizable seeds. Most 

 flowers produce thousands of grains 

 against scores of seeds, the dispropor- 

 tion being the least in clerstogamous 

 flowers, which present no opportunities 

 for scattering, as they fertilize them- 

 selves, and the greatest in wind-fer- 

 tilized plants, where millions are dis- 

 persed upon the breeze, of which % rela- 

 tively minute minority can possibly be 

 effective. In all cases, presumably, 

 there is a proportion maintained be- 

 tween the greater or less certainty of 

 conjunction, and, doubtless, a very large 

 amount of the seeming waste of pollen 

 constitutes a sort of insurance premium 

 for the better security of the existence 

 of the race. 



From the experiments above men- 

 tioned, however, we can deduce another 

 reason for the abundance, as it admits 

 of a son, of sexual selection from a 

 crowd of suitors, wliirh is obviously 

 beneficial to the race in the long run. 

 This also doubtless accounts for many 

 cases of little understood prepotency, 

 since it is quite clear that pollen erains 

 which produce and extend their tubes 

 more rapidly than their fellows are prac- 

 tically bound to be first in the race, and 

 hence" to impress their character the 

 more prominently on the eventual batch 

 of seedlings. — Owrdcncrs' Magazine. 



STERILIZED SOIL. 



A grower of roses for the Chicago mar- 

 ket, ]Mr. F. Stielow, of Niles Center, uses 

 naturally sterilized soil in his rose 

 houses. He digs clay out of a pit— just 

 such clay as is used in making bricks — 

 and composts it with manure for a sea- 

 son. It is then mixed over and used in 

 the rose benches. It looks decidedly un- 

 promising, but it grows good roses. 



Lawkence, Kans. — A. Whitcomb, the 

 veteran florist, died Aug. 24, aged 74 

 years. The business will be continued 

 by the son, A. H. Whitcomb, under the 

 old firm name. 



