The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



645 



Small Corsage Bouquet of Orchids. 



Disbudding. 



If you have all the supports in place 

 and the benches clear of weeds and other 

 litter you have the greatest part of 

 your work done and from now on it 

 takes brain rather than muscle to in- 

 sure success. Keeping the plants with- 

 in their allotted spaces and keeping the 

 flower stems disbudded should be looked 

 after right along and don't wait until 

 the plants lay all around the bench be- 

 fore you put them into place and don't 

 wait until the main bud is about ready 

 to open before you do the disbudding, 

 but go over them every few days and 

 the faster they grow the oftener you 

 must go over them. Disbudding should 

 be done as soon as the buds are large 

 enough to handle without injuring the 

 main bud or the stem. 



Propagating. 



You can save all the good strong cut- 

 tings of such varieties as F. Hill, E. 

 Crocker, Wm. Scott, G. H. Crane, and 

 perhaps a few other varieties, and put 

 them in sand. They will make fine 

 stock for blooming next summer if plant- 

 ed out of 3-inch pots in the spring and 

 pinched several times during the win- 

 ter. But keep only strong cuttings and 

 throw out all those thin small ones 

 from near the top of the stem. 



If you have any plants left in the 

 field which were too small to plant in 



the benches they can be potted now into 

 4-inch and wintered in a cold-frame 

 and planted out again in the spring 

 when they will begin flowering earlier 

 than cuttings which were struck during 

 the winter. A. F. J. Bauk. 



CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 



Once more the season of the fall queen 

 is well under way; and while the poet is 

 sadly talking about "The melancholy 

 days, the saddest of the year," and so 

 on, the mum grower is jnaking his pil- 

 grimage of love to his brother growers, 

 to see what is new and what the harvest 

 will be. 



The days are not "melancholy days" 

 for him. He finds too much to interest 

 him comparing the new varieties with 

 the old and watching the fruition of 

 his labors and hopes and fears of the 

 past few months. The "melancholy 

 days" come later when he makes elabo- 

 rate preparations to beat everybody at 

 his local show and the other fellows get 

 in just a little ahead of him and scoop 

 all the prizes. 



How many men I wonder can view 

 with equanimity their pets being ruth- 

 lessly turned down! Is it to be won- 

 dered at that the judges' decisions are 

 questioned sometimes? I wonder some- 

 times they don't get mobbed. I never 

 heard of a judge getting hung; but any 

 hotel proprietor in the immediate vicin- 



ity of the exhibition hall will testify 

 to the fact that the rank and file often 

 make frantic efi'orts to" drown the judges' 

 decision, if not the judge himself. And 

 a florist never takes water — his life is 

 too strenuous for that. 



I should like to see a chrysanthemum 

 exhibition in every town throughout this 

 broad land. The mum is a cheap flow- 

 er, it is the flower of the people; even 

 the poorest can raise a few in their back 

 yard, if they can raise nothing else. 



The mum is a great educator. If you 

 can get people interested in an easily 

 grown flower it will not be long before 

 they are wanting to grow other kinds and 

 the possibilities of extending the flor- 

 ists' business in this direction are bound- 

 less. . 



Therefore I say let every town get up 

 a flower show, no matter how small the 

 town or the show. "Great oaks from 

 little acorns grow." I know that the 

 .standard of quality of cut flowers has 

 been raised immensely in my own town 

 since the yearly exhibition has been held. 



Competition is the life of trade. Com- 

 petition also means effort and continued 

 effort always means progress. The flor- 

 ist is almost the only tradesman that is 

 content to hide his light under a bushel. 

 In any other business the manufacturer 

 is always trying to bring his wares be- 

 fore the public. He will spend enor- 

 mous sums in advertising and rarely 

 makes a mistake in so doing. Many a 

 florist when he is asked to help out an 

 exhibition will tell you that it wont pay 

 him. Yet what better advertising could 

 he get? 



While it is a sorrowful fact that ex- 

 hibitions rarely show a balance on the 

 right side of the ledger it does not fol- 

 low that conditions will be always thus. 



The only trouble with us at the pres- 

 ent time is that as Mr. Dooley remarks, 

 "We ar-re a great people. We ar-re that. 

 An' the best iv it is we know we ar-re." 



When we are willing to take pattern 

 from older countries in some things we 

 may even yet see a crowded flower show. 

 But it will never be until the common 

 people become flower lovers and flower 

 growers. 



Flowers intended for exhibition should 

 be very carefully packed if they have 

 to travel any distance, as they bruise 

 easily, particularly the whites. If the 

 heads are protected with tissue paper 

 to keep them from rubbing against one 

 another and are then tied to slats nailed 

 across inside the box they will travel 

 a long distance without injury. It is 

 a poor policy to pack the flowers one 

 row above another in a box without any 

 means of keeping the top layers from 

 bearing down on and crushing every 

 semblance of shape out of the lower tier. 

 A double layer is all that should ever 

 be placed in a box unless the slat method 

 is followed. 



A point that should always be ob- 

 served in shipping the flowers in a cut 

 state is to see that they stand from 

 twelve to twenty-four hours in water 

 before being packed. They will then fill 

 up the stems with water and will arrive 

 at their destination in a perfectly fresh 

 condition. 



We shall endeavor to compare some 

 of the new varieties with the old, as 

 they have behaved with us this year, 

 but we will leave it until the season 

 is at its height. Some of them have 

 done splendidly while others I am afraid 

 will not live up to the promise of their 

 youth. Brian Boktj. 



