FEBRl'ARY 15. lltiKi. 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



311 



ments to reopen on Summer s(ii-,t. 

 near the South Station. 



Wo regret to rofonl tlu- deatli of 

 Frank Becker, the venerable florist. 

 He hail been ailing for sonii! lime anil 

 (luring the past year his coiulition 

 showed a gradual decline. His wife, 

 his son Frank and several cliisr friends 

 were at his deathbed. 



Mr. Becker was a i)ioneer in the 

 florists' business and his greenhouses 

 in the vicinit.v of Memorial ball have 

 long been regarded as lamlmarks. 



Services were held at the residence. 

 171G Cambridge street, and the inter- 

 ment took place at Mt. Auburn directly 

 afterwards. 



Mr. Becker was 70 years old. 



What's this! Rebellion? Secession? 

 No, peaceful revolution. Mr. Zinn's 

 head man, Long, the young lady book- 

 keeper and the plump errand boy de- 

 clare a republic and go down to the 

 Thorndike floral rooms, on Bnylston 

 street, under the leadership of Pres. 

 Long. "Long live the Republic!" 



B. T. 



PERMANENT CONSTRUCTION. 



It is not so many years ago that 

 iron pipe supports under the purlins 

 of greenhouses were the exception 

 rather than the rule; now they are 

 the rule rather than the exception. 

 And the bases of these supports are 

 now quite generally of cement, which 

 is molded up around the pipe to keep 

 moist soil away from the iron. 



An equally vulnerable part of a 

 greenhouse is the gutter, and iron 

 promises to soon take the place of 

 wood here. Quite a number of at- 

 tempts to make use of iron gutters 

 have failed on account of their great 

 expense, but this expense has been 

 largely overcome by a gutter invented 

 by Geo. M. Garland, Des Plaines, 111., 

 which, while sutliciently heav.v to 

 carr.v several times the weight re- 

 quired, can be made at a cost which 

 makes its use profitable compared 

 with wooden gutters. 



Those who have used this gutter 

 several years say it has many advant- 

 ages besides that of permanency. The 

 iron being a good conductor of heai, 

 the gutters that connect houses melt 

 the snow and ice very rapidly, the 

 heat from inside the houses being im- 

 mediately effecti\ t 



Certainly an iron gutter resting on 

 iron posts set in concrete should 

 make a greenhouse well nigh inde- 

 structible, for cypress sash bars will 

 serve almost indefinitely resting ^on 

 iron at the bottom, and hardly any- 

 one now thinks of using any other 

 wood than cypress in a greenhouse 

 roof, its great durability having been 

 most thoroughly demonstrated. 



Tile benches inside the house are 

 the next Important item. Permanency 

 here is as necessary as in the house, 

 for the continual replacing of wood- 

 en benches is a serious expense. 

 Benches with bottoms of common 

 round tile have been found to be not 



only more permanent but better for 

 the plants than wooden benches, and 

 one of the largest rose growers in the 

 country has now all his benches with 

 tile bottoms. A flat tile, though, 

 would have some advantages over a 

 round one for a bench bottom, and 

 we present herewith *an engraving 

 showing a tile designed for the pur- 

 pose by Mr. Garland, who is prepar- 

 ing to manufacture them. 



As seen in the picture, the tiles 

 are made of such a length that two 

 will cover the width of the usual 

 greenhouse bench, and the idea of 

 permanency has been carried to its 

 logical conclusion by supporting these 

 bench bottom tiles by others placed on 

 edge. We understand these tile 

 benches can be erected at about the 

 same cost as wooden ones, with 2-ineh 

 plank bottoms, and in view of this 

 we are inclined to think that the day 



of the wooden bench in rose and car- 

 nation houses is about past. 



The picture also shows the way in 

 which the Garland iron gutter is used 

 on an outside wall. Mr. Garland, by 

 the way, is a florist of an inventive 

 turn of mind, and the iron gutter 

 was first designed by him for use in 

 his own houses, where it excited so 

 much favorable comment by visitors 

 that he finally decided to manufacture 

 it and offer it to his brother florists. 



PROVIDENCE. R. I.— William Flan- 

 nagan. the florist, died Feb. 3 of ca- 

 tarrhal inflammation of the stomach 

 and malaria. He was born in this 

 city in 1855 and for the past twenty 

 years has conducted a succesful busi- 

 ness at the corner of Brook and Mann- 

 ing Sts. His mother, sister, and two 

 brothers survive him. 



