154 



TheWeekly Florists' Review, 



LIKCKMUKU 26. 1901. 



I have plants in flats ready and when 

 the bench is emptied I shovel over the 

 soil and allow to stand a day or two, 

 according to the weather, flien add some 

 pulverized manure and a little ashes, 

 stirring and leveling off as before, water- 

 ing as needed and replant, getting a good 

 crop for Easter. 



The bench is then used for plunging 

 bedding stock, mostly late geraniums, 

 which seem to do well on a north side 

 bench. 



I may say that I keep a night tempera- 

 ture of not more than 50, preferring 48. 

 The carnations, Scott and White Cloud, 

 do finely, the White Cloud on the south 

 six-foot bench with two pipes under it. 

 I heat with hot water in four-inch pipes. 



I have grown Black Seeded Simpson 

 and Grand Rapids and never lost a plant 

 bv rot or anything else. 

 ' Illinois. " AcH.VTES. 



cultivated, the buds will swell and open 

 as they would normally in the spring. 

 To expose a plant thus to cold, however, 

 is a delicate matter. Besides, this meth- 

 od generally requires special refrigerat- 

 ing apparatus, such as is at the disposal 

 of large establishments only. In 180.5 

 Professor Johannsen, of the Danish Ag- 

 ricultural School, announced that the 

 same result can be obtained by exposing 

 the plants to the fumes of ether. Accord- 

 ing to recent experiments described by 

 Prof. Albert Maumene in La Nature 

 (Xovember 2), this process is susceptible 

 of practical use. Says this writer: 



"The ether used is the same . 

 that is employed in medicine as an anops 

 thetic. When employed for the treat- 

 ment of plants, its properties depend on 

 the fact that it appears to hasten the 

 combinations and exchanges of nutritive 

 and otlier material that take place in 



Peter Reinberg's Vase of JOO Beauties at the Recent Kansas City Show. 



FORCING PLANTS BY ETHERIZA- 

 TION. 



In a recent issue of the Xew York Lit- 

 erary Digest appears a translation of an 

 article under the above title which ap- 

 peared in the French periodical La Na- 

 ture of Xov. 2 that is of special inter- 

 est to florists. We reprint the major 

 part of the article below: 



In forcing flowering plants to blos- 

 som out of season, as florists are con- 

 tinually obliged to do, they find it nec- 

 ■Mv to give the plant a period of 

 rest, analogous to that wliich they lia\^e 

 naturally in winter. This is brought 

 about by depriving the plant of leaves, 

 usually through the action of frost. 

 When the plant is afterward warmed and 



the tissues of plants during the period of 

 active life, from March to October, and to 

 arrest the circulation of sap. 



"If we place under a lilac, an azalea, 

 a hortensia, or some other shrub, a flask 

 of ether, the following results take place: 

 The vapors of this very volatile liquid 

 envelop the branches, cause the leaves to 

 droop, and hasten the growth, which, at 

 a given moment, comes to a stop as if 

 under the influence of cold. Under these 

 conditions the ether shortens the vegeta- 

 tive period and produces practically the 

 same effects as the first frosts, which 

 cause the leaves to turn yellow and fall 

 off, and interrupt the flow of sap in the 

 parts exposed to the air 



"The effects of etherization seem to 

 give the best results from July to the 

 beginning of September. Experiments 



tried in October seem to have been less 

 conclusive." 



It is necessary. Professor Maumene 

 tells us, to keep the soil under the plants 

 dry, so that the ether shall not penetrate 

 to the roots. The plants are best placed 

 in a tight box whose temperature is kept 

 not lower than 17 degrees C. (63 degrees 

 F. ) . The ether is put in a receptacle 

 himg in the interior, and is supplied 

 daily. After the plants have been ex- 

 posed to the vapors about 50 hours, dur- 

 ing which time the buds may often be 

 seen to swell and begin to open, they are 

 taken from the box and watered in a 

 warm atmosphere when they flower rap- 

 id! v. Says th« -writer: 



■'Johannsen has caused lilacs to blossom 

 during the first half of September, by 

 etherizing them a month previous, and 

 M. JYanz Ledien, director of the Dres- 

 den botanical garden, obtained in the 

 early part of last December lilacs in per- 

 fect flower and covered with leaves, while 

 the buds of those that had been forced 

 without the aid of ether were not even 

 open. The same was the case with 

 snowballs, which on December 14 had ful- 

 ly opened, while the buds of those that 

 had not been etherized were entirely 



closed 



"In fact, besides limiting the vegeta- 

 tive period and causing shrubs to 

 flower as soon as the buds that contain 

 rudimentary flowers are fully formed, 

 etherization considerably shortens the 

 period of forcing for shrubs that have 

 already entered the stage of repose. . . . 

 This will bring about a revolution in 

 the production of cut flowers and plants 

 in pots, since it will enable us to invert 

 the order of the seasons, and to produce 

 several successive series of flowers witli 

 the same material and without more ex- 

 penditure of heat. 



"But these results can not at present 

 be obtained except with plants whose 

 flowers, opening normally in the spring, 

 grow on the wood formed the year pre- 

 vious, and are in their envelopes in a 

 latent state as early as July. These are 

 such shrubs as the azalea, spirea, snow- 

 ball, lilac, xanthoceras, deutzia, etc., 

 which have been experimented upon, and 

 have given the results noted above." 



OBITUARY. 



Charles F. ICIunder. 



Death has put a ])eriod to the remark- 

 able career of Charles F. Klunder, at one 

 time the most w-idelv known retail florist 

 in America, when he was at the zenith of 

 his business success in Xew York Citv 

 about twenty years ago. He was found 

 dead in a rear room in his store at 2202 

 Michigan avenue, Chicago, Saturday last. 

 (Dec. 21) by his son, and there was every 

 indication of suicide as all the gas jets 

 in the room had been turned on and the 

 crevices around the doors and windows 

 had been stuffed with paper. 



Mr. Klunder was born in Germany and 

 was 05 years old at the time of his 

 death. He came to Xew York many 

 years ago, and starting at first in a small 

 way. he developed his linsiness to re- 

 markable proportions, liaving the cream 

 of the trade in that city for many years. 

 He frequently received very large sums 

 for single decorations for the social func- 

 tions of Xew Y'ork's most exclusive so- 

 ciety, and demanded and received phe- 

 nomenally high prices for his creations 

 in flowers. 



