312 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



January 30, 1902. 



ROSE NOTES. 



Seasonable Hints. 



When repotting from 2-ineh to 2^- 

 inch pots there is no necessity for drain- 

 age, as the pot will absorb all the su- 

 perfluous moisture. As the shift is so 

 small, the soil, in order to get it equallj' 

 around the ball, will require to be fine; 

 passing it through a half-inch screen will 

 make it about right. The ball should 

 not be broken — only a little of the sur- 

 face soil and the sharp edges rubbed 

 off — and placed at the same depth in 

 the pot as before. Krm the soil equally 

 well all around the ball and water thor- 

 oughly. In order to keep the plants 

 stocky the temperature should remain 

 at 56 or 58 degrees at night, running up 

 to 70 degrees during sunshine. Give 

 plenty of ventilation on all favorable 

 occasions. 



Every morning the benches should be 

 carefully examined before watering, as 

 the pots are sure to dry out unevenly, 

 and those plants which are too dry 

 should be gone over individually with 



phur once a week will help to ward off 

 mildew. 



If the cutting bench has to be used for 

 a second batch it is wiser to throw out 

 the old sand and use fresh, thus mini- 

 mizing the danger of fungoid attacks. 



Rebes. 



LIME AND PARIS GREEN. 



Please state in the Review that add- 

 ing a lump of unslaked lime the size of 

 a hickory nut to each three gallons of 

 any mixture of paris green will prevent 

 injury to any foliage by the mixture. 

 This should be generally' known, but I 

 fear it is not. John Thobpe. 



CARNATIONS. 



A House at 40 Degrees. 



Please tell me the best white, pink and 

 scarlet carnations to grow in a house 

 that goes as low as 40 degrees a few 

 nights during the winter. C. V. K. 



To begin with, I want to say to C. V. 

 K. that a house that drops to 40 degrees 



New Pink Carnation Cressbrook, as Exhibited at Chicago Last Week, 



the hose previous to the general water- 

 ing and syringing. The main object 

 should be to keep all the plants in a 

 uniform, vigorous condition, and any 

 neglect in this matter will tend to pro- 

 duce many stunted plants. Meteors, 

 Perles and Beauties at this season will 

 make more rapid gro\rth in a tempera- 

 ture of 60 degrees, which will necessi- 

 tate increased supplies of water ; but as 

 there is ample time from now till June 

 to grow good plants, the lower tempera- 

 ture is preferable, as the slower growth 

 produces more stocky plants, which, 

 when planted in the bench, start more 

 freely. As the plants increase in size 

 they ought to be given more room on 

 the bench. This can be easily effected 

 by removing every third row, thus al- 

 lowing a free circulation of air among 

 the leaves and also facilitating syring- 

 ing. 



Dusting the leaves with flowers of sul- 



whenever the weather is severe is not a 

 good house to grow carnations in. There 

 are few, if any, varieties that will stand 

 many nights of 40 degrees without burst- 

 ing a large percentage of the calyxes. 

 The proper thing for him to do is to put 

 in about one or two more heating pipes 

 so he can keep the temperature up to at 

 least 48 or 50 degrees on the coldest 

 nights. If he can not do this the next 

 best thing is to select varieties that will 

 do well in a moderately low temperature 

 without bursting, and they would be 

 about as follows: White Cloud for 

 white among the standard varieties, or 

 Lorna among the newer sorts. Mrs. 

 Joost from the older pinks and Dorothy 

 out of the new ones. America as a scar- 

 let. Crane is generally supposed to have 

 a strong calyx, and so it has, but I have 

 seen many bursted ones, while on the 

 other hand I have not had a single 

 bursted calyx on America and our plants 



went through a pretty severe test just 

 before last Christmas. 



Mice in Carnation Houses. 



Another grower sends us a carnation 

 bloom which was gnawed off the stem 

 just below the bloom and asks what did 

 it. I think I can say positively that it 

 was done by a mouse. They climb up 

 the stem and gnaw through the stems 

 just below the bloom, allowing the 

 bloom to drop to the ground where they 

 gnaw their way tlirough to the calyx 

 and into the seed pod in order to get at 

 the young tender seed, of which they 

 seem very fond. Of course they work 

 at night and we are troubled most when 

 it is severely cold outside, which drives 

 them to the greenhouses. Last winter 

 we lost many blooms, while we were 

 trying everything we could think of to 

 rid the houses of them. They would 

 work all around a piece of cheese that had 

 a little poison of some kind on it without 

 ever touching it. The last thing we tried 

 was a preparation known as "Steam's 

 electric paste," and it soon cleared the 

 houses of the pest. 



American Carnation Society. 



The annual meeting of the American 

 Carnation Society is only a little over 

 three weeks awaj' now, and we hope to 

 see the largest attendance in the history 

 of the society. It will pay you well to 

 come even if you have no new seedling 

 to Show, and if you have one to show this 

 will be the time and the place to show 

 it and to compare it with the many fine 

 varieties, both new and old, with which 

 it will have to contend for popular fa- 

 vor. If it is as fine as you think it is 

 you certainly can do nothing better 

 than to show it to the foremost carna- 

 tion growers of the whole country, as 

 you will later have to depend on them to 

 buy the stock you will have to offer. On 

 the other hand, if you are rating it high- 

 er than its merits would warrant then 

 there is no better place for you to find 

 out where it stands than right here in 

 the exhibition hall among the really 

 good ones. 



Many a grower has a pet seedling or 

 two which he imagines away ahead of the 

 times without any real reason for it. The 

 longer he grows them the better he likes 

 them, and in fact he loves them so that 

 he cannot see a single fault in them. 

 Those are the varieties that usually cause 

 so much disappointment among the nov- 

 elty buyers. The expert hybridist is not 

 so likely to make such a mistake, as he 

 learns to judge them more impartially. 



A few years ago we bought many a va- 

 riety without having seen a single bloom 

 of it, merely on the strength of the dis- 

 seminator's reputation for honesty. But 

 the standard is so high now that we buy 

 very few varieties without having seen 

 either the blooms on the exhibition table 

 or else the plants growing on the dis- 

 seminator's place. Nol that we distrust 

 the disseminators any more than we ever 

 did (there is not a more straightforward 

 and upright lot of men on earth than 

 they), but we want to see just what we 

 are buying. These men, too, have not 

 been slow in recognizing the advantages 

 of placing before us at every opportunity 

 large vases full of their novelties to 

 show their superiority over the older va- 

 rieties. This in fact has become just as 

 important a factor in the selling of a 

 new variety as the printer's ink, and a 

 well staged vase of extra fine blooms 



