316 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Jauuaey 30, 1902. 



BUFFALO. 



Business. 



Occasionally you hear the same old 

 unthinking, stupid observation: "Flow- 

 ers are scarce on account of so much 

 dark and cloudy weather." There is a 

 certain class that is bound to say that 

 even if we had the sunny winter of 

 Denver. The fact is, in my recollection 

 of thirty- four years of Kew York win- 

 ters, I never remember a more enjoyable 

 one. Not a day yet that you could not 

 take a ride or even a walk with pleas- 

 ure. This morning the first zero of the 

 season and about every other day the sun 

 shining brightly. Last week we did have 

 a snow storm, 25 inches on the level in 

 24 hours. Buffalo seems to have been 

 in the center of it, but our neighboring 

 city on the north, Lockport, had four 

 feet. So things are never so bad as they 

 might be. 



There is not much to say about busi- 

 ness. Flowers have been coming in in 

 much better supply and Commissioner 

 and Commission Man Kasting says they 

 are pretty well cleaned up. Violets 

 have taken a drop and plenty to be had. 

 Good Brides and Maids none too plenti- 

 ful and he that wants the best must still 

 pay Sir Thomas Lipton or Sir Thomas 

 Lawson prices. American Beauty is 

 scarce and high in price. This is usual 

 at this time of year, and the best of 

 growers seem to always be off crop from 

 the holidays on for two months. Some 

 fine local grown tulips are now cut and 

 Romans, Paper White and valley are 

 plentiful. Carnations are in much great- 

 er supply and they have to be perfect 

 flowers and a good size to command a 

 paying price. 



A Visit to Christenson. 



I paid a very short visit to Mr. C. F. 

 Christenson on Xorth Main street last 

 Sunday (between services). lie has three 

 houses of carnations looking about as 

 thrifty and productive as I ever saw 

 this useful and popular flower. Christ 

 is no hand to try too many new varieties 

 at once, but the standard varieties he 

 grows to perfection. White Cloud, 

 Crane, Bradt, Joost and Lawson are 

 done to perfection. He thinks much of 

 Estelle and his beds of Marquis are sim- 

 ply wonderful. He would as soon think 

 of throwing away old Daybreak and its 

 sports as he would White Cloud, and 

 the old wonder grown as he has it is in- 

 dispensable. His mignonette, lilies, and 

 all his stock is in the usual neat and 

 excellent condition that only a thorough 

 gardener can have it. 



I am not out of town quite as much 

 as my sparkling friend, Mr. Andy Ad- 

 ams, intimates in a contemporary, but I 

 do miss a good many visitors, and the 

 only one we have interriewed of late was 

 Mr. August Eingier, of Chicago, on his 

 return trip. He looks fat and rugged, 

 in fact he resembles an Abyssinian lion 

 reared on his hind legs. 



About Babies. 



I regret exceedingly that I neg- 

 lected to mention the advent of 

 an important accession to our pop- 

 ulation. There are lots of baoies 

 born. It has occurred in our family fre- 

 quently, and a repetition of the perform- 

 ance is received as complacently as a 

 change of seasons or partial eclipse of 

 the moon, but occasionally an infant ar- 

 rives worthv of more than ordinarv no- 



tice. If it's the first net profit or asset 

 of an amicable co-partnership, then it 

 overshadows all other worldly considera- 

 tions, and is really the only thing in the 

 world worth possessing. The sun was 

 made to revolve around its resting place. 

 It's the only one. All other babies are 

 commonplace. There are lots of them, 

 but what do they amount to? Ours is 

 the only one "what ever was." This is 

 just as it should be, and more than that 

 as it must be for without the self-deny- 

 ing, pure, unselfish love of your off- 

 spring the species would have been ex- 

 tinct ages ago; in fact, it never would 

 have existed on l^his little ball of re- 

 volving matter. 



And this leads me to remark that a 

 few weeks since Mr. W. F. Kasting was 

 the happy recipient of a beautiful gift 

 from his dutiful wife of a lovely boy. It 

 has been foolishly reported that the 

 child's first articulated holler referred 

 to Easter stock. Nothing of the kind. 

 Having been carefully recorded on a 

 graphophone and reproduced for my ben- 

 efit I clearly made out in the "Heine" 

 dialect, "Papa, keep out of politics." 

 And with uplifted hands the father re- 

 plied: "Baby Phil, I will." 



Lake View Rose Gardens, Jamestown. 



I did steal away Saturday night, ac- 

 companied by one of my 5 feet 11 inch 

 babies to the pretty city of Jamestown 

 to look again and learn at that great 

 place called the Lake View Rose Gardens; 

 proprietor, Mr. A. N. Broadhead; man- 

 ager, Mr. Charles Roney. I paid this 

 place a visit some eighteen months ago; 

 since then 200,000 feet of glass has been 

 added to it. It is scarcely five years 

 since a few houses were built, the begin- 

 ning of this immense place. There is 

 now 500,000 feet of glass, which covers 

 three-fourths of a square, leaving the 

 northwest section of this square still 

 unbuilt. Material is already bought to 

 fill this up, about another 200,000 feet, 

 and that will round off, or rather square 

 off, the block. 



It would take several columns to de- 

 scribe all that is to be seen here, for it 

 is not crops alone that are interesting, 

 but the structures and heating are of 

 great interest to any one who is not too 

 fossilized to observe and learn, and that's 

 a condition that sometimes affects young 

 as well as bald heads. 



As you enter the long shed from the 

 west, on your right are six or seven 

 houses of smilax as perfect as smilax 

 can be grown, with side benches of Adi- 

 antum cuneatum sending up their second 

 crop. Few things on the place are more 

 creditable than these benches of ferns. 

 South of these houses on a slightly high- 

 er level are a number of rose houses. 

 Meteor and some houses of Kaiserin rest- 

 ing. One house in this range is filled 

 with hydrangeas, very bushy plants in 

 7, 8 and 9-inch pots, and showing buds. 

 Then come several houses of violets 

 grown on benches. Many of the beds 

 looked new and where they were not a 

 success Mr. Roney said he had to pur- 

 chase the plants, and bought stock never 

 did well with him the first year. Two 

 or three houses of Asparagus plumosus, 

 some grown to strings and some kept 

 dwarf by cutting for sprays. 



Going east you enter the first house of 

 another style. In this range there must 

 be eight or nine houses, each 240x31. 

 The first contains most of the Easter 

 lily crop (.Japans). This year they pot- 



ted 11,000; nearly all are just showing 

 bud. Then there are what I call an ex- 

 tra fine lot of Crimson Rambler. They 

 are lifted plants, grown on the place, 

 and many of them in only 6-inch pots, 

 but bushy and already showing assur- 

 ance of good flowers. As Mr. Roney re- 

 marked, the days of large Crimson Ram- 

 blers are past, or else confined to three 

 or four of the largest cities, and we 

 don't need them. 



You now enter about two acres of car- 

 nations. These lofty houses run north 

 and south, the gutters are 6 feet high, 

 no partition of any kind between them, 

 and it is difficult to realize any houses 

 lighter or' more suitable for carnations. 

 One of these houses is almost filled with 

 Lawson, and a sight it is. It would be 

 difficult to say what variety is not grown 

 here. Of those sent out in recent years 

 Lawson stands pre-eminently above all 

 in ever}' good and desired quality. Mr. 

 Roney thinks Joost most profitable, is 

 pleased with Roosevelt and grows Crock- 

 er better than I have ever seen it, ex- 

 cept perhaps at Robert Craig & Sons (I 

 have never been at Lancaster, Pa., don't 

 j-ou know). Crocker at- Lake View is 

 grand. They have done with Crane, but 

 think highly of Estelle, and so do I. 

 It's the scarlet up to date, but this is 

 not an article on carnations. 



We will now walk north and enter the 

 last built range. I should say quite 

 another acre and a half. These houses 

 are some 28 or 30 feet wide, running 

 east and west. The gutter post, a 2-inch 

 pipe supporting the Garland iron gutter 

 with an improved attachment of their 

 own, is 6 feet 6 inches high. The south 

 bar is 16 feet and the north bar 20, but 

 in such large and lofty houses they ap- 

 pear at a casual glance equal span. 

 Again, no partition of any kind, and 

 there is nothing but the 2-inch well 

 painted iron pipe to obstruct the view of 

 this field of roses. Now some very wor- 

 thy expert growers may say, "I should 

 be afraid of currents of air in this big 

 space and hence mildew." I must now 

 say that in bench after bench of Maids, 

 Brides, Golden Gate, IJberty, Meteor 

 and American Beauty I never detected 

 a single speck of mildew. 



Although the crop of flowers was 

 slightly off at the time of our visit, I 

 saw proof of what had been cut, and 

 particularly was I impressed with the 

 health, vigor and color of Bride and 

 Bridesmaid, but they were all good. All 

 these roses are on the ground. It would 

 not be right to call them solid beds, be- 

 cause on the surface of the ground is 

 2 or 3 inches of broken stone, with the 

 compost, about 5 or 6 inches, on that. 

 This cannot be called solid beds, which 

 means that the roots of the plants not 

 only go through tl;e soil that is above 

 the level of the ground but can pene- 

 erate down into the deeper soil, and if 

 that has been ploughed and manured 

 the roots will find it and ramble and a 

 luxuriant growth will result, but will 

 the flowers have the substance, the firm- 

 ness and the finish of those produced on 

 a space where the roots have a limit to 

 their feeding ground? I think not, but 

 this is wandering from my subject. I 

 have only to say it is a wonderful and 

 pleasing sight to look over this modern 

 range of glass covered field. 



There is yet another block of houses, 

 seven or eight of them, some 250 feet 

 long SiM 20 feet wide. These they call 

 the old houses because they were built 

 in the last century, 1898. They are the 



