June 26, 1902 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



133 



Spiraea Van Houttei. 



a pest, and, so far as 1 know, there 

 are no records of injury by it. I hope 

 your correspondent will send additional 

 specimens of this green species and any 

 observations wliich he may be able to 

 make concerning its habits. This latter 

 species occurs in Colorado, New Mexico 

 and Arizona, and is more abundant still 

 in Mexico. 



As to remedies, both species should 

 yield to the same treatment, hand-picking 

 and jarring the beetles from infested 

 plants being all that is ordinarily neces- 

 sary. They can also be sprayed with 

 Paris green at the rate of 1 pound to 

 150 gallons of water, which will effectu- 

 ally destroy them. This last remedy, 

 however, is not always applicable to rose 

 bushes. 



F. H. Chittenden, 



Washington. Assistant Entomologist. 



SPIRAEA VAN HOUTTE). 



The accompanying engraving is from 

 a photograph of a specimen in full bloom 

 on the grounds of Mr. Fritz Bahr, the 

 florist, Highland Park, 111. Referring to 

 it I\[r. Barr writes: 



' ' Of all the spiraeas, this one is the 

 grandest, it being at home in all its 

 beauty either as a single specimen, in 

 groups or as a hedge. The graceful 

 habit of the plant makes it an ornament 

 even when out of bloom. This shrub 

 should be pruned and put in shape di- 

 rectly after the blooming season." 



CARNATION NOTES. 



A question every florist asks himself 

 over and over, and especially just at this 

 time, when the benches need repairing 

 or renewing is, "what kind of benches 

 or Ijeds can we put in our houses that 



are the most serviceable and beneficial 

 to our plants?" 



This is a great question and many 

 things must be taken into consideration 

 in solving it. If we wanted merely the 

 cheapest, that would be easy to decide, 

 but we want also whatever kind will pro- 

 duce the finest crops. There are a great 

 many growers who would not think of 

 growing a rose or a carnation on any- 

 thing but a raised bench, while there 

 are other places where every rose plant 

 is set right into the ground after work- 

 ing it up good a foot or more deep. 

 Each grows good stock and when you go 

 through their houses you are inclined to 

 say that theirs is the ideal way. If 

 the man who plants in the ground can 

 cut as good a crop for the whole season 

 as the man with benches can we are 

 sure that he makes more profit, but can 

 he do it? That is the question we must 

 decide for ourselves. 



After several years of testing various 

 kinds of benches and beds and noting the 

 construction of same on other places we 

 have come to the conclusion that a bed 

 made as follows is about as durable and 

 good as any we have seen : Set posts 

 in the ground 4 feet apart and deep 

 enough to insure soUdity, leaving 18 

 inches above ground. Board up on in- 

 side vnth plank, or what is best of all, 

 cypress boards. Last season we pro- 

 cured a lot of peck cypress lum- 

 ber in 6 to 12-inch widths and they 

 are just the thing. Fill up 12 inches of 

 this box with cinders and the balance 

 with good soil such as you would use on 

 benches. We use the cinders or ashes 

 from our boilers and find them per- 

 fectly satisfactory. These beds are as 

 well drained as a raised bench during 

 the winter and when spring comes with 



its warm draughts the}' do not dry out 

 so rapidly and the roots keep cooler, 

 thus enabling the plants to thrive until 

 late in the summer. Especially is this 

 good for White Cloud and all the reds, 

 which soon succumb to the heat in the 

 early summer. 



Perhaps a little more care is required 

 in watering during midwinter as they 

 do not dry out as quickly as raised 

 benches, but only a careless waterer will 

 get them into a soggy condition, one who 

 would do the same thing with a bench. 

 The cost of such a bed is only a frac- 

 tion of the cost of a raised bench and 

 it will outlast it 3 to 1 at least. Last 

 winter we cut much finer blooms and 

 more blooms from a batch of White 

 Cloud on such a bed than we did from a 

 batch on a raised bench just across the 

 path. Both planted at the same time 

 and from the same batch in the field. 



Another favorite bench with some 

 growers is to lay about 4-inch tile side 

 by side on the ground crosswise of the 

 bench and fill the soil on tuese, but like 

 the raised benches they dry out very 

 rapidly during warm weather. They are 

 more durable than benches and are 

 therefore more desirable and can be 

 raised up as high as you want them by 

 putting legs and stringers under them. 

 A raised bench is of course more pleas- 

 ant to work on as you can stand up 

 straight and work with your arms, while 

 these low beds require a little bending 

 of the back and at the knee, both of 

 which are very distasteful to our older 

 friends, but that is one of the last things 

 we consider and if we are convinced 

 that one way is better than another, then 

 that is the way it is done regardless of 

 backs or legs, etc. Try one of these low 

 semi-solid beds and see if you do not 

 agree with me. See that the cinders are 

 moist when you fill in the soil else you 

 will have trouble until they get soaked. 

 A. F. J. Baue. 



GLASS. 



According to reports in the daily press 

 an inventor has perfected a machine that 

 will make window glass and do away with 

 the glass blower in this Une of manufac- 

 ture. If the machine is a practical suc- 

 cess and produces window glass of equal 

 quality with that which has been blown, 

 the price of glass will surely be consider- 

 ably reduced. 



Such a machine would break what is 

 probably the most remarkable labor 

 monopoly the world has ever seen. Glass 

 blowing is peculiarly skilled work and 

 the Glass blowers organization was strong 

 enough to be able to dictate the number 

 of apprentices to be admitted to the vari- 

 ous factories. The art was generally 

 transmitted only by father to son or 

 other near relative. The organization 

 was international in scope and it was 

 useless to attempt to bring European 

 glass blowers here. The men practically 

 dictated the amount of glass that should 

 be manufactured and the owner of a fac- 

 tory was helpless in their hands. 



These conditions naturally greatly 

 stimulated inventors in their search for 

 a method of manufacture that would 

 eliminate the blowers from the situa- 

 tion. If the machine now announced is 

 as successful as claimed "glass shingles" 

 may in time be less than half as costly 

 as at present. 



The present method of making win- 

 dow glass is briefly as follows: The 



