Decembek 3, 1903. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



53 





«.♦ 



New Range of Mueller Bros., St. Joseph, Mo. 



family of serides, the Lawrencianum is 

 easily the favorite. The first plant of 

 this variety that was sent to England, it 

 is said, was sold to Sir Trevor Lawrence 

 for $1,175. 



Of Dendrobium superbiens an unusu- 

 ally fine specimen was secured by Dr. 

 Niederlein. Fine specimens of Phaleenop- 

 sis amabilis and many other good sorts 

 are in the collection, which, on the whole, 

 is a wonderful demonstration of the 

 richness of the Philippines in treasures 

 for the horticultural collector. 



Vegetable Forcing. 



jSTORwooD Station, Pa.— D. W. Grouse 

 has a fine crop of tomatoes just coming 

 on. 



Elwood, Ind. — S. W. Blubaugh has 

 built a greenhouse, 50x86, for forcing 

 vegetables for local market. 



Chicago, Dec. 1. — Cucumbers, gen- 

 eral run, 90 cents to $1 per doz.; fancy, 

 $1.25 to $1.40. Lettuce, leaf, 20 to 30 

 cents ease. Mushrooms, 35 to 50 cents 

 pound. Radishes, $1 to $1.25 per 100 

 bunches. 



MUSHROOMS. 



This ought to be one of the best pay- 

 ing crops, providing they are properly 

 handled and a first-class article is pro- 

 duced. • We often hear complaints that 

 certain products won't sell, but when we 

 go to the root of the matter, nine times 

 out of ten the fault is with the grower, 

 who is trying to foist a second or third- 

 class article on a first-class market, and 

 I am satisfied that a great deal of com- 

 plaint about mushrooms not selling is 

 due to just such conditions. It is hardly 

 to be expected that a local market can 

 always be found for mushrooms, which 

 may be classed as a rather high grade 

 vegetable, but any one within reach of a 

 town or city with a good middle class or 

 high class population ought to be able 

 to make this a paying crop. 



I have often been asked : ' ' Can mush- 

 rooms be forced successfully exposed to 

 light?" And I invariably reply that 

 they can. The yield will be just as 

 heavy as if grown in the dark, but grown 

 under such exposure, although they are 



just as good, they would hardly sell on 

 ;\uy market on account of their dark 

 brown color, where those grown in the 

 dark are white and clean looking in com- 

 parison. A mushroom house with reg- 

 ular benches and provision made for 

 maintaining a temperature of from 55 

 to 60 degrees is undoubtedly the best, 

 as it is easier to maintain the proper 

 atmospheric conditions, but there is no 

 reason why good mushrooms cannot be 

 grown under greenhouse benches, if not 

 too close to the hot water pipes, the dry- 

 ing infiuenee of which would be detri- 

 mental to the crop. If the bed can be 

 made under the center bench of a house 

 where the pipes are under the side 

 benches only, and the proper tem- 

 perature can be maintained, there should 

 be no trouble in producing a good crop 

 of mushrooms. 



The old custom of using all fresh 

 manure and keeping it turned for eight 

 or nine days, until the heat was pretty 

 well worked out of it, is very seldom 

 practiced now, all good growers recog- 

 nizing the fact that by this method a 

 large percentage of the ammonia must 

 escape and that this ammonia is one of 

 the principal ingredients that ought to 

 be retained. The manure should be pro- 

 cured as fresh and free from straw as 

 possible and mixed w-hen received, with 

 soil and old rotted manure. We have had 

 \er\ satisfactory results with a mixture 

 of one-half fresh manure and the other 

 half well rotted manure and soil, rather 

 more manure than soil being allowed. 

 The whole is turned over twice to thor- 

 oughly mix, and the bed made up without 

 further delay. Opinions differ a good 

 deal regarding the depth of the bed. 

 Some make them as shallow as eight 

 inches, while others make them as deep 

 as fifteen inches. A deep bed is less 

 liable to dry out and will continue to 

 bear longer, but it is doubtful if the 

 extra yield will pay for the extra ma- 

 terial necessary to make a fifteen-inch 

 bed. I think a depth of twelve inches 

 is, all things considered, about best. 

 W. S. Crotdon. 



NEW GLASS IN MISSOURL 



Mueller Brothers, of St. Joseph, Mo., 

 have for some years been engaged in 

 growing vegetables with no better facili- 

 ties than are afforded by hot-beds, but 

 last year they put up a fine range of four 

 greenhouses, intending to force vege- 



tables for a season or two and work into 

 cut flowers. They built on the Dietsch 

 plan, the houses being 100 feet long by 

 fourteen feet nine inches wide. There 

 is continuous ventilation and the houses 

 are high and airy, the gutters resting 

 on iron posts seven feet six inches in the 

 clear. Each house has two benches five 

 feet six inches wide and two walk? 

 twenty-one inches wide. The accompany- 

 ing illustrations give an idea of the char- 

 acter of the plant. 



WORLD'S FAIR LAWNS. 



The World's Fair lawns, in the sixty- 

 nine acres comprising the agricultural 

 section, are exhibits, and they have been 

 as carefully planned as any of the 

 other show spots in the outdoor section. 

 Joseph H. Hadkinson, superintendent of 

 outdoor planting, appreciates the value 

 of the lawn in giving an artistic finish 

 to his work, and the lawns, all of which 

 were planted under his personal direc- 

 tion, wUl be admired by millions of vis- 

 itors during the fair. 



All along the east side of the great 

 Palace of Agriculture a few months ago 

 was a mass of yellow, sticky clay. A 

 ravine, seventeen feet deep, was filled 

 with clay brought from the top of a 

 neighboring hill. This was smoothed, 

 plowed and harrowed and a top dressing 

 of good soil, nearly a foot thick, was 

 spread over the clay. This was worked, 

 pulverized and prepared for the seed. 



The seed selected was blue grass and 

 rye grass, mixed in equal parts. The 

 rye grass was first in evidence, but it 

 has done the work that was required of 

 it and has passed away. The rye grass 

 comes up in six or seven days, and is a 

 nurse crop for the blue grass. It grows 

 taller and shields the blue grass from 

 the sun. As it is not permitted to go 

 to seed, it dies out and leaves the blue 

 grass alone on the field. One could tell 

 on an October morning in St. Louis why 

 it is called "blue grass." 



After getting the ground into proper 

 trim the seed was sown, broadcast by 

 hand, one pound to each 100 square 

 feet. The seed was covered with what 

 Jlr. Hadkinson calls a "choppy" mo- 

 tion. A gardener goes over the lawn 

 with a rake, and instead of raking and 

 rubbing the seed in, he swings it slight- 

 ly and allows the teeth to enter the soil 

 about an inch. When the rake is lifted 

 the soil is turned under for about half 



