986 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



JiARLH 31, 19U1. 



give you the blossom for nest winter. 

 If you come into possession of some 

 azaleas ihat luive been dried out or 

 abused and have lost their young growth, 

 then take tlie shears and cut them back 

 hard; never mind if you leave scarcely 

 a leaf on them, Put them into a house 

 at about 55 degrees at night and once or 

 twice a day syringe them and they wiU 

 surprise you with the number of breaks 

 they will make. I don't want to go into 

 the summer treatment of azaleas just 

 now, so will only say keep them growing 

 in a most genial heat till early June, 

 when they should be plunged outside in 

 the broad sun. 



Some Easter Novelties. 



We tried several things for Easter 

 this year that we thought would be a 

 novelty in our city and hence profitable. 

 Our experience is already sufficiently ad- 

 vanced to learn that we are out of dollars 

 in cash and labor and space on our 

 benches. Cydonia japoniea and Prunus 

 triloba, and I may as well add Wistaria 

 sinensis, are very beautiful in the imagi- 

 nation when well flowered in a 7 or 8-inch 

 pot, but the imagination and anticipa- 

 tion, like many earthly joys, are about all 

 there is of it. Perhaps in communities 

 where wealth is a burden and when well 

 done, these pretty flowering shrubs may 

 be appreciated, but they are very diffi- 

 cult to do well and there are so many 

 other pretty plants and flowers that we 

 can dispense with them. An Ulrich 

 Brunner rose in a 6-inch pot, with a 

 dozen blooms, or a Lawson carnation in 

 a 6-inch pot, with twenty flowers and 

 buds, will outsell them any day. 



Don't Overlook the Failures. 



Although I have been giving you my 

 views to the very best of my knowledge 

 on how to take care of the plants wortli 



crops. If you had a bench 4x100 of 

 azaleas and every one sold, that would 

 seem good, but if in the same house you 

 had a bench the same size of blind hydran- 

 geas and none sold, it would take all the 

 profit off the azaleas and you may as 

 well not have a greenhouse at all. Some 

 men dislike to discard any old pets. In 

 the terribly keen competition of today 

 you can 't afford to have hobbies or fa- 

 vorites unless they bring a revenue, and 

 rather than waste time, labor and costly 

 space with doubtful old plants, pitch them 

 out and grow something you know you 

 are master of. Every time you have a 

 square foot of bench room that returns 

 you nothing you have wiped out the 

 profits of another foot that you are very 

 proud of. 



Bedding Flints. 



The much needed space is now at hand 

 and those engaged in the bedding plant 

 business will have plenty to do from now 

 on. With us the most important thing 

 will be to get our zonale geraniums 

 shifted from 3 to 4-inch pots. Don 't use 

 a light, rich soil or they will go to leaf. 

 Let the soil be a heavy loam, pot firmly 

 and if you have no well decayed manure 

 to add to the soil (about a fifth) then 

 use a 5-inch pot of bone flour to a bushel 

 of soil, but pot firmly. * 



Poinsettias. 



It 's about time' to bring up the dormant 

 poinsettias that have been resting beneath 

 the bench. Shake off all the old soil and 

 repot in any size that will hold the roots. 

 Cut back to sound, fresh wood and start 

 growing and in five or six weeks you will 

 get cuttings. 



Diblia f^uttings. 



Mr. Editor, your Easter Number will 

 be acknowledged by all fair minded per- 

 sons as the greatest issue of a floricul- 



John Burton's Second Prize Vase of Beauties at Philadelphia. 



growing for another year, it is up to each 

 one individually to think for himself how 

 best he can utilize the space he has under 

 glass and has to pay for coal to heat. 

 The plantsman who makes money is the 

 one who grows his plants the nearest to 

 perfection and sells out clean on all his 



tural journal that has ever happened up 

 to date, in this broad land, or any other 

 land. The article by Mr. Peacock on 

 "The Propagation of the Dahlia" is 

 only one of the many good things. Just 

 as Mr. Peacock gets down to that fine 

 point and tells you to take the cutting 



when it has "developed three pairs of 



leaves, ' ' he does not say whether it should 

 be taken off the tuber with a so-called 

 "heel" or not. And he does not say 

 whether or not the cutting, if it is minus 

 the heel, should be cut at or just below a 

 joint. Immaterial as it is to cut most 

 soft-wooded cuttings at a joint, I have 

 always been led to suppose that unless a 

 dahlia cutting was cut at the joint it 

 would make roots but never form tubers. 

 Is that right or is it a fallacy, Mr. Pea- 

 cock? William Scott. 



SPECIAL AWARDS AT ROSE SHOW. 



The following are the special awards 

 at the exhibition of the American Rose 

 Society and Pennsylvania Horticultural 

 Society at Philadelphia last week. 



Special to John ilcCleary, gardener to Wui. 

 ■\Veipbtman, Germantowu, for six plauts Primula 

 obconica graudifiora. 



Special to Win. Kleinheinz, gardener to P. A. 

 B. Widener, Ogontz, Pa., for six plants Primula 

 obconica grandiflora. 



Special to FYauk Ibbotson, gardener to 3. 

 Vauglian Merrick, Wissahickoa, for six plants 

 Primula obconicft grandiflora. 



Special to Jos. McGregor, gardener to IDdgar 

 T. Scott. Lansdowne, Pa., for collection of 

 bulbous plants. 



Silver medal to H. A. Dreer, Philadelphia, for 

 collection of foliage plants. 



Silver medal to Jos. Hurley, gardener to 

 James W. Paul, Jr., Radnor, Pa., for pair of 

 large kentlas. 



Certificate of merit to Frank Ibbotson for six 

 plants cyclamen. 



Certificate of merit to Lonis A. Dupuy, White- 

 stone, L. I., for Hydrangea Horteosis rosea; a 

 decided acquisition. 



Special mention to Louis A. Ihipuy, for ericas. 



Special mention to James Bell, gardener to 

 the Misses Vanuxem, Chestnut Hill, for Chrys- 

 anthemum segetum., 



Silver medal to J. Breltmeyer's Sons, Detroit, 

 Mich., for new rose, La Detroit. 



S. A. F. silver medal to John Scott, Brooklyn, 

 N. Y., for new fern, Nephrolepis Scottii. 



ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY. 



In conferring the presidency upon Alex- 

 niider Montgomery, of Natick, Mass., the 

 members of the American Rose Society 

 in annual session at Philadelphia last 

 week did credit to themselves and their 

 ori;anization, for their choice is one who 

 has labored long for the rose, and ac- 

 inniplished much, a man of the trade 

 than whom there are few indeed who have 

 ( outributed more largely to the advance- 

 ment of commercial rose growing in 

 America. 



Like so many of our best men, Mr. 

 Mnntgomery is a native of the land of 

 the heathci", born in 1848, at Port Will- 

 iam in the south of Scotland. The son 

 of a gardener, he served an apprentice- 

 ship at the trade on the estate of the 

 Earl of Galloway, later becoming garden- 

 er at Dysart House, the seat of the Earl 

 of Roslyn. Until he was 24 he spent his 

 time on various private places in Eng- 

 land, arriving at Boston in 1872. Herr 

 he worked at gardening on several 

 estates, notably that of Wm. Gray, whom 

 he brought into the front rank of ex- 

 hibitors at the Boston shows. It was in 

 18S0 that he joined forces with E. M. 

 \Voo<l. at the Waban Rose Conservator- 

 ies, Natick, then a small place, but since 

 grown to be one of the largest and most 

 famous rose growing establishments in 

 the country. Just prior to Mr. Wood's 

 ilcath the business was placed on a cor- 

 |iorate footing, the present official head- 

 lieing Robert S. Minot, president; George 

 Burroughs, treasurer, and Mr. Montgom- 

 i-ry, general superintendent. 



^Vllen Mr. Montgomery first became 

 identified with commercial rose growins 

 the long-stemmed rose as now produced 

 in such quantities was unknown in th" 

 i-ut flower markets. Marechal Niel and 

 (icncral Jacqueminot were the principal 



