1042 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Aruii. 



1004. 



beautiful plants of wistaria, but they 

 must have been larger and bftter pre- 

 pared plants than we imported. 



Unless you have the convenience of 

 a root house, or cold storage, or cool cel- 

 lar this has been an awful winter for 

 keeping such hardy plants as these till 

 it was time to force. The majority of 

 florists have only the cold frame, with 

 some protection, to keep these plants and 

 that is good enough in ordinary seasons, 

 but this year it went through a foot of 

 hemlock boughs, froze the plants into a 

 solid mass and three feet into the ground 

 below (more or less). 



We had but few metrosideros (bottle 

 brush) and a few were enough. That 

 very handsome plant, Acacia armata, does 

 not take as it deserves to. There were 

 some fine plants of it offered in the Main 

 slicel stores, but I am told the demand 

 for them was poor. 



The Hybrid Roses. 



And now I have reserved to the last the 

 plant that above all was in demand, that 

 sold on sight, that everybody wanted and 

 always will, viz., a well-flowered hybrid 

 perpetual rose. We charged 25 cents a 

 bud and flower for Magna Charta, 

 Baroness Eothschild, Ulrich Brunner and 

 others. Now, what is there better than 

 thatf And, I repeat, they will always 

 sell. You can wait 'till fall and then 

 buy some good home-grown stock for next 

 spring's forcing or you can buy some 

 one-year-old stock now and grow them 

 on your own place. I prefer the latter 

 plan. 



Plant them in the field as soon as the 

 ground is workable and cut down to with- 

 in a few inches of the ground; the lower 



tion because I had neither seen nor heard 

 of it. Easter was that year on March 

 25. On the first day of April I planted 

 a bench 6x100 with fine young 

 American Beauties from 4-ineh pote. 

 The soil had grown mums the previous 

 summer and lilies had stood on the soil 

 allwjiit.^r. b\it I lui:I a pici-p of tar paper 

 beneath each to keep the worms out and 

 prevent the soil from getting soggy. 

 After a few days' drying out it was m 

 good order and, with a liberal allowance 

 of boue flower and some good rotten 

 manure, in went the roses. They jumped 

 from the day they were planted and from 

 the middle of June to October 1 cut sev- 

 eral thousand flowe;s. 1 remember one 

 Sunday morning in July that the bench 

 was photographed at 5 a. in. and then 

 1 rut ItiO blooms. At $2 to $;! a dozen, 

 ri'tail, it was a most profitable house ; 

 I should say about 1000 per cent more 

 than a bench of mums. 



By the middle of Xovember I had them 

 slightly dried off and then the}' were 

 lifted and potted into 6-inch. When 

 lifting we cut them down to about 

 eighteen inches and did not let them get 

 dry and freeze (a big mistake if I 

 had). Early, or perhaps it was the mid- 

 dle of Januaiy, they were brought into 

 a house at about 45 and cut down to six 

 and eight inches. At Easter, and many 

 before Easter, they were sold for $2.50 

 and $3 apiece. Many of them had fifteen 

 perfect flowers and buds ; every break 

 was a (lower with a stem a foot to eigh- 

 teen inches long. I could do it again, 

 but strange to say it has never been re- 

 peated here. The earliness of planting 

 was an advantage and they were grand 

 little plants to start with, but I would 



One Side of the Wonderful Store of Siebrecht & Son, New York. 



bet a new hat I could repeat it if I had 

 the care of them. That was doing well, 

 and we need to have some things do well, 

 for all our ventures are not profitable. 

 Many do not think American Beauty is 

 a good pot rose; treated as above it's the 

 best of all. It will give more perfect 

 flowers than any hybriel I have ever seen. 

 Wrr.T.TAM Scott. 



THE EASTER TRADE. 



There is a remarkable uniformity in 

 till' reports on Easter business this year. 

 P'roni every section of the country conies 

 word of sales aggregating more than ever 

 in the history of the trade. The exact 

 e-\tent of the increase is difficult to es- 

 timate, but it is a substantial gain, 

 it is noteworthy, however, that in nearly 

 every locality the increase in retail busi- 

 ness was principally due to larger sales 

 of flowering plants. In only an occa- 

 sional locality outside the wholesale cen- 

 ters was there any considerable increase 

 in the sales of cut flowers, although a 

 \ery large business was eveiywhere done 

 in this department. In all but the older 

 and most wealthy communities it was 

 found that the high-priced plants were 

 somewhat slow sale and in many cases 

 retailers had more or less expensive stock 

 left on hand. The medium-priced plants 

 were the best sellers, lilies and azaleas 

 being most popular as of yore. There 

 was a big sale for the cheap bulbous 

 stock in pans, but in the larger cities, 

 where expenses of conducting the business 

 are high, the leading retailers are not 

 willing to handle plants at much less 

 than $1 each. 



Next to the lily, whirh i- the flower of 

 the day, the carnation na- the popular 

 item. It is fair to suppose that never in 

 a single week were so many carnations 

 marketed as during this Easter week and 

 seldom, even at Christmas, has the av- 

 erage price been so good. Roses sold 

 well and violets were popular in many 

 communities where Sunday was a warm 

 and pleasant day, but bulbous stock in 

 general was slow sale. 



It is noteworthy that in nearly eveiy 

 section of the country there were ade- 

 quate supplies of all kinds of stock. 

 True, here and there tli'vc was a short- 

 age in some particular item, or perhaps 

 along the whole list, but in the whole- 

 iiile centers there was plenty of stock. 

 nf the very best of quality, and at reason- 

 able prices. It is a pleasant reflecticn 

 that there was less pickling in evidence- 

 than ever before and that this disastrous 

 practice seems to be on the decline. 



you cut them the stronger will be the 

 iDreaks. If these were planted for a per- 

 manent rose bed, just keeping them hoed 

 clean of weeds might do; but for this 

 purpose, forcing, you want to be sure of 

 a strong growth. So in a dry spell they 

 should be soaked and when hot weather 

 sets in they should be mulched. Do every- 

 thing to induce a strong, vigorous growth 

 and when Kovember 10 comes the wood 

 will be ripe; then lift and pot. Tens 

 of thousands of roses were frozen up 

 last fall that should have been lifted. 

 There is an advantage in having them 

 on your own place, as there need be no 

 drying out between lifting and potting. 



A Success With Beauties. 



Xow and then the dullest of us get a 

 little inspiration and I am going to con- 

 elude with relating something I did 

 about nine years ago, I call it inspira- 



A Corner of the Store of D. Clarke's Sons, New York, at Easter. 



