J 376 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



May 10. 1904. 



VIOLETS. 



More About the Specialist. 



Ed. Review: It would iijiiicar as if 

 your correspondeut was astonishe<t that 

 I should read liis article on "the dcoliiie 

 of the specialist." Now what is there 

 in this to astouish auyonc. I buy the 

 Review to read. I took the liberty to 

 take issue with the writer 's views on the 

 subiect, because I did uot hold the same 

 view as he did, and if I had not read 

 the Editor's note, that he would -be 

 pleased to have any reader present his 

 views on an.v sub.ieet treated in the Re- 

 view, I doubt if 1 would have had any- 

 thing to **=!.'''■ -^* 't "'^^ ■'- S^^'^ '"3' views 

 and meant just what I wrote. 



The writer asks mo to look up the holi- 

 day reports of last year and then go 

 back a number of years and make com- 

 parison. This is unnecessary, as the 

 holida.v price of an article does not de- 

 termine whether the season's average 



price was a fair thing or not. There are 

 but about six holidays in the violet sea- 

 son, and seven months of other days. I 

 have been in touch with the violet mar- 

 ket in my vicinity for seventeen years. 



I have seen the Hudson river and 

 Pliiladelphia product sell in the Boston 

 market and cut quite a figure there, but 

 of late years it is hard to give the former 

 away and none of the latter are to be 

 seen. The reason for this is simply that 

 better goods are to be got at home. 



The writer again brings up the atnios- 

 ]iheric conditions. Now if we could or- 

 der the weather to come just what we 

 wanted, would there be anything in vio- 

 let growing? William Sim. 



[The Review is always pleased to re- 

 ceive from its readers statements of their 

 experiences, whether they eoniirm or dif- 

 fer from views expressed in our columns. 

 But discussion should alwa.ys be dispas- 

 sionate, else it loses whollv its value. — 

 Ed.] 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



The Cemetery Vase. 



Decoration day. or, as it is in many 

 localities called. Memorial day, will soon 

 be here. In more favored climates the 

 bedding plant business may be almost 

 over by that busy day. In our lower 

 lake region it only just begins then. The 

 public know that too often we get a 

 slight frost in the last days of May, yet 

 there is one order that they almost all 

 want tilled: "I want my vase filled 

 and looking nice by Decoration day with- 

 out fail. ' ■ We live and learn by experi- 

 ence and correct mistakes. Time was 

 when we were too ready to persuade our 

 patrons uot to insist that their vases 

 should be filled by Decoration day, that 

 it was safer and better in every way to 

 leave it till June 1 or 2. This was a 

 great mistake, for while we may have 

 avoided a great pressure of business in 

 the last week of May, we were only put- 

 ting off what could have been done then 

 and crowding into a future week, not 

 onh- the work that the busy time brought 

 us, but that which was foolishly post- 

 poned. We are not singular and in our 

 latitude there is more bedding out done 

 during the first ten days of June than 

 there is before June 1. 



We have in years gone by many a 

 time heaved a sigh about 3 o'clock p. m. 

 on Decoration day. and exclaimed in ac- 

 cents more or less loud: "Well. I think 

 there is no promised order neglected, ' ' 

 feeling almost so much comforted that 

 .Tou couM give the boys and yourself a 

 quarter of a day holiday. Alas, it was 

 but a few hours' delusion, and the real 

 business and hard, long hours for the 

 next fifteen days were to begin on the 

 morrow. Everv business has its trials, 

 troubles and hard work, and few have 

 pleasanter associations than ours. Yet 

 ■when a fair month 's work for a dozen 

 men has to be crowded into one week it 

 is trying on the boss, if not the men. 

 The consciousness that you have not filled 

 the order for Mrs. Patience that you put 

 oflf from last Saturday till next 'Tuesday 



with her amiable acquiesence and liave 

 still been unable to keep your word is 

 most wearing and trying on any man who 

 wants to keep his promise, and incident- 

 ally keep his customers. 



The moral of all the above is, don 't 

 put off a single order for .Tune 2 which 

 can be safely filled on May 29. So now- 

 adays we fill all vase orders for Decora- 

 tion day that we possibly can. We en- 

 courage our customers to have them out 

 b.y that day and, although it is not the 

 most lucrative section of the business, 

 it is with many an important branch. 

 There is much detail and ' ' instruction ' ' 

 connected with it, and where you fill ,iOn 

 or 400 vases to get seventy-five per cent 

 off your hands by Decoration day is a 

 great blessing and will save you much 

 kicking, verbal grumbling and general 

 vexation and irritation. 



The Cemetery Rules. 



Now just a word alioiit the filling and 

 care of these vases. In cemeteries that 

 are owned by private corporations thev 

 may exclude any outside florist from 

 entering the cemetery with plants to fi'i 

 a vase or basket. These corporations 

 cannot prevent a lot-owner takinp' in his 

 own plants, purchased from whom he 

 chooses, and as the great majority of 

 cemeteries, both in the largest cities as 

 well as the small, and in the thousands 

 of pretty villages throughout the coun- 

 try, are owned by the community, or 

 what is about the same thing, every lot- 

 owner is a share-holder and the manage- 

 ment is in the hands of a board of triis-- 

 tees, there are no such exclusive and arbi- 

 trary rules. Thev are associations witli 

 every lot-owner interested in the well-or- 

 dered maintenance of this, to many, hal- 

 lowed ground. 



Without rules and strictly kept many 

 of these now beautiful grounds would be- 

 come abortive conglomerations of disor- 

 der and bad taste. Again, some associa- 

 tions allow the lot-owners to make flower 

 beds on their lots. This is good for the 



florist who has built up a business in 

 that line, yet I must agree with the 

 management that forbids the cutting up 

 of the restful green sward for any such 

 thing, or the planting of tree or shrub, 

 except by the superintendent of the cem- 

 etery, whose knowletlge, taste and judg- 

 ment must decide whether a shrub or 

 tree is needed for general effect, here, 

 there, or not at all, and after the su- 

 perintendent gets through with the jilant- 

 ing of a newly laid out section it is in- 

 variably the "not at all" that is the 

 proper' answer to any special request. 

 General effect is the great, or should be, 

 desire of all who are interested in the 

 peace and beauty of a cemetery. 

 Vases and Their Care. 

 The wooden rustic vase or ba.=ket has 

 steadily gone out of use, for several good 

 reasons. They quickly rot, they have to 

 be stored in the winter unless the ground 

 is perfectly level, there is diificulty in 

 setting them upright and it is not very 

 unusual to see them blown over. The wire 

 baskets set up on stout wire supports aro 

 open to several of the same objections 

 as the rustic baskets, but they are more 

 durable and when lined with green wood 

 moss the plants do very well in them, 

 vet they are awkward to handle. The 

 stone vases cut out of a solid piece of 

 granite are the handsomest vases. Wo 

 SCO the plants do well in them, providing 

 there is provision made for dra,inage, 

 which too often there is not. These 

 granite vases are, however, very costly 

 and only very few can or do afford to 

 own them, so we are left to what is now 

 ninety per cent of all the vases in use 

 in our cemeteides, viz., the cast iron of 

 many designs, and the great majority of 

 these are known as the reservoir vase. 



The merits or demerits of these sup- 

 posed self-watering vases we won't go 

 into. For myself I would rather have 

 a vase with good drainage beneath the 

 plants and faithfully watered. The res- 

 ervoir vase is essentiall.y on the sub- 

 watering principle, a help in very dry 

 weather, but death to the plants if the 

 reservoir is not occasionally emptied. 

 You don't expect to see high colors in 

 such grounds except on the flowers and 

 therefore most of the vases are painted 

 either pure white or a gray or stone 

 color. Occasionally we are a*ked to 

 paint a vase green and that seems all 

 right. We give an ordinary iron vase a 

 coat of paint for .50 cents. If much neg- 

 lected, and it needs two coats, then charge 

 $1. 'This charp-e may seem below "union 

 wages," but if you send two men out to 

 jiaint thirty vases in a day you will have 

 made a very fair jirofit. It does not re- 

 quire the art of a Rubens or Michael 

 .Angelo to paint a vase and you have ac- 

 commodated your customers. 



The iron vase has another advantage, 

 it is always made in sections. In the 

 faJl, when the plants are no longer 

 sisrhtl.y. we empty the bowl which held 

 the soil and return it to the vase in- 

 verted, which keeps the rain out of the 

 reservoir and gives it the appearance of 

 having some attention and resting for 

 the winter. This bowl is all we have to 

 bring to the greenhouse in the spring 

 when filling. I can remember the time 

 when most of our vases were filled in the 

 cemetery and wagon loads of plants and 

 soil and moss were carted out. It was a 

 poor way to do. costly, usually poorly 

 done, at' the sacrifice of many plants. 

 Bring all the vases home and yon will 

 fill them quicker, better and in every way 

 ' more satisfactorily. 



