The Weekly Florists' Review, 



871 



dahlias took their place. Besides, our 

 people never before saw dahlias in pro- 

 fusion of bloom at Easter. They wen' 

 a great success." 



TWO GOOD DAHLIAS. 



The accompanying illustrations 

 from photographs of blooms grown 

 E. S. Thompson. South Haven, M 

 and show two of the most useful t 

 in the cactus and decorative classes 



The cactus dahlia, John H. Roacl 

 a fine light yellow, of perfect fc 

 the incurved petals are long 

 pointed; it is a beautiful flower 

 always full to the center. 



Among decorative dahlias, (! 

 Duke Alexis has long maintained a 1 

 ing place. It is of largest size 

 distinct form, as the petals are rollei 

 so that the edges overlap each 01 

 The color is pure white, but there 

 distinct t.ingo of delicate pink. 



OLD TIMES AT HARTFORD. 



The following is a portion of an ad- 

 dress by 1.'. S. Mason, of r'nrmington, 

 Conn., at a recent meeting of the Hart- 

 ford Florists' Club. 



My coming to Hartford dates back to 

 about the' year 1850. At that time there 

 were only two commercial greenhouses 

 in Hartford. One, the City Gardens, so 

 called, was situated on the Wethersfield 

 lane, now avenue, about where Mrs. Colt 's 

 house now stands. The establishment 

 consisted of one greenhouse about 18x60 

 and was run by Ransom Whitmore and 

 William Poogue in company. The other 

 was situated on Asylum avenue and was 

 run by George Aflick. Mr. Whitmore 

 and Mr. Aflick have long since gone to 

 their long rest. Mr. Doogue, after leav- 

 ing the City Gardens hired out as gar- 

 dener to some one in Middletown, from 

 there he went to Boston to take care of 

 the Common and other public grounds 

 and I believe he is still doing good work 

 as superintendent of a part of the city's 

 property. At that time there were only 

 two private places that had a green- 

 house, and they were both situate. I on 

 Farmington avenue. One owned by 

 George Beach, the other by Henry Beach. 

 At George Beach 's the gardener was 

 James Boyce. Henry Beach's place fell 

 into the hands of F. B. Cooley and I 

 think the present superintendent of Cedar 

 Hill Cemetery, Robert Scrivener, grad- 

 uated from the Cooley place. 



The variety of stock grown for bed- 

 ding out, planting out, I should rather 

 say, for massing any one variety of 

 plants in beds was not practiced in 

 Hartford at that time, was very limited: 

 Verbenas, petunias, Phlox Drummondi, 

 ten-week stocks, some bulbs, mostly hya- 

 cinths, feverfew and some others, such 

 as heliotrope, etc. Verbenas took the 

 lead. The varieties of roses grown for 

 sale were few in number; you could 

 almost count them on your fingers. For 

 hardy roses there were Queen of the Prai- 

 ries, Baltimore Belle, Crimson Bausault, 

 Pink Bausault, Princess Adelaid, moss, 

 • eutifolia, Huron Hrevost and on • two 



Pure White Decorative Dahlia Grand Duke Alexis. 



Hartford and his extensive purchase of 

 property gave a strong impetus to all 

 matters pertaining to horticulture. Par- 

 ticularly were we interested in building, 

 heating and stocking greenhouses. Among 

 other houses he built one for stove plants, 

 others for greenhouse and temperate 

 plants, one for forcing pineapples, an- 

 other for strawberries, and so on. Among 

 other things, he enclosed a space with 

 glass with a high board fence, in which 

 were planted peach, cherry, plum, apri- 

 cot and other fruit, after the manner 

 of Rivers, the great English orchardist. 

 I have seen some splendid fruit in this 

 enclosure. The strawberries grown in 

 the house were well worth going a dis- 

 tance to see. And as to the pineapples, 

 a seven pound Queen was no unusual 

 thing. One thing that interested me 

 more than anything else in the Colt 

 establishment was a very beautiful Bank- 

 sia rose. It was grown in a cold house 

 carried up the rafters and was pruned 

 back much as you would a Black Ham- 

 burgh grape vine. To see that in full 

 bloom in the spring n;i> something to 

 be remembered. The strange part of it 

 to me »ns that it should flower so freely 

 with such severe pruning. The spurs 



and even the old \\ 1 was covered with 



its beautiful clusters of clear white flow- 

 ers. 1 think the constant pruning given 

 it to keep it within bounds musl bave 

 caused it to change its nature and adapt 

 itself to existing conditions, so to speak. 

 and so flower anvwav. as we all know 



that climbing roses rebel against severe 

 pruning. 



The first gardener at Colt's was 

 brought from England and he brought 

 English ideas, methods and material. The 

 heating apparatus was brought from 

 Engl I and consisted of a Weeks' up- 

 right tubular boiler for hot water, which 

 heated the whole range of houses, and 

 kept in good working order for several 

 years. He had a pit in which to plunge 

 'the tropical plants, using spent tanbark 

 as a material for plunging the pots in. 

 Of course he had to have peat and silver 

 sand for his azaleas, heaths and other 

 peat-loving subjects. Gardener No. 1 

 was succeeded by James Stebbins, and 

 he by Thos. Maltman. 



About the time the Colt greenhouses 

 were built, or rather a few years later, 

 the Nil es Brothers built places on Farm- 

 ington avenue. John Niles built quite 

 an extensive range of houses in connec- 

 tion with his place, and later Pliney Jew- 

 ell had unite a nice house in connection 

 with his place. They were both run 

 pretty much after the same fashion, a 

 few nit flowers for the house and ma- 

 terial for planting out. At the John 

 Niles place the most notable thing was 

 a white camellia planted in the ground 

 in one of the houses used as an entrance. 



The camellia was a sight worth see- 

 ing, being covered with thousands of 

 beautiful white blooms. Joe Moises was 

 gardener at the Xiles place and Georgu 

 Solly for Plinev Jewell 



