Dkcembek •,>. ISKT 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



warning required being to thin quickly 

 before damage is done. Close planting 

 jnay lie advocate<l even for small group- 

 ings, the protection and tilth being of 

 great benefit to the intended permanent 

 trees, beside the eflfect of mass is the 

 sooner attained. 



Much time and money has been wasted, 

 and much ilisappointment incurred, by 

 2:ilanting trees and shrubs in ground with- 

 out adequate preparation, and with little 

 subsequent care; how often in a hard 

 baked soil holes are dug scarcely large 

 enough to hold the roots, the trees are 

 jammed in and left to their fate; their bark, 



tender from the shade of close nursery 

 rows, exposed to the hot suns of summer 

 and the freezing and thawing of winter, 

 soon succumbs, and the trees at best lin- 

 ger out a short existence of stunted growth. 



Good soil, deep plowing and constant 

 cultivation are the essential conditions 

 required for success in \-oung tree planta- 

 tions. Cultivation should be continued for 

 at least two years after planting, or until 

 the branches shade the ground, when grass 

 may be sown or an undergrowth of 

 suitable kind may be planted. 



J. A. Pettigrevv. 



Sup't of Parks, Boston, Mass. 



CARNATION NOTES. 



Carnations ! Rfises ! But not to crowd 

 too hard on the well merited fame of the 

 yueen of flowers, I will say: Roses ! Car- 

 nations ! If the one claims royalty, the 

 other is divine. Queen and Priestess; two 

 powers that reign supreme. The Queen 

 of Autumn may overshadow the two in 

 her time but not wholly, her reign is 

 short, she comes with a dash and vanishes 

 as she appears. She needs a long rest, or 

 better, .say a ten months' retirement before 

 she is able again to resume her power; 

 and well may we grant it to her, for her 

 short reign is rather an incentive to 

 appreciate roses and carnations so much 

 belter again, thati to cause a depression 

 of the value of these two staple articles. 



It is interesting to observe the turn the 

 fall exhibitions take in their make-up, 

 and this has been especiallj* noticeable in 

 the ones just closed. Of cour.se the chrys- 

 anthemum is queen, but she has every 

 year more to content herself with other 

 celebrities, to divide the honors of the 

 exhibitions with other flowers, and of 

 these the two most prominent are again 

 roses and carnations. 



But to be specific, the time of our fall 

 exhibitions is mostdisadyantageous to the 

 carnation as a show flower. Although in 

 the market eyer\- day in the year, the 

 plants only housed a short time ago are not 

 up to their standard to produce flow'ers of 

 the same quality as a few weeks later. 

 But still the carnation is there and de- 

 mands her share of the honors. 



Tliis brings my mind to the often tried 

 experiment of indoor simnner culture. 

 Well content that it is u,seless for me to 

 try it again, I hear reports of success from 

 other localities where the summer heat is 

 not so intense, and where they enjoy 

 cooler nights than in our section of the 

 country. Where indoor culture through 

 summer is feasible the grower can cer- 

 tainly produce better flowers for the fall 

 exhibitions than otherwise; and if only 

 for the sake of making a better showing 

 such localities should feel encouraged in 



their efforts. Early successful planting 

 of strong plants from the field is another 

 advantage, and I believe such plantings 

 will also insure better crops for miilwinter 

 than an all summer indoor culture. 



We, like man_\- others, were very un- 

 fortunate in this respect. The continued 

 long drouth left our plants rather small 

 and the extreme hot weather at the same 

 time in the latt^er part of August and be- 

 ginning of September, prevented an early 

 transplanting. A disadvantage often 

 proves to be a benefit in another way. 

 The long drouth and hot, dry weather 

 proved to be an excellent purifier of para- 

 sitic diseases, for in all my experience I 

 never enjoyed more healthy plants than 

 at present. Spot is totally absent, bac- 

 teriosis nearly so; I can only notice once 

 in a while a few yellow spots, and these 

 appeared since we have had more cloudy 

 weather. Some new varieties that we re- 

 ceived infested with rust showed very 

 little when lifted, and we find it quite an 

 easy job to keep the disease in check by 

 picking the leaves wherever it shows its 

 tell tale signs, and I feel still more con- 

 vinced that this is the only remedv- for a 

 gradual eradication of this most tenacious 

 but otherwise less harmful disease than 

 others. 



I have this season made an experiment 

 in the preparation of my bench soil. I 

 observed the same mode and care in pre- 

 paring it, but made it only fairly rich. I 

 used only about one-third of the fertilizers 

 that I used before. My reason for doing so 

 is this: I noticed that plants freshly trans- 

 planted in very rich soil moved on very 

 slowly; it showed a plain case of overfeed- 

 ing. The plants in their weakened con- 

 dition are unable to assimilate or digest 

 the abundance of food crowded on to 

 them and besides take it up indiscrimin- 

 ately. The result is .sick plants that very 

 slowly overcome the check of transplant- 

 ing, and when yet under the influence of 

 hot weather a break down is certain. 



The results oi this experiment are very 

 gratifying indeed. The first plants housed 

 I could not take as a criterion, for they 



sweltered in the shaded house in a day 

 temperature of oyer ioo° and never 

 below So° at night, but they came 

 through the ordeal exceedingly well. The 

 most satisfactory results were shown later 

 when the weather turned cooler, for then 

 the plants fresh from the field moved on 

 as though they never had been trans- 

 planted. In a week's time the white roots 

 a]5peared on the surface clamoring for 

 food and this was supplied them in the 

 form of a mulch of well rotted manure 

 partly mixed with soil, and now we are 

 feeding with liquid manure regularly 

 once a week. As soon as the balance be- 

 tween leaves and roots, disturbed by the 

 lifting, is evened up again, the plant can 

 .stand liberal feeding, and the sooner this 

 condition is brought about, the more time 

 is gained; the plant is ready for work and 

 with judicious feeding more can be 

 accomplished than with crowding the fer- 

 tilizers in the soil in the first place. Water 

 is given whenever it is required, and 

 when we overdo this, bad results will fol- 

 low; why not .give the food in the same 

 way? 



At this time at our place the last clean- 

 ing of weeds and decayed leaves is fin- 

 ished, the plants are mulched, the sup- 

 ports are in place, and we only have to 

 follow up such routine work as ventilat- 

 ing, watering, feeding, disbudding, fumi- 

 gating, and the cutting of the flowers. 

 Of these I will write in mv- next. 



Fred Dorner. 



C ANNAS AT RTVERTON, N.J. 



The early part of the season was unfav- 

 orable to the development of this beauti- 

 ful class of plants, heavy cold rains being 

 the rule and it was comparatively late in 

 the season before the)' made any pro- 

 gress; how-ever after midsunnner and 

 along until Octotier the show was superb, 

 the difTerent varieties being planted in 

 long 400-foot rows across the field, pre- 

 senting a bewildering maze of color. 



The old favorites,"Madame Crozy, Al- 

 phonse Bouvier, Florence Vaughan and 

 Queen Charlotte, still hold their own 

 against all new comers, in their respect- 

 ive types, but new varieties of merit are 

 always welcome, keeping up the charm 

 of novelty, making a pleasant contrast to 

 the older varieties and affbrdin.g a cer- 

 tain pleasurable excitement in watching 

 their development, .\mongst the latter are 

 several which are well worthy of a place 

 in every collection, having been tested 

 for two seasons with the most gratifying 

 results. 



A great acquisition is Mile. Berat, a 

 variety with bright carmine pink flowers, 

 a very profuse bloomer, throwing its rich 

 compact spikes at just the proper distance 

 above the foliage, standing the hot sun 

 with perfect impunity and filling a long 

 felt want in this color, being the nearest 

 approach to a good pink, making a de- 

 sirable fifth to the standard varieties 

 mentioned above. 



Leon Pepin Lehalleur has a fine 

 rounded flower of a carmine red color, 

 good substance and is a very free 

 bloomer. 



Hortense Barbereau is a gem, flowers 

 fine cherry red with trusses of immense 

 size, rich heavy foliage, and very desirable 

 for massing. 



