December 11, 1902. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



93 



New Yellow Rose Franz Deegen, Grown by Ernst Asmus, West Hoboken, N. J. 



can not afford to throw in. You can 

 alwajys charge that in tlie smu total 

 of the sale, and more than the cost of it. 

 Bouquet green or ground pine seem 

 to be going out of fashion and are not 

 mvieh used for private decorations. Still 

 you should make up some youi-self, for 

 it is much better than you can buy. 

 jMake it in ten-yard lengths on coarse 

 string, dyed a deep green. Twenty-five 

 cents' worth of the dfj-e will color 400 

 yards, and then you won't sec the naked 

 spots, if any. The pine 'wi-eaths are 

 also in little demand, and everybody 

 wants holly and I never knew us to have 

 enough. Jlake all you can and as early 

 as you can, for all hands arc too busy 

 the last feiw days. There are all kinds 

 of holly \\Teatlis made, some with holly 

 only on one side and gi'een on the other, 

 sonie witli red immortelles added to the 

 holly. But the wircath that sells best 

 is a full wreath of holly on all -sides, 

 and be prepare<l with plenty of cheap 

 red ribbon to tie on a handsome' lx)w- 

 ■when ordered. WIe are asked for 

 wreaths on a 12-inch and lo-ineh wire, 

 and a few 18-inch. 



The handsomest and cleanest material 

 for garlands or roping is the Allegheny 

 Laurel ikalmia). It is quickly made 

 into roping and looks rich iii decora- 

 tions. Make it yourself if you can, for 



, it gets sadly ci-ushed when shipped. 



. The keeping or storing of these Christ- 

 mas greens is often a question, for it 



takes lots of room. Holly should not 

 be frozen too stift'. \\'hen the wreaths 

 are made, beneath a greenhouse bench is 

 a good place to keep them, but don't 

 l>ile them up too high or they flatten 

 out. Ground pine will keep anywhere, 

 no matter how cold, if the light and air 

 is kept fr(»iu it. Tliis Christmas green 

 business is largely in the hands of huck- 

 sters and peddlers, but our good cus- 

 tomers depend on us and there is a good 

 profit in it. Williaji Scott. 



THE COLOR SCHEME IN CHRY- 

 SANTHEMUMS. 



BY PROF. .II.IHN F. rOWELL. 



[Reail before the Chrysanthemum Society of 

 America at the Chicago couvention.] 



When I received an invitation to pre- 

 pare a paper for this national body of 

 experts, gathered in convention to-day, 

 I must confess that I doubted my ability 

 to prepare anything that would be either 

 new or interesting on the subject dearest 

 to the heart of tjus society,, and the more 

 I looked into the extensive literature of 

 the chrysanthemum the stronger this 

 feeling became. 



To find some phase of the subject 

 which had not been thtlroughly threshed 

 out and winnowed and yet within the 

 limit of my time and knowledge seemed 

 an almost hopeless task, and only my 

 feeling of duty to your organization pre- 

 vented my declining the honor. 



The subject as announced briefly is 

 "The Color Scheme in Chrysanthemums," 

 and the investigations on which much 

 of what I have to say is based were car- 

 ried on by me over a. quarter of a centui'y 

 ago. I must beg of you not to regard 

 my remarks as a sermon or a lecture, 

 but merely as a rambling talk, on certain 

 theories, which may bring out further 

 discussion of benefit to all interested in 

 extending the color range in the queen 

 of autumn. 



My acquaintance with the chrysanthe- 

 mum dates back over forty years, and 

 my earliest recollection is of the clumpa 

 of somewhat pinky white and ratlier 

 striped purple blooms that stood in a 

 sheltered nook beneath the dining-room 

 windows of my boyhood's home. While 

 these blooms would hardly pass muster 

 to-day, yet I remember that we looked 

 forward to their blooming and valued 

 them the more because tliey braved the 

 cold November winds with their modest 

 show of color. 



Of the then choicer varieties, grown in 

 pots for indoor decoration, were a 

 bronzy yellow, a pure white and a bro\vn 

 red or maroon, all of which were small, 

 reflexed blooms of the Chinese type. As 

 above indicateil, all of these early forms 

 of the Chinese species were of rather 

 impure color. 



The wine-colored or magenta tints did 

 appear in many of these" but I do not 

 remember anything that could be called, 

 even by courtesy, pink among them. 

 With the Fortune introductions came 

 gradually pure yellows, fairly good pinks, 

 wine reds, waxy whites and nearly all 

 the other shades except led, scarlet and 

 blue, and notwithstanding many years 

 of cultivation since, the blue and the 

 scarlet have not been attained. 



Just why these colors have eluded us 

 it is hard to say. The long line of 

 heredity within historic times seems to 

 have been too weak in the proper pig- 

 ments to dominate the blooms and by 

 many the possibility of obtaining the 

 blue chrysanthemum is doubte<l. In 

 considering the possibility of reaching 

 this more or less desired result, it may 

 be well to recall what has been done 

 with other species before we proceed fur- 

 ther. It may encourage us. 



Tlie Chinese primro.se, introduced to 

 cultivation in England in the early part 

 of the last century, seems to have been 

 either white or of varying intensity of 

 purplish pink, yet in recent years the 

 colors have been much intensified and 

 varied and we now have good reds and a 

 pretty respectable blue. It is true that 

 the yellow is yet mainly confined to the 

 central portion of the flower and is very 

 slow to diffuse itself. 



The pansy may be mentioned as an- 

 other example. Here from the original 

 wild Viola tricolor, with its creamy white 

 petals faintly marked or stained with 

 purple, we now have good blues, yellows 

 and even red. with countless interme- 

 diate tints. The garden phloxes have 

 varied under cultivation from the origi- 

 nal rosy bloom to deep red. scarlet, lilac 

 and an approach to jellow, all since 

 1835. 



The old theory that blue and yellow 

 cannot occur in the same genus has long 

 been exploded, as Avitness viola, iris, 

 aquilegia. linum, delphinium and many 

 others. Still the fact remains that where 

 the species was originally blue, yellow 

 has been most difficult to attain, and 

 where yellow pure and simple was the 

 original color blue has never, to my 

 knowledge, been produced. 



