720 



The Weekly Florists^ Review, 



.Makcu 2(1, 1003. 



that were to be oecuiiied again bj- cai'- 

 nations in the fall. That day is past 

 and it is now well known by all carna- 

 tion growers that the end of July or 

 first week of August is late enough to 

 plant carnations. I don't want to drift 

 into an article on the divine flower, be- 

 cause we have friends both east and 

 west more capable than I, but I will 

 just drop this remark. Subscriber and 

 others who think the dates quoted for 

 planting too early, might say "Why, my 

 plant.s would not be large enough by the 

 end of Jul3'." Don't you think they 

 will grow just as fast indoors as out of 

 doors? And will the}- not lift when a 

 moderate size with limited root growth 

 better than when large plants with their 

 roots spead deep and wide in the soil? 



If you are growing onl}' carnations in 

 this house and give them proper care 

 they will be as profitable until the first 

 of July as anything you can grow, and 

 if thrown out by the fourth of July you 

 have but a short time to remove soil, 

 repair benches, perhaps paint interior 

 of house, get in fresh soil and replant. 

 Some of the finest benches of carnations 

 I have seen this winter were planted 

 from 3-inch pots about the 10th of last 

 May, never having been out of doors at 

 all. So it is of no use for me to talk 

 about varieties of asters or when to 

 sow. Should your carnations be utterly 

 useless after Easter, and you have some 

 Victoria asters that are at this writing 

 a good size — say almost as large as you 

 should have them for planting out in 

 May — then you could plant them on the 

 benches after Easter and get a crop of 

 flowers in July. Any sown now would 

 be too late. 



I can"t think of anything that would 

 be profitable during the short time that 

 your benches would be unoccupied be- 

 tween the throwing out of carnations 

 and the replanting, and even if it is bed- 

 ding plant* that yon now have on your 

 l)enches it would be middle of June be- 

 fore you got cleaned out and ready for 

 something else. 



WiLUAM Scott. 



CARNATION NOTES-WEST. 



Solid Beds and Raised Benches. 



I have had a number of inquiries come 

 to me direct in regard to solid beds and 

 raised benches and I will take this for 

 my subject this week. I can not give 

 you any records of blooms out nor tlie 

 percentage of firsts, seconds and thirds. 

 etc., but I will give you my opinion of 

 their merits or demerits formed after 

 having tried both on a large scale for 

 several seasons. 



The first and the most important ques- 

 tion is, can you raise as good or better 

 stock in solid beds as you can on raised 

 benches? To this I will say that you 

 can produce as high quality at all 

 times and at certain periods higher, if 

 you build your beds properly. The quan- 

 tity will be the same during the winter 

 months, but when warm weather sets in' 

 your solid beds will hold up in good 

 shape longer than the raised benches, 

 and this amounts to a good deal when 

 you are able to dispose of the blooms to 

 good advantage the year round. 



The main thing you must look out 

 for in a solid bed is a good drainage, so 

 there will be no danger of overwatering 

 in winter. To make sure of having good 

 drainage we fill in about a foot of "coal 

 cinders and on this we fill our planting 



soil, thus making the top of the bed 

 about 18 inches above the ground level. 



You can go a little farther than this 

 and lay a 3-inch tile in the cinders 

 across the bed about every foot or eigh- 

 teen inches and this will partly give you 

 what many growers claim you must have 

 b}- all means, namely, air jiassing freely 

 underneath the soil. I <lon't consider it 

 necessary, however. During the winter 

 it will help to dry the soil quicker, but 

 in the spring it will cause the soil to 

 dry out too quicklj'. 1 don't think it 

 will keep the soil an\' warmer as some 

 claim. In fact if it were not for the 

 fact that it makes so much more and 

 harder work taking care of the plants, 

 etc., I would just as soon make my beds 

 right on the ground if the soil were 

 sandy enough to pass the water off 

 ■freely. 



Tiast year we had a bateli of Whit« 

 Cloud on a solid bed and another right 

 across the aisle on a bench and the 

 former were of better quality and the 

 blooms more numerous all through the 

 season. On this same bed were one 

 thousand plants of Elnia, and the way 

 they bloomed all winter and way into 

 the summer was wonderful. This year 

 we have JMrs. Lawson on one of these 

 beds and we never had it so good before. 

 In the other varieties I can see very 

 little, if any, difference, except that they 

 hold up later into the summer. Some 

 varieties seem to lack a little in strength 

 of ste7n during mid-winter, but that 

 might be in the soil to some extent. Last 

 month when a party of about a dozen of 

 us were shown around F. 1!. Pierson's 

 places wc came across a bed of American 

 Beauty roses that was right down on 

 the natural ground. Nothing was done 

 except to put on and spade into the 

 ground a lilMTal supply of manure and 

 fertilizer and the young plants set in 

 the same as on a bench. They looked as 

 fine as any we saw and wc were assured 

 by our escort that they had done as well 

 as any of the bench jdants all winter 

 and that the stems seemed stronger and 

 heavier all along. 



There are many different ways that 

 you may build these solid beds and one 

 way may be bt^tter in one respect while 

 another way will be bettiu- in other re- 

 s])eets. If you want something perma- 

 nent build the sides of brick or cement, 

 but until you are sure that you will 

 like them I would advise you to use 

 wood in your construction. Set jour 

 posts about three feet apart, two feet 

 deep and eighteen inches above ground. 

 Nail your side boards on the inside of 

 these posts, thus not only will you keep 

 the soil aw-ay from the posts, but all 

 the weight will be on the posts and 

 there will Ik- no danger of tlie boards 

 pulling loose from the posts, etc. Fill in 

 one foot of cinders (you can use those 

 from your own boilers) and five inches 

 of good soil, same as yoii always used 

 on the benches. You might spread a 

 thin layer of manure on the cinders be- 

 fore putting on the soil same as you do 

 on your benches. A bed made in this 

 way will outlast at least three benches 

 and the first cost will be considerably 

 less than a raised bench. 



I would not advise yo\i to put in more 

 than five inches of soil as I think it is 

 best to change it each season the same 

 as you do on benches. 'We replanted a 

 bed last fall without changing the soil 

 and the plants did very nicely, but not 

 so well, I think, as they would have done 

 in new soil, I do know, however, that 

 the soil does not become so exhausted in 



these beds as it does on raised benches 

 and much less feeding is necessary, and 

 when you add to that the fact that they 

 do not dry out so often you have the 

 reason why the quality keeps up later 

 into the summer. 



You will also find that these beds will 

 grow tliose varieties that are kept inside 

 all summer much better, because in the 

 hot summer months they will dry out 

 less and the roots will be cooler right 

 along. If you have any benches to re- 

 build this summer, put in one of these 

 and see if you don't want more of them 

 in the future, but don't tear out a lot 

 of good benches until you know that you 

 will like them. 



Another question we are asked re- 

 peatedly is "how did your carnations 

 do planted in the open ground in the 

 new house?' Last summer when we 

 were building our house we heard all 

 kinds of discouraging remarks and 

 'numerous predictions of failure, but I 

 am glad now that we paid no attention 

 to them and I am glad to be able to 

 say that we are more than pleased with 

 the results. If we build any more houses 

 for carnations we shall pursue the same 

 course with the possible exception that 

 we may try to put in the raised solid 

 iH'ds the summer before we build. Tliis 

 house is planted with G. H. Crane, E. 

 Crocker. Mrs. Lawson, Elma, Eoose- 

 xelt and America and all have done ex- 

 ceptionally well except America, which 

 grew poorly last sunmier for some rea- 

 son. 



Ijist September we allowed the Crock- 

 er to, come into a full crop on account 

 of an unusual demand for carnation 

 blooms, which caused them to lay off 

 about six weeks in mid-winter. There 

 was a big cro]) though up to Xmas and 

 they brought three cents or more each 

 all through Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec, 

 and now we are cutting a big crop of 

 as line blooms as you can find and they 

 will be our top giade until the weather 

 has ruined all the others. The G. H. 

 Crane were a grand sight all winter and 

 are doing fine yet. I never saw a bench 

 of as fine Ciane as these were. Roose- 

 velt did fine all winter imtil we cut it 

 up for cuttings and Elma has been a 

 nuiss of bvids and blooms all winter. 

 The (|uality in this house up to Dec. 1 

 was away ahead of those that were lifted 

 iiT the fall and since then it has been 

 Just as good. We will also be cutting 

 line blooms out of this house when all 

 your benches are burnt up and ready to 

 throw out. 



Perhaps the greatest point in this op- 

 eration was the work we saved by it. 

 We were able to take our time in build- 

 ing this house because we had all sum- 

 mer to do it in, all we had to do was to 

 see that it was glazed bj' about Sept. 

 20. l)pfore hard freezing set in. We were 

 able to do our other replanting at the 

 proper time and we saved the work of 

 housing the 10,000 plants that are 

 planted in this house. Building 10,000 

 .square feet of glass ready to plant by 

 Aug. 20 is no small undertaking unless 

 you can hire enough extra men to do it. 

 We were able to do all the painting, 

 glazing, plumbing, putting in ventilat- 

 ing machines and purlins and posts and 

 in fact all except sawing and erecting 

 the framework of the house. And all 

 just because we had all summer to do 

 it in and we could leave it for a week or 

 two whenever we had other work to do. 

 As I said before, we .shall do it again 

 at the first opportunity. 



A. F. J. Baur. 



