916 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



April 23, I'JOS. 



UNION GARDENERS. 



A few cities (Buffalo among them) 

 have been visited by some walking dele- 

 gates, who have visited the park de- 

 partment and several of the largest flor- 

 ists' establishments with a view to form- 

 ing a union of florists or gardeners — a 

 branch of the "Federation of Labor." I 

 expected to live to see some strange 

 things before I passed in, such as the 

 wireless telegraphy, the flying machine, 

 and the amalgamation of the auxiliary 

 florists' societies with the parent societ}', 

 and «'lien ^\-e can feel that we are a step 

 nearer to the time that "We'l brithers 

 be for a' that," but I really never ex- 

 pected that anyone would endeavor to 

 pull the workmen of our business down 

 to the slavery of trade unionism. 



The question of trade unions vs. em- 

 ployer, corporation or capital, is too 

 momentous a problem, and I should not 

 dare to even assume an opinion. In 

 some lines of industry organized labor 

 may have helped the wage earner; some 

 employees are unreasonable; some em- 

 ployers and corporations are soulless 

 and grinding, but that's another story. 

 Some mechanical trades, like bricklay- 

 ing or house painting, may be adjusted 

 on a uniform rate per day or hour, be- 

 cause the foreman can' tell quickly 

 whether the workman is doing his share. 

 In the mechanical trades I am in favor 

 of short hours, because if work is scarce 

 it enables more to share in it, but not 

 to be allowed to work overtime, as some 

 unions dictate, is barbarous. 



This great subject that is agitating 

 the world may to the political economist 

 and sociologist have tuany abstruse 

 questions connected Mith it. " To a sim- 

 ple mind like mine, if two men are look- 

 ing for one man's work, there will be 

 competition between the men, who will 

 work cheap. If there is only one man 

 for two men's work, then the highest 

 bidder gets the man and times are 

 good. So labor is like potatoes; its 

 price is ruled by the law of supply and 

 demand. Don't many of us remember 

 the black times of iSTS and the vear 

 that followed? In May, "73, any "man 

 who could handle a shovel was paid 

 $1.87; carpenters, $3; bricklayers, .$3.50; 

 and other trades in proportion. In six 

 months from that and for five years 

 afterward you could get all the laboring 

 men you wanted for $1 a day. Carpen- 

 ters (good ones) worked for" $1.25, and 

 only about half of them willing to work 

 could find employment. May those 

 times never come again, but "if they 

 should, could labor unions keep up 

 wages? Xever! Self preservation would 

 assert itself and men would work for 

 what they could get and unions would 

 dissolve and evaporate. 



A labor union among the men in 

 greenhouses is absurd and cannot possi- 

 bly exist. Only the discontented and in- 

 competent would encourage or join it. 

 As well a trade union among preachers 

 and artists. The help in a greenhouse, 

 even among those willing to be called 

 gardener or florist, may be with a week- 

 l.v wage all the way from $10 to $25 a 

 week. The writer has always wanted to 

 see our helpers earn good wages, and 

 claimed that a young man who can pot, 

 tie, water, and set plants neatly, and 

 has not to be told ■^^■hen to put on or 

 take o£f ventilation intelligently, has to 

 exercise more brains and be as dexterous 

 with his hands as many mechanics who 

 get larger wages. 1 want to see the 



business elevated all along the line and 

 to have intelligent, neatly dressed, satis- 

 fied workmen is one essential part of 

 the elevating process, but to pay all 

 alike, or anywhere near the same, is 

 impossible and ridiculous. Some men 

 may be quite expert at potting and 

 shifting plants and that's all they know. 

 They do not even know by name half 

 the plants j'ou grow, much less know 

 their requirements. They will pass and 

 repass a plant that is suffering for want 

 of water, or perspire in a house because 

 they have not thought enough to put on 

 air. They are simply mechanical work- 

 men. Are they to get the same pay as 

 the man who is ever watchful, delights 

 in the plants under his care, studies how 

 to grow them the best he can learn, 

 notes the temperature and passing cloud, 

 and can do all the other man can do in 

 the bargain and many a thing besides? 



I believe Dr. Johnson's definition of 

 a gardener is "A man who works in a 

 garden," but many of us know that 

 when we spoke of a gardener forty 

 years ago we meant a man who could 

 grow anything from a carrot to a eat- 

 tleya, force fruits and flowers, and con- 

 duet and execute all the operations that 

 would be found on a private garden of 

 large extent. And there are a few of 

 these men on this side of the Atlantic, 

 and as our millionaires acquire a taste 

 and pride in a beautiful garden, such 

 men will be wanted more and more. 

 Our commercial horticultural training 

 is, however, not of the sort that equips 

 men for such a charge. To be a special- 

 ist is the order of the day. That is a 

 natural evolution of the business and is 

 a sure mark of its growth. The wages 

 of the working gardener (for growing a 

 primrose is gardening I must be con- 

 trolled by his ability, character and 

 faithfulness. The industrious student 

 of his business must rise. I have seen 

 them rise all around me. He will sel- 

 dom have to ask for a raise; it will 

 come to him. If not by an appreciative 

 employer, then for sure by some one 

 else who has had his eye on him. The 

 drone who watches the clock and dreams 

 of trades unions will remain at the pot- 

 ting bench until old age, and in dull 

 times is the first to be ''released." No 

 trade union to degrade our profession, if 

 you please. 



William Scott. 



FERNS. 



[Lecture ^iven by N. Buttert)acli before the 

 Monmouth Count.v Horticultural Society, Oceanic. 

 N. J., March B, li)i3.] 



In my lecture on ferns it is my in- 

 tention to speak about those varieties 

 the most used by private gardeners and 

 commercial florists. Fashion has made 

 a great change in the growing of ferns 

 during the last fifteen or twenty years, 

 and where collections were grown for- 

 merly, now only a few varieties are 

 grown for the decoration of dinner ta- 

 bles and for other floral work in con- 

 nection with cut flowers. Fashion has 

 not only revolutionized the culture of 

 ferns; it has changed the culture and 

 collections of other plants also, and on 

 private places, where most of those col- 

 lections were raised, cut flowers are 

 gro^vn instead. 



For decorative purposes no other fam- 

 ily of plants can be compared with 

 ferns, on account of their variation of 

 color and the form of their foliage. 

 Ferns are indispensable as plants or 

 cut flowers for decorative or floral work. 



on account of their diversity and adapt- 

 ability in arrangement. In the earlier 

 days our botanists supposed that 

 ferns had flowers and seeds as any 

 other plant. Every gardener today 

 knows that those little brown dots are 

 not seeds, but minute bud ferns. 



Considerable care is required in rais- 

 ing ferns from spores, as those little 

 brown dots are called. A shallow pan 

 half filled with pieces of broken pot. or. 

 better still, mortar from an old wall 

 and filled to within one-half inch from 

 the top with fine sifted soil, which 

 should be scalded with boiling water 

 and drained before the spores are sown, 

 to kill the germs of fungus, moss or in- 

 sects detrimental to the growth of 

 young ferns, and the spores scattered 

 over the surface without covering them 

 with soil. A pane of glass should be 

 put over the pan and the latter should 

 be placed in a saucer of water, which 

 will keep the soil sufficiently moist. 

 Keep them well shaded until the spores 

 are visible as minute plants. 



The process of fern growth and their 

 function are different from any other 

 plant. When the spores are sown they 

 open and form little flat, green mem- 

 branes, and in these membranes the 

 real fiowers develop, and all the pro- 

 cesses of common fiowering plants are 

 carried out. The germinating green 

 plate is called a prothallium, and the 

 stamen as in a flowering plant is called 

 the antheridium, while the pistil is the 

 archegonium. The difference is that in 

 flowering plants, after fertilization the 

 germ de\-elops into seed, whereas in ferns 

 the germ connuences to grow at once into 

 a little plant, and this has some bearing 

 on the raising of new varieties by sowing 

 different forms and species together. The 

 chance of getting new varieties by inter- 

 mixing is not very great, but it is the 

 only way to get any at all, except per- 

 haps a chance seedling. 



In selecting the spores, care should be 

 taken to select them from that portion of 

 the plant which is the most desired. For 

 instance, if a created form is desired, 

 the spores of the crested part of the plant 

 should be taken, and the certainty of 

 getting crested seedlings is much in- 

 crea.sed. Tlie minute plants should be 

 taken up in small patches and pricked 

 off carefully, and when they are estab- 

 lished and fit to be handled they should 

 Ije divided and potted off singly. Plants 

 that have several crowns, or have creep- 

 ing rhizomes, are easily increased by 

 division. Some species produce small 

 bulbs along or at the end of the frond. 

 If the.se are removed and placed on soil 

 they form plants. 



A preparation of soil which suits 

 almost all ferns is a mi.xture of two parts 

 of good loam, one part of sharp sand, 

 and one part of leaf mold. The latter is 

 indispensajfle in raising ferns to perfec- 

 tion. If the soil does not contain sufli- 

 cient lime a sprinkling of same will be 

 found very beneficial. Repotting of 

 ferns should not be overdone, as it is 

 known that the most luxuriant growth is 

 made when the inside surface of the pot 

 is covered with a network of roots. 

 Ferns like moisture, and the absence of 

 moisture is shown by the shriveling of 

 the old fronds. In herbaceous plants, or 

 plants with woody texture, the young 

 growth wilts first. If the latter has 

 been kept too dry the ball can be soaked 

 and the plant will recover, but with ferns 

 it is quite dift'erent, as this treatment 



