February 28, 1914 



HOKTICULTUEE 



295 



A. M. HERB'S REFLECTIONS ON 



THE RECENT CARNATION 



MEETING. 



President Brown, like those who 

 preceded him. spent a great deal of 

 time and gray matter to bring before 

 the Society, through his address, some 

 suggestions for improvement of both 

 the Society and the flower it repre- 

 sents, and like those of all of his 

 predecessors, his suggestions were re- 

 ported good and at some time and 

 some day they will be acted upon and 

 worked out. There is this consola- 

 tion for our presidents past and 

 future, and that is, "A good thought 

 never dies." It may lie dormant for 

 a number of years, but eventually it 

 will bear fruit. Take our own Club, 

 for an example; we have always oeen 

 good florists, but we lay dormant until 

 we organized and now we are up and 

 doing. 



His remarks on packing carnations 

 are right up to date, and it is up to 

 us as carnation growers to produce 

 blooms that will warrant this extra 

 care and expense in packing, and then 

 it will only be a matter of time until 

 the carnation is pushed forward as a 

 cut flower in a manner that we 

 scarcely dream of today. Having good 

 flowers to pack, handle them the same 

 as roses, laying them in the box in- 

 dividually, so that they do not crush 

 or bruise, and pack 50 to 100 to a 

 box. Eighty per cent of the cut of 

 The Cottage Gardens is handled in 

 this way; the name of the variety is 

 placed on the box, also the numoer 

 the box contains and the name of the 

 firm. These boxes are sent into the 

 wholesale houses and never unpacked 

 there. The retailer comes in, selects 

 what he wants from the label on the 

 box and takes them direct to his store, 

 where they are unpacked with the 

 care a good flower deserves. The con- 

 sequence is that the flowers reach the 

 consumer in flrst-class condition and 

 give value for value received, a thing 

 impossible where the flowers are con- 

 signed in bunches, thrown around like 

 old shoes, as they often are, both in 

 the wholesale and retail establish- 

 ments. Of course when the grower 

 gets $2 per 1,000 for them and the 

 consumer gets a bunch of 25 for a 

 quarter, they are giving value for 

 value received, but who of us wants 

 this condition to represent the carna- 

 tion trade? 



Joe Hill's paper, boiled down, gives 

 us an average cut fifteen flowers to 

 a plant and the cost of producing 

 those fifteen flowers, from the cutting 

 to the plant thrown out in the follow- 

 ing summer, as 23 ets. per plant and 

 tbe space occupied by that plant as 

 % of a square foot, this space allow- 

 ing for walks and all unused room in 

 the house. These figures are very 

 valuable for comparison on your own 

 place, but you must remember that 

 the Hill establishment is right up to 

 date with expense in the way of con- 

 struction and maintenance that most 

 of us do not have. Some of us might 

 cut the cost per plant into two and 

 the most of us can cut the number of 

 blooms produced per plant into two 

 and 'the quality of bloom into three 

 when compared with the Hill estab- 

 lishment. 



Pyfer's paper on carrying carna- 

 tions over into the second year does 



not apply to this neck of the woods. 

 It applies to some sections fairly well, 

 but taking a series of five years the 

 man who tries it here is going to lose 

 out every time. 



President Brown brought out an- 

 other point in Philadelphia a" week 

 after the Cleveland meeting and that 

 was that the average price for carna- 

 tions for a period of seven years 

 from The Cottage Gardens was ZM 

 cents per flower, which certainly is 

 not a high figure when we consider 

 the kind of flowers they produce. In 

 England the varieties we grow for 

 forcing do not go below six cents and 

 often reach fifteen. There is no rea- 

 son why we should not do as well. 



The Exhibition.— Right here is 

 where neither the trade papers nor 

 myself can give you any information, 

 you simply have to be on the ground 

 and see for yourself. 



In the reds or scarlets there was 

 nothing could anywhere near touch 

 Beacon. In the light pink tint Alice 

 seemed to be one to keep watching, 

 although the others averaged up 

 good. In the Gloriosa type Alice 

 Coombs looked a winner. In the dark 

 pink, Georgeous overtopped them all. 

 In the whites there was, of course, 

 nothing but Matchless, in crimson 

 Princess Dagmar and in yellow Yel- 

 low Prince. The two pinks deserve a 

 little more mention as they are badly 

 needed. Philadelphia took all the 

 laurels and deservedly so. Mr. Brown, 

 the originator, and Mr. Breitmeyer, 

 the grower of this variety, both are 

 very enthusiastic over it and Mr. 

 Breitmeyer is the last man to get en- 

 thusiastic over anything that is not 

 up to the mark. 



Mrs. C. E. Akehurst I happen to 

 know from its babyhood up to its 

 present debutante age and feel safe 

 in predicting that it is going to be the 

 commercial pink in its class, which is 

 enough different in color from Phila- 

 delphia so that the two do not con- 

 flict very much. Another thing I am 

 going to predict for Mrs. Akehurst is 

 that it will pretty nearly double the 

 Hill estimate of blooms per plant in 

 the hands of any ordinary good 

 grower. 



As previously said the only way to 

 get an idea of a flower is to see it 

 and the only way to see the real good 

 ones is to go to Buffalo next January. 

 The Meeting. — This was representa- 

 tive of the carnation world, most all 

 the prominent growers being there, 

 and I want to say right here that you 

 men who make your living from car- 

 nations could not have expended $50 

 of your money to any better advant- 

 age than to have attended this Cleve- 

 land show and meeting. You may 

 think that you get the benefit through 

 the trade papers without the expense. 

 They do their part nobly, but let me 

 tell you that for your own welfare 

 you had better loosen up a bit, join 

 the society that represents the flower 

 you grow and attend its meetings. It 

 is being there, going over and over 

 the show, mingling with the men who 

 grow these show flowers, that fills 

 your subconscious mind with carna- 

 tion knowledge which it is Impossible 

 to obtain through any second-hand 

 manner such as the trade papers or a 

 talk like this one. 



Next year it is in Buffalo. Make 

 up your mind right now to go and 



then for your own sake don't say at 

 the last minute "I can not go," "I 

 have too much to do." If you do not 

 stop this habit of having so much to 

 do thai you can never go anywhere 

 you will turn into a perpetual grind 

 until you lie down to die and then 

 you will worry as to how the work 

 will get done without you and have 

 no rest even on your death bed. 



THE BEST TREE FOR THE WEST. 



Editor Horticulture: 



We are often asked which are the 

 best trees for the country west of the 

 Missouri river. As we note that your 

 paper now has quite a circulation in 

 this region, I send these notes. 

 The Norway Poplar never saw Nor- 

 way but was found growing among the 

 Norway farmers of central Minnesota. 

 That prince of horticulturists. Prof. 

 Green, first called my attention to it. 

 I got some cuttings and the first year 

 from them I got quite a lot of trees 

 eight and nine feet tall which I ex- 

 hibited before the Nebraska and Min- 

 nesota Horticulturist Societies. For 

 the first year or two it resembles 

 the Carolina. Its origin, like that of 

 the latter, is shrouded in mystery. It 

 seems to belong to the great cotton- 

 wood family. If so it is of the male 

 species for it sheds no cotton. It is 

 hardy in Manitoba where the Caroli- 

 na cannot live. Even here the Caro- 

 lina can only live to be fifteen or 

 twenty years old. When it begins to 

 die it has a very ragged appearance. 

 No one knows how long the Norway 

 will live. One man in southern Min- 

 nesota sawed over 200,000 feet of 

 lumber from it. I have purposely left 

 one of each kind on a very rich ground 

 about 10 feet apart. The Carolina 

 has a very rough bark. The Norway 

 has a smooth bark, something like the 

 wild woods poplar. The Norway is 

 two years younger than the other, and 

 is a third larger. There is a growing 

 demand for it for excelsior and lum- 

 ber. It is a beautiful tree; the leaves 

 are very large and the trunk is 

 straighf. It does not waste itself in 

 side branches. It is a ravenous breed- 

 er. It is well adapted to rich grounds 

 subject to overflow, though it does 

 well on high ground. 



C. S. Harrison, Pres., 



Nebraska Park and Forest Society. 



COVER ILLUSTRATION. 



The beautiful seaside estate of Col. 

 H. E. Converse at Marion, Mass., pre- 

 sided over by Superintendent D. F. 

 Roy, is rich in fine specimen hollies, 

 one of which is portrayed in the ac- 

 companying picture. At the time the 

 photograph was taken it measured 

 2 feet 4 inches in circumference, two 

 feet from the base. A number of its 

 limbs are 2 feet in circumference. The 

 tree's spread is 30 feet and its height 

 28 feet. It is estimated to have long 

 passed the century mark in age. There 

 are several other holly trees in the 

 group that will measure up to 3 feet 

 circumference of trunk, but they do 

 not have a spread of over 22 feet. 



"I enjoy HORTICULTURE very 

 much. It contains valuable Informa- 

 tion to the profession." 



N. J. R. K. 



