THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



2J7 



Show House of a Chicago Retailer Photographed Just Before Easter. 



doo was simply that with some chemical 

 fertilizer injected into it. 



Plants of the heath family like this 

 peat because their fine roots work easily 

 in it and it retains moisture, but it is 

 not always an infallible guide that na 

 ture cannot be improved on, and be 

 cause you find a plant struggling along 

 in a certain soil in a state of nature is 

 no proof that with a richer and better 

 soil it will not improve. 



There are extensive sphagnum bogs 

 scattered over this country, and it is 

 likely there are some that if drained 

 would afford us the same excellent ma 

 terial that is found in Europe, and nota 

 bly in Bagshot, Surrey, where the rho 

 dodendrons are cultivated by the hun 

 dreds of acres in such excellence and 

 profusion. 



The bulb fields of Holland are black 

 peat or muck. Perhaps that country 

 and Belgium, called the low countries 

 because most parts are many feet below 

 the level of the sea, were many thousand 

 years ago one vast moss bog, and most 

 likely they were, for there are the re 

 mains of ancient primitive man who 

 built his hut on stilts and lived on the 



shallow lakes and subsisted on crusta- 

 cea, for there are the remains of his 

 kitchen refuse. The Hollander and Bel 

 gian would not raise such crops did 

 they not saturate the soil with manure 

 every third year. This peat is useful, 

 and we see by the splendid azaleas, etc., 

 that they grow that it suits them, but 

 it is not indispensable and our most im 

 portant plants can be grown without it. 

 Where our soil is sand or clay we do 

 not avail ourselves of what we might, 

 and that is leaf-mold. Hundreds of us 

 see thousands of loads of leaves of ma 

 ple, oak and elm burned up every 

 autumn when if they were collected 

 and mixed or covered with sufficient 

 earth or manure to keep them from 

 blowing away they would be invaluable 

 for many of our plants. Boses and car 

 nations do not need them, but all our 

 hard-wooded plants that like peat, and 

 our begonias, fuchsias, ferns, in fact, 

 any of the soft-wooded plants, would be 

 benefited by their use. It is a tedious 

 job raking them up, but in many of our 

 streets and parks and cemeteries they 

 are raked up for you. In the country 

 vou can alwavs find in some hardwood 



forest places where the wind has laid 

 up for years deposits of these leaves, 

 and you should always have a good sup 

 ply on hand. 



When leaves are collected the same 

 fall that they drop, it will take two 

 years before they are fit to use, and 

 more than that, unless they get fre 

 quent turning. I would consider a heap 

 of rnaple leaves, well rotted by frequent 

 turnings and to which had been added 

 when first collected a third or fourth of 

 their weight of cow manure, a veritable 

 heap of gold dust for adding to your 

 loam for cyclamen, or most any other 

 plant. 



Kefuse hops, turned frequently, make 

 a good substitute for leaf-mold, and I 

 have even used them on carnation 

 benches in the old days of La Purite 

 and Edwardsii with the very best re 

 sults. 



We value the hotbeds not only for 

 their use in raising plants cheaply and 

 well in the spring, but the &quot;by 

 product,&quot; the old bed put up in a pile 

 and the following spring and summer 

 turned over and chopped down one* 

 or twice, makes the most useful ingre- 



