THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



be retarded longest should be the 

 strongest. 



Sometimes we find the roots very 

 dry. I prefer to dip the roots for a 

 few moments in a tub of water before 

 putting outside. Let a frost come, a 

 good, hard one, so that the covering 

 is frozen, and no harm if the roots 

 are, then put a foot of hay or excel- 

 sior over them and cover with shut- 

 ters to keep off rain. It is not well 

 for the roots to be too wet. Glass sash 

 would keep off the rain, but it would 

 also raise the temperature on bright 

 days during a thaw, and that is just 

 what you don't want. These condi- 

 tions will do for all the pips that you 

 force during winter and up to the time 

 that we get the flowers outside. But 

 long before this you must have re- 

 moved to the cold storage the roots 

 that are wanted for summer and au- 

 tumn. 



The time to put them in cold stor- 

 age may vary by a month because 

 the weather varies. They must be 

 absolutely dormant when removed to 

 the cold storage, and that must be 

 closely watched. We have tried re- 

 peatedly to store- away a few thou- 

 sand in our local cold storage ware- 

 houses, and if we could be always suc- 

 cessful with them it would be a great 

 convenience and cheaper than build- 

 ing one of your own. But it is very 

 uncertain work and we have often 

 blamed ourselves when perhaps it was 

 the cold storage management that was 

 at fault. 



Mr. Simpson at some length gives 

 instructions how to build a cold stor- 

 age house, but were I to repeat it I 

 am sure you could not build one by 

 it without visiting some one who has 

 one and seeing for yourself "how to 

 do it." The most comforting part of 

 it is that Mr. S. says a cold storage 

 house that will hold 400,000 valley 

 roots can be built for $600. The in- 

 terest on that sum seems very trifling 

 when the success of even a quarter of 

 the above number is grown. Whether 

 you have your own cold storage or 

 hire it, the conditions which you 

 should try and preserve are these: 



Get convenient sized boxes, six or 

 seven inches deep, line them with 

 moist sphagnum moss and between 

 the bunches of roots put moist sand, 

 not saturated, and cover pips with an 

 inch or two of sphagnum. To occupy 

 little space you will have to put slats 

 or boards on. top of each box, so that 

 they can be piled up one above the 

 other. In renting space in cold stor- 

 age this would be a great considera- 

 tion. When first put in give them 10 

 degrees of frost and in a few days 

 let the temperature go up to 28 or 29 

 degrees and remain at that. 



In large cold storage houses they 

 have rooms at all temperatures and 

 will ask you what degree you want, 

 so the same plan can be carried out 

 by moving the boxes. If when re- 

 moving the roots from the frame to 

 cold storage they appeared dry, give 

 the whole box a watering before put- 

 ting it away, but it is not well for the 



sand to be too wet or the roots may 

 rot. Those small growers who hire 

 the local cold storage for their arrest- 

 ed lilies may as well put them in suit- 

 able boxes when first receiving them 

 in the fall; then with the addition of 

 some moisit sphagnum over the pips 



Flower Spray of Lily of the Valley. 



they can be easily removed at short 

 notice to their cold surroundings. 



There have been many ways of forc- 

 ing the pip into flower. The English 

 growers use ordinary loam as we use 

 sand, and Mr. Simpson asserts that 

 they (the English) produce larger 

 spikes and finer flowers than are 

 grown here, but does not attribute 

 that to cultivation so much as obtain- 

 ing a uniformly high grade of roots 

 and being very particular that they 



are first class. A firm that grows 

 annually six millions of pips, as does 

 Thomas Rochford, near London, de- 

 serves certainly to get the best there 

 is in the market. Germany supplies 

 them and is likely to supply them for 

 a long time. 



In obtaining the pips get the very 

 best you can. Don't be guided by any 

 tacked on, absurd title, but find out a 

 good source or good man and when 

 you are well treated stick to that man. 

 Unless you get a well developed crown 

 that contains a good spike of flowers 

 in an embryonic size your most skill- 

 ful and faithful care will not produce 

 a good flower. 



When brought in to force the tips of 

 the roots are chopped off. They make 

 no fibrous root while growing, but I 

 don't believe the roots should be 

 chopped off too short. So the boxes, 

 if you use boxes, should be five inches 

 deep, leaving the pips just above the 

 surface of the sand. You can place 

 the roots as close as they will con- 

 veniently go in the trench of sand and 

 three inches between the rows. Some 

 growers place an inch of sphagnum 

 between the pips on the surface of 

 the box and when the boxes are going 

 on the pipes I think it a good plan. 

 Large growers who use beds of sand 

 do not bother with moss, and under 

 the conditions it is not necessary. 



I have grown fairly good valley in 

 boxes placed on the pipes. Raise the 

 boxes a few inches from the pipes by 

 strips of wood. The first ten days we 

 place over pipes that have a good, 

 strong heat, then remove for a few 

 days to over some pipes that are not 

 so warm and a little more light, and 

 when color begins to show remove 

 them to top of bench, but still shaded 

 from the sun. Always avoid wetting 

 the bells after showing color, but be- 

 fore that syringe frequently and water 

 the sand daily. When lily of the val- 

 ley is about fully expanded (that is, 

 the top bells) it can be cut and placed 

 in water in bunches for twenty-four 

 hours. They travel and keep better 

 than those freshly cut, as do most all 

 flowers. 



Large growers (and this plan is bet- 

 ter far than the boxes with those that 

 want, say, from one to two thousand 

 a week) is to put the roots at once 

 into six inches of sand in the bed. A 

 small, narrow house, with a northern 

 aspect, such as you often see on the 

 north side of an old-fashioned three- 

 quarter span house, would be an ex- 

 cellent place to grow the valley, Top, 

 or atmospheric, heat is not of conse- 

 quence, but one or two pipes on side 

 of wall or path is advisable to be used 

 in very severe weather. The bench 

 should be boarded up back and front. 

 If you don't have any pipes except 

 under the bench have one of the front 

 boards hinged so that it can be opened 

 in very severe weather to warm the 

 air of the house, for in those times 

 when you are firing so hard you can 

 spare the heat from beneath the bench. 

 In a section of bench in an ordinary 

 house this is not needed because the 

 house is always warm enough. 



