Picking, Packing and Shipping Carnation Flowers 



be much stronger than with the flower not fully developed, and the danger 

 of fertilization will be also much greater. 



In cutting, a sharp knife should be used, and the stem should be cut in 

 such a manner as not to place any strain upon the roots of the plant, as this 

 has a tendency to break the fine rootlets free from the soil and to injure the 

 plant's growth and blooming. If the flowers are broken off, the pressure on 

 the stem should be downward, and not with an upward pull, which will start 

 the plant from the soil. 



As fast as picked the flowers should be taken into the flower room and 

 placed immediately in the vases, which should have been prepared in advance 

 and filled with pure, clean water. As soon as the picking is finished, the 

 cleaning and preparing and grading of the flowers should be done. It is 

 our practice to remove all the foliage, for about six inches, from the lower 

 part of the stem, and to take off the cuttings while sorting the flowers into 

 the different grades. 



For the New York market three grades are made, namely, fancies, extras 

 and firsts. The fancies are all perfect blooms, running from 2^4 to 3^ 

 inches in diameter, with straight stems from 16 to 24 inches and upward in 

 length. The extras are composed of flowers which, while being perfect, are 

 either smaller or the stems below the length required for fancies. The firsts 

 comprise all merchantable blooms that will not pass as extras. 



In grading flowers it is important that the grade should be uniform; 

 that is to say, a fancy should be fancy at all seasons of the year. In the early 

 part of the season, when the plants first commence blooming, there are com- 

 paratively few flowers that will grade as strictly fancy. Many of the first 

 blooms will come imperfect in one or more respects, and the stems will gen- 

 erally be below the necessary length ; so that at this part of the season but 

 two grades are sent to market the extras and firsts the fancy grades 

 usually putting in an appearance from a month to six weeks later. 



After the stems have been properly cleaned, and the flowers separated 

 into the different grades, the blooms are divided into bundles of twenty-five, 

 the stems of each bundle being bound with a small rubber band. A tag upon 

 which the name, the grade, and the number of flowers are written, is fast- 

 ened to each bundle. From two to four of these bundles are put into a vase, 

 according to the size of the blooms, as well as that of the vase, and these are 

 placed upon a table, in a cool room, with sufficient space around each vase 

 to admit of a free circulation of air about the flowers and to prevent them 

 from rubbing together and bruising. The blooms remain in this cool room 

 until the following morning, at which time they will have absorbed sufficient 



1 20 



