Picking, Packing and Shipping Carnation Flowers 



in a warm room and allowed to lie around half an hour or so before being put 

 in water, are almost certain to wither and fade many hours before they would 

 if picked at the proper time and treated properly. 



Also, if blooms are taken from a warm greenhouse, plunged in ice-cold 

 water and placed in a room a little above the freezing point, they are liable 

 to become chilled, and to wither and shrivel up long before a properly han- 

 dled carnation should show any signs of decadence. This is probably due to 

 the sudden chill which the flower receives in the transmission from its warm 

 quarters to the refrigerator. I am satisfied that in many stores flowers are 

 frequently injured by being placed in ice boxes and carried at a too low 

 temperature. 



Carnation flowers may also be injured by sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture, or by exposing them to an atmosphere charged with noxious gases. 

 The various gases which pervade a large city seem to be very destructive to 

 the keeping qualities of carnations. In some instances, the cellars of florists' 

 stores have been so permeated with gases leaking from the soil and surround- 

 ing mains, and various openings into the cellars, that carnation flowers would 

 wither and fade away within a few hours after being placed therein. No flower 

 grown enjoys a pure, clean, dry atmosphere more than does the carnation. 

 The blooms should not be exposed to extremes of any kind, at any period 

 of their growth, or of their transmission from the grower to the consumer, 

 and the more even the temperature at which the consumer keeps the flowers, 

 the longer will they last, and the more valuable will they be. 



In shipping carnations upon the New York market there are two methods 

 practiced, which may be termed 



The Bunch Method and the Box Method 



The bunch method is the oldest, and, even at the present time, probably 

 the most practiced of any of the methods of shipping in vogue. It consists 

 of tying the flowers into bunches of 25, 50 or 100, and packing into large 

 cases lined with paper, and also wrapped in paper during the colder weather, 

 in order to prevent freezing. Each bunch should have a card upon which 

 the name, quality and number of flowers are written. While this is the 

 cheapest method, it is also the hardest upon the flowers, as they are always 

 more or less bruised by being packed in the bunches, and by the rubbing 

 of the blooms against each other; further injury occurs in the stores, and 

 especially in the commission houses, from buyers handling the bunches and 

 throwing them about. 



The box method. The finest carnations shipped upon the market are 



122 



