14 



The Florists' Review 



March 16. 1916. 



lengthwise of the bench and ten inches 

 crosswise. It has been, and is now, I 

 believe, the general custom in grow- 

 ing mignonette to thin out the young 

 plants until at a certain time but one 

 plant remains, and when this is of suf- 

 ficient size the head is pinched out, 

 causing it to branch. Our method is 

 diflPerent. The pots of seedlings will 

 contain anywhere from one to six 

 plants, depending on how the seed ger- 

 minated and on other causes. In plant- 

 ing, an average of five plants are left 

 in each space. Those clusters having 

 more than five plants are thinned out; 

 if there are less than five, two or more 

 clusters are planted together,' disturb- 

 ing as little as possible the ball of 

 soil. 



Practically the only pinching done 

 is on an occasional plant which shows 

 a tendency later to shoot ahead of 

 the rest, or at a spot here and there 

 that does not appear to be thick 

 enough. 



Watering and Feeding. 



The first flowers are ready for 

 Thanksgiving day, and from the mid- 

 dle of December onward the bed is in 

 full bearing, producing spikes averag- 

 ing thirty-two inches in length. 



During the first six or eight weeks 

 particular care is taken that the bed 

 is not overwatered. All watering dur- 

 ing this period is done with a fine 

 rose and only about as far from the 

 plant as the roots have extended. IVe- 

 quently, probably after every second 

 watering, the soil is loosened with the 

 hands to the depth of an inch and al- 

 lowed to remain so until actually in 

 need of another watering. After the 

 roots have made some headway, this 

 rosing is discontinued and occasional 

 light doses of sheep manure are given 

 until along in February, after which 

 liquid manure is used. The mignonette, 

 after getting well under way, has a 

 vigorous root action. The main tap 

 root goes straight down and the small 

 lateral roots, almost invisible, pene- 

 trate to all parts of the bench. It is 

 therefore benefited from January on 

 by liberal feeding and plenty of 

 water. 



The Temperature. 



The night temperature usually recom- 

 mended for mignonette is 45 degrees 

 and I have often heard it said, as an 

 argument in its favor, that it can 

 "stand" 40 degrees. This reminds me 

 of a phrase I heard repeated many 

 times in my old home, to the effect 

 that "there is considerable difference 

 between what a dog will eat and what 

 he will live on." (This does not mean 

 that we children did not get plenty to 

 eat.) It appears to me that when we 

 consider what treatment a plant will 

 stand, the aim should be to bring it 

 to the point of greatest production con- 

 sistent with the desired quality. We 

 grow our mignonette at 48 degrees, be- 

 cause at this temperature we get 

 blooms of the best quality and the 

 development is much more rapid than 

 when a temperature several degrees 

 lower is maintained. It is essential 

 that fresh air be given on all possible 

 occasions. 



For supports we use the wire and 

 string method commonly in use for 

 carnations. When the plants get 

 higher, English twine is used instead 

 of wire for stretching lengthwise of the 

 bench on the inside rows. This saves 

 considerable breakage. 



The One Destructive Pest. 



The only destructive enemies that 

 we have to fight are the green worms 

 which are the larvae of the sulphur but- 

 terflies. If unchecked, one or two of 

 these worms will devour a small plant 

 over night. Up to the time of plant- 

 ing in the bench, our young plants are 

 protected by the covering of netting, 

 as mentioned. The plants from now 

 on must be sprayed regularly with a 

 solution which will kill these worms 

 by being consumed along with the 

 foliage. The different nicotine mix- 

 tures are of no use for this purpose. 

 Weak solutions of hellebore or Paris 

 green can be used, but there is always 

 the danger of burning. Arsenate of 

 lead is better. Though it colors the 

 foliage, the use of it can be discon- 

 tinued before the foliage appears 

 which will be left on the stem when 

 cut. For the last three years we have 

 used, not only on mignonette but on 

 other plants, a spray material put out 

 by the Bowkers under the trade name 

 of Pyrox. A few worms will hang on 

 until late in the fall and these must 

 be picked off by hand. 



Disbudding must be attended to just 

 as with carnations. We have not de- 

 veloped our strain to the point where 

 disbudding can be dispensed with, but 

 later in the season, when the lateral 

 gTowths appear, not much of this is 

 necessary. 



Our mignonette is put up in bunches 

 of one dozen to a bunch and is sold 

 at wholesale in the Buffalo and 

 Kochester markets. Some years the 

 local supply of various flowers is more 

 than a market normally requires and 

 this is perhaps more noticeable with 

 mignonette than with some other flow- 

 ers which have a wider range of use. 

 I am satisfied, however, that, one year 

 with another, a well grown bench of 



mignonette will return us as much 

 money as an equally well grown bench 

 of any of the standard varieties of 

 flowers. 



Growing tlie Seed. 



Do we ever consider how much a 

 matter of faith it is when we buy our 

 seed, and how important it is that we 

 procure the bestf As a rule, the best 

 seed can be purchased for less money 

 than we would find it necessary to ex- 

 pend in the form of space and atten- 

 tion in order to produce seed of like 

 quality. We have made an exception, 

 however, of mignonette, and along in 

 December each year a certain number 

 of the finest spikes are selected and 

 tied to a bamboo stake. Before the 

 end of February this year, these seed 

 spikes measured forty-five inches from 

 the ground, with a flower development 

 of sixteen to eighteen inches, the lower 

 part going to seed. 



How many years this particular 

 strain has been with us, I am unable 

 to say. Among the many pleasant 

 recollections of my boyhood days in 

 the Buffalo home, I remember that for 

 many years it was a regular custom 

 of my father and a few of his intimate 

 florist friends to congregate there of a 

 Sunday morning and make the rounds 

 of the greenhouses. I recall his point- 

 ing to a bench of mignonette and say- 

 ing that the seed was from John N. 

 May. 



After the building of our Corfu 

 place, the same strain of mignonette 

 was retained and is still grown, with 

 no change except what may have been 

 caused by the effort toward improve- 

 ment. Whether it is any better than 

 in the old days I am unable to say. 

 Youthful recollections are not reliable, 

 but I like to think that pride in a 

 thing accomplishes something. 



David J. Scott. 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



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! 



AT LAST, SOMETHING NEW I 



There is no gainsaying the fact that 

 when a once rare occurrence becomes 

 common it loses its interest, even 

 though it be such a matter as swindling 

 retailers by means of bogus checks. The 

 check forgers seem to have found the 

 florists' business a fertile field for their 

 operations, for they are ever in our 

 midst — recently at Baltimore, then To- 

 ledo, Detroit, Saginaw and last week at 

 San Francisco. Keally, their fraudu- 

 lent schemes have been perpetrated so 

 frequently of late that a note of each 

 duping scarcely classes as of news in- 

 terest. However, relief from this dire 

 monotony of crookdom turned up last 

 week in the city of New York, where 

 the really clever people who live by 

 their wits reside. The dishonest person 

 in this case is a young man who, if hon- 

 est, would make a good salesman; prob- 

 ably honest sales are his vocation and 

 crooked sales his avocation. At any 

 rate, here is how the scheme is worked. 



In the morning the swindler reads the 

 death notices in the newspapers and 

 marks down the addresses of houses of 

 death. In a short time he calls on the 

 bereaved, representing himself to be 

 the salesman of a downtown florist who 

 specializes in funeral work. Being a 

 good salesman, he sells the mourners as 

 many pieces as they will stand for and, 

 on leaving, this impostor diplomatically 

 requests a deposit on the order. The 

 bereaved, being more or less numbed 

 by the shock they have sustained, un- 

 suspectingly pay the deposit. At this 

 stage of the game the candidate for the 

 rogues' gallery makes his exit. 



In due course of time the innocent 

 downtown florist is called to the phone 

 and asked why the flowers ordered in 

 the morning have not been delivered. 

 The puzzled florist, after a pause for 

 registering surprise, explains that he 

 has no salesman taking orders for him 

 on the outside. This is followed by 

 high words until the situation is made 

 clear; that is, the mourners have been 



