March 29, 1917. 



The Florists' Review 



31 



Bulbous Stock Will Be the Big Seller This Easter» but Heather Has Its Friends. 



I have a farm paper at home which, in 

 the last number, say^ it is* easy to grow 

 5,000 or more, and at 10 cents a plant 

 that means $500, a nice little sum, which 

 would help me in paying for the land 

 and supporting my family. And, may- 

 be, in a couple of years or more I would 

 not have to drive that laundry wagon." 



"Sure, Mike/' I said, "but liave you 

 any greenhouses on these grounds?" 



"Oh, no; the farming paper says 

 greenhouses are not necessarv. Hotbeds 

 will do." 



Writers Know It All. 



"Ah, so," I blurted out, "great fel- 

 lows, these farm paper writers. They 

 act me, and you, and everybody else. 

 They know everything. They know it 

 all. They tell you how to make lice 

 powder for man and beast; cough drops 

 out of cornstalks; chocolate wafers out 

 of dried and powdered horse chestnuts; 

 a combination suit for the oldest boy 

 out of burlap, and so on. 



"Now, Mr. Man," I said to the laun- 

 'Iryman, "let us talk plain business. 

 Have you any money to put up for do- 

 ing something with your land?" 



"Oh, yes, a couple of hundred dol- 

 '"rs, but I want to make money." 



"Certainly," I said, "but not in 

 U'oraniums. It takes more tlian a couple 

 "f hundred dollars to do tliat. It takes 

 Knowledge, material and certain time. 

 '•'it you take your money, buy good seed 

 I'otatocs, almost any early ones, and a 

 'ouplo of tons of sheep and cow manure, 

 spread it over the ground, have it plowed 

 "oil and harrowed fine, then plant the 

 ^puds properly and keep your family at 

 't from morning to night, hoeing and 

 |\"ceding, and hilling up the plants, and 

 ''>' the end of the month of August you 

 ^\ill have your monev back in vour 

 pocket with a nice profit, and a healthv- 

 looking family, besides. 



And do not believe these farm papers 

 ''l»y too much. Those fellows writing 



farming articles are, as a rule, not 

 farmers or growers of anything. But 

 they know how to disturb innocent 

 minds by publishing articles out of their 

 line in their sheets, just to make that 

 paper look smart. If you want to know 

 or to learn something about floriculture, 

 we have good trade papers, such as The 

 Review. 



"Good-bye. dear man, I have to water 

 mv carnations." 



Christ. Bussjaeger. 



Peoria, Ill.^John and Frank Ilassc, 

 who have been employed at the George 

 A. Kuhl greenhouses, are prejtaring to 

 go into business for themselves. A 

 greenh'ouse will be erected next months 



London, England.— The I'nited King- 

 dom is not alone in its potato shortage, 

 the food controller has announced, 

 there being a world-wide scarcity. 

 There will be no potatoes in Great 

 Britain during the early summer. 



Knaphill, England. — It may interest 

 many of the British gardeners in Amer- 

 ica to know that at the Waterer nurs- 

 ery here there are eight men wliose 

 terms of service each exceed forty years. 

 The youngest of the eight is 59 and has 

 been in the nursery forty-eight years, 

 while the oldest is 8.'5 and has ser'ccl 

 sixty-four years. 



Haarlem, Holland. — Ono of the great- 

 est trials to exporting houses in this trade 

 is the continued loss of American mail. 

 It is hard enough when thousands of let- 

 ters and orders are lost as in the sub- 

 marining of the Laconia, but for more 

 than a year much mail taken off steamers 

 for examination by the censor has disap- 

 peared. It has been noted that corre- 

 spondence with American Florists bearing 

 German names has suffered especially in 

 this respect. 



Yokohama, Japan. — The reports that 

 forcers in the United States are looking 

 for lower bulb prices is a surprise here. 

 The market in Japan is higher than a year 

 ago, and it is thought bulb prices must 

 be above the usual level this year if for 

 no other reason than that everything else 

 is high. There is no indication of an 

 oversupply to force prices down, par- 

 ticularly if England admits any part of 

 the normal quantity. 



Sassenheim, Holland. — Bulb exporters 

 are much in the dark as to business 

 being booked in the United States this 

 season, communication being sadly dis- 

 organized. Cables cost 31 cents per 

 word and code is prohibited by the cen- 

 sor. Mail is slow because of infrequent 

 sailings and the delays of the censor, 

 and between the quantities of letters 

 held up by the censor and those lost by 

 submarining, no exporter can know what 

 his representatives in .\nierica have 

 done until the representatives return, 

 and oven that, at the moment, is a ha/^- 

 .ardous undertaking. The loss of mail 

 with the Laconia was seriouslv felt. 



