FlBBCABT 6, 1919. 



The Florists' Review 



25 



CFEBIMENTS IN HYBRIDIZING. 



Interest was aroused in the seedling cama- 

 bs produced by tlie Joy Floral Co., of Nash- 

 le, Tenn., when a vase of the flowers was 

 arded honorable mention at the Cleveland con- 

 itlon. The story of how these seedlings were 

 sed was told in a paper read by R. F. Smith, 

 ' grower, at the convention of the Tennessee 

 irists" Association, at Nashville, January 28.] 



As a rule I have made crosses with 

 e idea of combining certain good qual- 

 es of the two varieties selected, 

 ough I will admit that I have made 

 me haphazard crosses, taking "pot 

 ck" chances. 



The first thing I want to emphasize is 

 is: In the selection of flowers to be 

 ed in crossing, select only well formed 

 (wers from the healthiest and most ro- 

 ist plants. From my experience, I 

 mly believe that a certain amount of 

 igmonose and other diseases is car- 

 ed into the new generation through the 

 eds, as well as through the cuttings, 

 id, though not at first so pronounced, 

 ey will finally show up. 

 There are about six things we need 

 get in a carnation to make it a thing 

 ' commercial value. They are: (1) 

 ibstance, (2) productiveness, (3) form, 

 :) size, (5) color and (6) stem. Some 

 ' these qualities can be obtained by 

 ireful crossing, though some come by 

 ;cident. It is an easy matter to get 

 le or two of these qualities in a plant, 

 it it is a Chinese puzzle to get them 

 1 at once. Substance is the greatest 

 isential. A carnation may have all the 

 .her qnalities except substance and be 

 ! DO commercial vaJue. Often our finest 

 >ecimen8 lack this quality a,nd must be 

 iscarded. 



Flowers Must Keep. 



I want to say here that the carnation 



not so popular today as it should be 

 1 account of its being grown so that it 

 ill not stand the grind of long ship- 

 ents. To put the carnation back where 



belongs, we must have varieties that 

 ill keep. 



We must have productiveness. A 

 lant may have the other essentials, but 

 ' it is not a producer, commercially it 

 I no good. Form, size and color are 

 lings that go to make the flower beau- 

 ful to behold. Of these we have the 

 sast control of color in breeding. I 

 ill give you a few examples of my hum- 

 le experiences and you may judge how 

 luch or how little control we have over 

 lese things. 



In 1915, my first year of serious 

 rosses, with which I am working now, 



made two crosses, one of Champion, 

 ed, on Enchantress, pink, and the other 

 f Champion on St. Nicholas, red. Most 

 f the Enchantress crosses came red and 

 lost of the St. Nicholas crosses, red on 

 ed, came pink. In my last year's crosses 



obtained varidus shades of yellow, 

 hough we never had a yellow carnation 

 n the place before. All of these either 

 ame from Matchless or Nebraska 

 rosses, evidently reverting back to 

 ome former yellow parent. 



The same thing has occurred this year, 

 one generation further on. By crossing 

 a red seedling, one of whose parents 

 was Matchless, with another seedling, a 

 pink, with neither Matchless nor Ne- 

 braska parentage, I got yellow again. 

 This shows that we have not much con- 

 trol of color, as every carnation takes 

 much of its color from the crosses of 

 former parents, the seedling being liable 

 to revert to any one of these, or a 

 blend of the two. While there is a cer- 

 tain trend of coloring in certain crosses, 

 there is no fixed rule we can follow. 



Besults Are Varied. , 



I will say that in almost any cross 

 you make you will get a range from 

 white through the various shades of 

 pink to deep red. We will say, cross two 

 carnations, one salmon pink and one 

 deep pink. Out of this cross one is 

 likely to get a magenta and a red that 



is a brick red, while in the lighter pink 

 crosses one is likely to get magentas, 

 but the reds he gets are apt to be bright 

 red. Again, it is not necessary to cross 

 the large-flowered varieties to get large 

 flowers. In crosses this year in which 

 Morning Glory, a very small-flowered 

 variety was used, I got a plant with 

 flowers that measure four inches in 

 diameter. 



I will say in conclusion that the big- 

 gest job is not in hybridizing, but in 

 culling out the seedlings. The real test 

 is in being able to select the plants that 

 are good out of a lot that are just ordi- 

 nary. 



PHOTINIA SEBSULATA. 



Will you please tell me the name 

 of the evergreen of which I enclose a 

 specimen? It is a nice hardy shrub 

 and I would like to get stock of it. 



C. C— Tex. 



Photinia serrulata is the name of this 

 evergreen and it is a native of China, 

 introduced into England by Captain 

 Kirkpatrick of the East India Co., in 

 1804. It grows well in Cornwall, Eng- 

 land, where some of the plants are now 

 thirty-five feet high. It is highly de- 

 sirable for growing in the southern 

 states. C. W. 



OjCN WCTB^y^ DEADEU^ 



AN ABNOBMAI. MABKET. 



Use of Substitutes. 



In The Review of January 23, under 

 the caption "Perplexed Questions," it 

 is stated by a grower that artificial 

 flowers are being used extensively in 

 funeral work and the question is asked 

 if florists are going to encourage the 

 increased use of them, thereby depre- 

 ciating the value of natural flowers. 



As the article is written by a grower, 

 we are going to include magnolia and 

 cycas leaves under the classification of 

 artificial goods, because in funeral work 

 they have been largely sold instead of 

 natural flowers. 



December 6, 1918, our stock of flowers 

 was so low that we phoned and wired 

 commission flrms and growers in Guth- 

 rie, Okla., Kansas City, St. Joseph and 

 St. Louis, Mo., Lincoln and Chicago, 

 111., to send us flowers. We were told 

 that they were sold out. We then wired 

 a friend in the trade in Chicago to buy 

 for us flowers at market prices. Be- 

 cause the prices were so high this friend 

 did not buy but wired us if we wanted 

 long roses at 50 cents and medium roses 

 at 30 cents, to reorder. Instead of 

 buying natural flowers at these prices, 

 at which we could not resell profitably, 

 we, like other florists, filled our larger 

 orders with standing wreaths of mag- 

 nolia and cycas leaves, with a spray or 

 cluster of natural flowers to finish the 

 piece. Supply and demand at that time 

 ruled the market and we think the sit- 

 uation was properly handled. We won- 

 der, however, if the prices could pos- 

 sibly have gone higher had the demand 



not been relieved to some extent by the 

 use of cycas and magnolia leaves. 



High Prices Broke Market. 



It was regrettable, however, that the 

 high prices caused many customers to 

 order for funeral purposes wreaths of 

 magnolia leaves and artificial flowers 

 such as florists keep on display and ' ' en- 

 courage the general use of" for ceme- 

 tery purposes. 



However, we do not believe that there 

 will be any detrimental effect upon the 

 sale of cut flowers as a result; at least 

 none is apparent here and conditions are 

 normal again. 



We believe, however, that the prices 

 growers and commission firms were able 

 to get during those times caused them 

 to charge prices at Christmas not jus- 

 tified by the ratio of supply and de- 

 mand and, because the prices quoted 

 were so high, the use of flowers for 

 Christmas gifts was largely eliminated. 

 Advance orders were not placed with 

 the retail stores and the market broke. 

 The Chicago notes in The Review stat- 

 ed that prices went up until flowers 

 stopped selling and then prices went 

 down, which was a fact. 



If any grower can justify the price 

 of carnations at $20 per hundred as a 

 good thing for him, when it reduced the 

 sale of them more than fifty per cent and 

 caused our daily papers to take our na- 

 tional slogan in vain, saying, "Talk is 

 cheap, if you don't say it with flowers," 

 we would like to hear from him. Repe- 

 titions of the prices of last Christmas 

 will cause many customers to say it 

 with something besides flowers, even 

 when prices are low. 



