12 



The Florists^ Review 



FiBBDABZ 27, 1910. 



to a weekly luncheon of all the florists 

 in the town or locality. Get them to- 

 gether with the constraint of mutual 

 suspicion worn off and they will talk 

 business as naturally as a duck takes to 

 water. 



Then Get Down to Work. 



Then is when the real opportunity for 

 good, constructive work will develop. 

 That is where the scramble will stop. 

 Price-cutting will cease, although prices 

 may not be uniform; there are good and 

 sufficient reasons why one store should 

 charge less, or more, than another. Use- 

 less expense will be cut out, waste will 

 be reduced, hours may be shortened, 

 profits will be increased, stabilized, as- 

 sured. With it will come improved 

 service to the public and increased sales, 



an increase in proportion to the intel- 

 ligence and energy with which the work 

 is handled. 



In each group of florists there is like- 

 ly to be one man of superior abilities 

 as an executive; he is the one to enlist. 

 Get him to apply his powers of analysis 

 to the local situation and to the com- 

 ponent establishments that influence it. 

 There need be no surrender of individual 

 opinion or privilege, but there will be a 

 sure profit all the way along the line, 

 from eliminating the dead beats, through 

 knowledge of the costs of doing busi- 

 ness, to the cumulative benefit that 

 comes from all working together to 

 spread among the people the knowledge 

 that flowers afford an influence, a sense 

 of satisfaction and of pleasure, which 

 cannot be obtained in others ways. 



$i 



tain a buoyant atmosphere. The plants 

 need all the sunshine possible and feed- 

 ing is better omitted until the days 

 grow longer. C. W. 



BEST OUTDOOR VABIETIES. 



What are the best varieties of pink^ 

 r^f white and lavender sweet peas to grow 

 for outdoor blooming f W. & C. — Ind. 



Fine outdoor varieties are: Nora Un- 

 win or White Spencer, pure white; 

 Countess Spencer and Hercules, pink^ 

 and Florence Nightingale, lavender. 

 Walter P. Wright is also a fine light 

 lavender variety. C. W. 



BRIEF ANSWERS. 



SWEET PEAS FOR OUTDOORS. 



It probably will be some weeks yet 

 before sweet peas can be sown outdoors, 

 but much finer and earlier blooms may 

 be obtained by starting a good batch of 

 seeds under glass now. It is best to use 

 only a few varieties. Reliable sorts to 

 start are King White or Nora Unwin, 

 white; Hercules or Countess Spencer, 

 clear pink; Florence Nightingale, lav- 

 ender; Thomas Stevenson, scarlet; Rosa- 

 belle, carmine-rose. If any other colors 

 are wanted, try Elfrida Pearson, blush; 

 Mrs. C. W. Breadmore, picotee-edged; 

 Captain of the Blues, clear blue; Blanche 

 Ferry Spencer, rose and white; Mrs. 

 Hugh Dickson, salmon pink. The best 

 selling colors are clear pink, white, lav- 

 ender and rose. 



Start the seeds in flats of pure sand 

 and later pot off singly into 3-inch pots. 

 They will do particularly well in a gen- 

 tle hotbed toward the end of March and 

 in the colder states can usually be 

 planted out with safety from April 15 

 to 25. To secure good sweet peas, deep 

 and well enriched soil is necessary. A 

 successful sweet pea grower has boiled 

 down successful sweet pea culture out- 

 doors into a dozen words: "Manure 

 liberally, spade deeply, sow early, brush 

 speedily, water freely, pick persist- 

 ently." A foot apart is close enough to 

 plant the sweet peas. This may seem 

 thin sowing at the start, but if the soil 

 was well prepared, the haulm will soon 

 make it difficult to see through the 

 rows. 



SWEET PEAS DAMPING OFF. 



Can you tell me what ails my sweet 

 peasf I am losing many of them by 

 damping off when the plants are five 

 to six inches high. I bought seeds 

 from a reliable house. E. R. B. — Tex. 



your soil and cultural conditions. Sweet 

 pek8->pucceed best in a light but fairly 

 rich soil. To achieve success in their 

 culture under glass, they should not 

 be sown in drills, as is done outdoors, 

 but started in flats or small pots and 

 set out four or five inches apart. No 

 hilling up should be done, as this will 

 cause damping off. Much depends on 

 the temperature and it is well to re- 

 member that, until they reach the flower- 

 ing stage, a night temperature of 46 

 to 48 degrees is ample for them. As 

 the flowers start to opeu, increase the 

 temperature to • 50 or 52 degrees. Al- 

 ways ventilate when the thermometer- 

 reads 58 degrees. Raise and lower the 

 ventilators a little at a time and main- 



B. & S., Wash. — Temperature for to- 

 matoes, 60 degrees at night. 



A. S., N. J. — Probably the common 

 white fly, the surest exterminator of 

 which is hydrocyanic acid gas. Direc- 

 tions for the use of this fumigant have 

 appeared frequently in The Review. 



R. B., O. — The general rule is to sow 

 the cabbage seeds in flats or hotbeds 

 about sixty to ninety days before dan- 

 ger of killing frost is past. 



E. L., Me. — Sow the palm seeds in 

 well drained pots or pans, in a light soil, 

 consisting of about two parts loam to- 

 one part sharp sand; cover the seeds 

 with their own depth of soil. Place in a 

 warm house, over bottom heat, and keep 

 well watered. 



J. J. U., Mich. — We do not know of 

 any plant called the wolf flower. Do 

 you mean the wolfsbane, or aconitumt 



LADIES' LUNCHEON AT ST. LOUIS. 



Mrs. H. G. Berning, secretary of the 

 St. Louis Lady Florists' Club, an- 

 nounces that all ladies in the trade are 

 invited to attend a luncheon given by 

 the club at the Young Women's Chris- 

 tian Association rooms, Fourteenth and 

 Locust streets, St. Louis, Tuesday after- 

 noon, March 4, at 2:30. Arrangements 

 have been made for a large attendance- 



J. J. B.. 



[ATIOM 



It is difficult to hazard an opinion 

 as to the cause of your sweet peas damp- 

 ing off without knowing something of 



CUTWORMS ON CARNATIONS. 



Our carnations are doing well th^s 

 season, but cutworms are appearing on 

 them- What shall we do? We have 

 tried a mixture of Paris green, shorts 

 and molasses, but it did not do much 

 good. J. O. L. — Mass. 



The Paris green-shorts-molasses mash 

 ought to clean out the cutworms. We 

 have used instead of the shorts and 

 molasses a horse feed made of alfalfa 

 with molasses added to it. We simply 

 add the Paris green to this feed. The 

 resulting mixture is fine also for de- 

 stroying snails. 



Bear in mind that it will require a 

 little time before the effects of the cut- 



worms will disappear. All the buds^ 

 which have been chewed will have to 

 bloom out. If the poison baits fail to 

 get the worms, you will have to pick 

 them off by hand. They work for the 

 most part early in the morning and, 

 with the aid of a strong lantern, you. 

 will be able to catch most of them. 



A. F. J. B. 



AT THE HOME OF RUTH BAUR. 



History speaks of a man named Boaz,. 

 who possessed such a sterling character 

 that the right-hand pillar of the porch 

 of King Solomon's temple was named 

 for him. This Boaz married Ruth, de- 

 scribed as beautiful to look upon, and 

 possessing all the qualities that go to 



