14 



The Florists^ Review 



Febbuaby 27, 1919. 



"Winnipeg and Montreal, Canada, and 

 the native H. arborescens abounds in 

 the mountain gorges of Alabama and 

 Georgia. 



Do not infer that I am opposed to bo- 

 tanical names. I once visited a nursery- 

 man in France, a man whom I had never 

 heard of before. He spoke no English 



and I spoke but little French. After a 

 visit of two hours, however, I under- 

 stood him and his stock nearly as well as 

 if he had been a fellow countryman. 

 Botanical names are precise in meaning 

 and are accepted everywhere, but good, 

 hard Yankee sense should have its place. 



E. Y. Teas. 



5«l^[^l^t^liS^t^JlAS^t^l^l^l^4l^:x»^L^^^^^^ 



BUCKEYE BULL'S-EYES 



'iffiffflg^ffiffflfg^fflfrfflff^tAfify^w 



A WISE MOVE. 



In the prize contest of the Florists' 

 Telegraph Delivery Association last 

 October, for suggestions for improving 

 the service, it was pointed out by Louis 

 C. Hecock, of Elyria, O., that, as it was 

 of the utmost importance to secure mem- 

 bers in the smaller towns and cities, it 

 might be well to appoint a special rep- 

 resentative to call upon the florists in 

 such places in person. Whether or not 

 the recent employment by the associa- 

 tion of a traveling agent is directly or 

 indirectly traceable to this valuable 

 suggestion, we do not know; but we re- 

 member that the judges favored a simi- 

 lar plan of action, namely, the offer of 

 a commission to traveling men for en- 

 listing new members. Our only com- 

 ment is that it appears a wise and busi- 

 nesslike procedure. 



The weakness of the F. T. D. at the 

 present time lies in the fact that for the 

 most part its members are located in the 

 larger cities, thus confining its service 

 to limited portions of the country. This 

 entails the necessity for shipments of 

 from twenty-five to fifty miles, which 

 militates against the primary object of 

 supplying flowers quickly and in the 

 freshest possible condition. The effort 

 to establish direct connection with prac- 

 tically every small town of importance 

 in the land should obviate that difficulty 

 and effect the full development of the 

 F. T. D. idea. 



The ofiicials of the association are to 

 be complimented upon the selection of 

 a man of the sterling type of L. F, Dar- 

 nell for this office. His broad knowl- 

 edge of the flower business, acquired by 

 a successful experience of over thirty 

 years, and his extensive acquaintance 

 throughout the trade, betoken him as the 

 right man for the purpose. Possessed 

 of an engaging personality and being 

 completely obsessed by his subject, his 

 work cannot fail to bear abundant fruit. 



Mac. 



TECHNICAL TEAININa. 



Florists are beginning to realize the 

 value of technical training for their 

 sons, appreciating that money spent in 

 the acquisition of vocational education 

 constitutes a sound investment. While 

 they themselves, perhaps, had not the 

 benefits to be derived from a few years' 

 consecutive study at college, they wish 

 to equip their sons with that inestimable 

 advantage. Not that this necessarily 

 means a short road to success, but it 

 makes for a deeper delving beneath the 

 surface and imparts a better under- 

 standing of the true beauty and 

 grandeur of a career in the splendid 

 field of floriculture. Many promising 

 young men born in the profession are 



constantly being lost to it, because, as 

 practiced by their parents, it woefully 

 lacks attraction; which means that lit- 

 tle effort has been put forth to culti- 

 vate their liking for a noble, as well as 

 remunerative, life work. 



Among men of the old school there 

 existed a peculiar antipathy to book- 

 learning as applied to business. Hap- 

 pily, however, that sentiment is a thing 



of the past. Technical study, combined 

 with the practical experience that as- 

 sisting in the greenhouse and store af- 

 fords, is essential to the training of the 

 men of whom our vocation now stands 

 in most urgent need. The school of ex- 

 perience graduates countless men of un- 

 deniable ability; but as florists they 

 could have accomplished more with less 

 hardship, earlier in life, had they started 

 with the thorough knowledge of plant 

 life, the composition of soils and ac- 

 quaintance with insects and diseases, 

 which the technical course is designed 

 to afford. Numbered among the writer 's 

 contemporaries in the trade are a score 

 of young men who began tkeir business 

 careers with this great advantage. 

 Without exception they have steadily 

 risen to eminence. While some of them 

 might have succeeded anyway, their 

 early achievement of success is directly 

 attributable to their superior equipment. 

 ^ Mac. 



Wallingford, Pa. — Herbert Hamilton 

 is building a greenhouse to grow flowers 

 and vegetable plants. 



ll^txSill^I^liS^Iif^l^jyi^lASiJlXS^I^Syi^ 



FRUITS AND VEGETABLES 



CLXJB-ROOT ON LETTUCE. 



E. G. B. — O., has experienced the same 

 trouble with his lettuce that I have had 

 with mine. If he will pull some of it 

 up he will find the roots full of swelled 

 places, like little warts, or tubers. Some 

 growers call this condition club-root. 

 The only remedy I know of is to change 

 the soil. I have tried live steam and 

 have soaked the ground with formalin 

 solution in the proportion of one pint to 

 forty gallons of water, but to no avail. 

 However, some nodules or tubers are 

 essential to all legumes, as they are 

 caused by the bacteria present in the 

 soil. D. E. Whitson. 



two or three seasons, when some kind 

 of blight has appeared on them, which 

 causes the leaves to turn yellow about 

 the time the fruit begins to set. The 

 blight takes the whole plant in a short 

 time. The roots are all right and the 

 pith is good. The skin is green, but 

 the wood under the skin and around the 

 pith is brown and dead and the plant 

 withers and dies soon after being at- 

 tacked. This trouble is not caused by 

 red spider. It is a blight of some kind,, 

 which affects my cucumbers also. I 

 would appreciate advice on the subject, 

 as it looks as though this trouble might 

 put me out of business. 



A. H. K.— Kan. 



APHIS ON LETTUCE. 



I would like to have information on 

 spraying or fumigating for aphis on 

 lettuce in greenhouses and coldframes. 



E. B.— Ind. 



Spraying is not effective for control 

 of aphis on lettuce, as the pests are 

 always on the lower sides of the leaves, 

 which lie so close to the ground that in- 

 secticides cannot reach more than a part 

 of them. Fumigation with one of the 

 tobacco papers will be found effective 

 and perfectly safe. I would give fumi- 

 gations at intervals of a couple of 

 nights, as one dose may not kill all the 

 pests. Afterward I would advise fumi- 

 gation lightly every ten days, preven- 

 tion being better than cure with any 

 of these plant pests. Do not use to- 

 bacco stems. Even if carefully used 

 they will burn some of the foliage. 

 Tobacco dust is a more satisfactory 

 fumigant. C. W. 



BLIQHT ON TOMATOES. 



I grow tomatoes in my lettuce house 

 as a finish crop in the spring. I have 

 had success with them until the last 



It is probable that your soil has be- 

 come what is commonly called "tomato 

 sick," which would account for your 

 plants doing so poorly. You probably 

 have ground beds and not raised benches. 

 Ordinarily a rotation crop of lettuces, 

 followed by tomatoes or cucimibers, 

 proves satisfactory, provided that, after 

 one crop is cleared, a liberal application 

 of rotted manure is applied and thor- 

 oughly incorporated into the soil before 

 setting out the succession crop. Let- 

 tuces, like aJl leafy vegetables, are 

 heavy feeders and require a good deal 

 of nutrition from the soil. They are 

 a useless crop on starved soil. Have 

 you given your beds the necessary prep- 

 aration before setting out your toma- 

 toes and cucumbers? Sometimes even 

 the best preparation will not bring a 

 good crop and a sterilization of the soil 

 will be found helpful. During intensely 

 hot weather, tomatoes under glass some- 

 times suffer. Your state is warm and the 

 heat may have affected your tomatoes. 

 A dry atmosphere suits tomatoes, just 

 as a moist one is to the liking of cu- 

 cumbers. A spraying with Bordeaux 

 mixture will help to check diseases on 

 tomatoes. This should be applied be- 

 fore the trouble appears. C. W. 



