DICBUBEB 29, 1921 



The Rorists^ Review 



27 



LAOS OF SUNSHINE FELT. 



Our carnations are not doing well; the 

 utems are weak and the flowers small. 

 The buds on our sweet peas will not 

 develop; they appear yellow and then 

 dry up. We are sending you a specimen 

 of these carnations and sweet peas, to- 

 gether with some of the soil in which 

 they were grown. Will you kindly 

 examine these and advise us what can 

 be done to better conditions? 



A. E.— Pa. 



There is nothing radically wrong with 

 your soil. The weak stems and small 

 blooms may be the result of late plant- 

 ing or failure of the plants to take hold 

 readily after being benched. Water 

 and ventilate carefully, and in time they 

 will come along in good shape. The 

 sweet pea bud dropping is caused by the 

 lack of sunshine, the soil having little 

 if anything to do with it. Experiments 

 are being conducted for the purpose of 

 discovering control methods. Careful 

 watering, ventilating and feeding will 

 help some, but the general feeling seems 

 to be that a lack of sunlight is really at 

 the bottom of the trouble. A. F. J. B. 



WAKD WITH "WILD GROWTH." 



Last spring we bought 2,500 rooted 

 cuttings of Mrs. C. W. Ward carnations 

 and planted them in the field in due 

 time. It was a dry, hot summer, but 

 the cuttings looked good when received 

 and the plants were good, though small, 

 when we benched them in the fall. They 

 were a little slow to start, but recently 

 they have grown rapidly. We find, how- 

 ever, that nearly all are making peculiar 

 growth. They are extremely short- 

 jointed, like the specimen sent you, and 

 at nearly every joint a cutting has 

 started. At first we thought the 

 growths were all going to be blind, but 

 in the last few days flower buds have 

 been appearing on a good many of them. 

 Do you think we shall get a profitable 

 crop of flowers from these plants and 

 would you recommend taking cuttings 

 from them? S. B.— 111. 



The shoot submitted had every ap- 

 pearance of being what is called 

 "wild growth." It is not certain as to 

 the cause of this growth. It is just 

 possible that the unfavorable growing 

 conditions during the summer, followed 

 by rich culture since being housed, may 

 have induced this unnatural growth. 

 The most common cause of trouble of 

 this kind, however, is improper selection 

 of cuttings. A plant of this kind will 

 appear in a bench and the propagator, 

 seeing the abundant and vigorous-look- 

 ing cuttings, will proceed to take them 

 off for propagating. As these plants 

 produce young shoots in such abun- 

 dance, it requires but a few seasons to 

 get a preponderance of this kind of 

 plant. We have talked with several 

 persons this fall who are having trouble 

 of this kind. 



These Mrs. Ward will probably throw 

 buds later on, but not in such abundance 

 as normal plants would do. Being well 

 into the season, you could probably not 

 replant with anything else that would 

 pay you better. If these plants persist 

 in this kind of growth, you should not 

 propagate from them. Buy your new 

 stock from a source which you know is 

 free from that kind of trouble. 



A. P. J. B, 



CAJINATION STEMS WEAK. 



What can I do to make the stems of 

 my carnations stiff and erect? I can 

 grow a long stem, but as soon as the 

 flower opens the stems seem to be too 

 weak. I have used lime, bone meal, etc., 

 and have dissolved one-half ounce of 

 muriate of potash to a gallon of water 

 and have applied this to about a yard 

 square of bench. Their growth is 

 healthy. ». D.— Ga. 



If you were in this latitude, you would 

 have done about all that should be done 

 in the way of doping your plants to 

 stiffen the stems. But you are in the 

 sunny south, where growing conditions 

 are surely more favorable than here. 

 You can safely use much more fertilizer 



during the winter months than we can. 

 Certainly you should have no difficulty 

 in keeping the carnation stems stiff. 



You have much more sunshine and 

 your climate is milder, permitting you to 

 give abundant ventilation most of the 

 time. These are the biggest factors in 

 imparting this quality. Little trouble 

 is experienced in this latitude until the 

 shorter days, with diminished sunlight 

 and colder temperature, necessitating 

 the closing of the ventilators a large 

 portion of the time. 



The most successful growers make a 

 practice of opening the ventilators at 

 least a few hours each day, if at all pos- 

 sible, to change the atmosphere. You 

 will find your clue in the above sugges- 

 tions. Your soil may be light, which 

 would have a tendency to produce weak 

 stems. In that case use cattle manure 

 for mulching and fertilizers that are 

 rich in potash and do not forget to give 

 abundant ventilation at every oppor- 

 tunity. A. F. J. B. 



TIMING CARNATION CROP. 



Would like to have you tell me how 

 long it takes to make carnations bloom 

 from the size of a cutting. J. P. — Mo. 



You cannot regulate your crop of 

 carnation blooms by the time you take 

 the cuttings; this can be done only by 

 timing your benching and topping after 

 the plants become established. If you 

 bench during July and cease topping by 

 the middle of August, you ought to have 

 a good crop of blooms by midwinter. 



A. F. J. B. 



ODCN LCTTCl^y*- DEADEEiB 



OUR COLUMNS ARE OPEN. 



The preliminary report of the census 

 on the greenhouse industry of the 

 United States contains much interesting 

 matter, particularly to owners of green- 

 houses. 



Assuming a fuel expenditure per thou- 

 sand feet of glass per season of ten tons 

 of hard coal and twenty tons of soft 

 coal at $12 and $6 per ton respectively, 

 the fuel cost would equal $120 per thou- 

 sand feet of glass per season. 



Using this figure on the total glass 

 area of the United States, it would show 

 a fuel cost of $19,484,231, or twenty-five 

 per cent of the total products sold, set 

 at $77,380,230. If the greenhouse owner 

 would only realize that out of every 

 dollar's worth of plants he sells he must 

 set aside one-fourth of it, or 25 cents, 

 for fuel, it would forcibly impress upon 

 him that the question of fuel costs is 

 the most important factor in the busi- 

 ness. 



Now that there are some thoroughly 

 reliable figures on greenhouse glass in 

 use, don't you think it would be inter- 

 esting to your readers if florists would 

 write you making comparisons with the 

 figures given by the census and their 

 own output in value and fuel cost? 



If, by investigation and education, 

 ten per cent of this fuel cost could be 

 eliminated, it would mean $2,000,000 to 



the greenhouse owners of the United 

 States. 



This letter is to ask that you throw 

 open your columns for discussion on this 

 subject and solicit letters from growers 

 giving their personal experience on this 

 subject. Giblin & Co. 



KIRCHHOFF OF PEMBROKE. 



In The Review for December 1, page 

 64, there appeared an announcement re- 

 garding the changing of our address 

 from Pembroke, N. Y., to Albion, N. Y. 

 The company has not moved, for Kirch- 

 hoff, gladioli and Pembroke are a clover- 

 leaf so well formed in the minds of the 

 public that we would never separate 

 the three. The W. E. Kirchhoff Co. is 

 still at Pembroke, with a branch at Al- 

 bion, N. Y., which is in charge of W. E. 

 Kirchhoff, Jr. It was his address that 

 was changed. 



Perhaps it would interest readers of 

 The Review to know just what we are 

 doing. W. E. Kirchhoff, Rr., is devoting 

 most of his time to the hybridizing of 

 gladioli at Pembroke and is introducing 

 several varieties, such as Kirchhoff 's 

 Violet, Glory of Pembroke, Mrs. W. E. 

 Kirchhoff, the purest ruffled white, Mrs. 

 W. J. Palmer and Miss Allegra Hamil- 

 toa. These varieties liave attracted 

 much attention at trade conventions and 

 have received much favorable comment 



