40 



The Florists" Review 



January 12. 1922 



CXiCN LETTCl^y^ UEADEEi^ 



VTCTIMIZINO NTTESERYMEN. 



I wish to call the attention of west- 

 ern florists to the fact that there is a 

 swindler, calling himself Tom Cameron, 

 operating on the west coast. This 

 gentleman presented himself at the East 

 Lawn Nursery, Sacramento, Cal., last 

 week, and intimated that he had been 

 held up and robbed of $145.00, all the 

 money he had in the world. He said 

 that he had been in London, England, 

 when the war involved this country. 

 He came over to this country to enlist 

 and then went to France with the 

 American army and was wounded there. 

 After the war he went to Canada, but, 

 on account of his wounds, could not 

 stand the cold, so he came to California. 



He professed to have worked in some 

 of the best places in Canada and Eng- 

 land. He said that he could not get 

 work in San Francisco and so came 

 here looking for a job. We agreed to 

 give him a job and advanced him $10 

 with which to pay his board. As he 

 failed to return, I am convinced that 

 he is a confidence man and I should, 

 therefore, like to warn other nursery- 

 men and florists to be on the lookout 

 for him. By exposing this person a 

 real service will be done the trade. He 

 is a young man, about 24 or 26 years 

 of age, has a good appearance and tells 

 a plausible story. East Lawn Nursery. 



DIXIE-NOURISHED DAHLIAS. 



I read with interest in The Review 

 for December 29, 1921, the inquiry of 

 M. L. W., of Texas, regarding the root- 

 ing of dahlia cuttings, and the reply 

 also. We hear little in the trade jour- 

 nals about the growing of dahlias in the 

 cotton states, so I, who have grown them 

 in the south for more than fifteen years, 

 am moved to give some of my experi- 

 ence. Now, I do not claim to know all 

 there is to know about growing the 

 dahlia, but I have been successful with 

 my crops. 



I have grown cuttings in pots in the 

 greenhouse, but I believe that I have 

 found a better and an easier way. In 

 the first place, I do not see what any- 

 one would want of cuttings here rooted 

 in January or March. Here 's how I do 

 it: The tubers are buried in late No- 

 vember or early December in a perfectly 

 dry bench under a building. Last spring, 

 about the middle of April, they were 

 taken out. At one place a little rain had 

 blown in and the tubers at that place 

 were a little damp; consequently, they 

 sprouted. I did not desire to plant until 

 May 15 to June 15, so I simply broke 

 off these sprouts and put the tubers 

 away for later planting. These sprouts 

 were from one and one-half to five 

 inches long, with not a leaf on them, and 

 either light pink in color or the color of 

 bleached celery. 



I put these in a bed in the garden. I 

 made rows about four inches apart and 

 put the sprouts about two or three 

 inches apart in the rows. The lot were 

 covered with a frame of cheesecloth and 

 were within reach of the hose. 



After this I gave them no further at- 

 tention, just keeping them damp. The 

 plants grew to touch the cheesecloth. At 

 that time the cloth was removed. From 

 these tubers I had this bed full of the 

 best plants I have ever handled. Out of 

 200 sprouts not more than five per cent 

 failed to make plants. 



I have rooted cuttings when the leaves 

 were formed, but I prefei^them rooted 

 before that time. Sometimes, when I 

 have a choice variety I am anxious to 

 increase rapidly, I bury the clump in the 

 garden in sand and take it out and 

 break off the sprouts as they appear. 

 No one needs a greenhouse or pots of 

 any kind for dahlia growing in Dixie. 

 K. L. Atkinson. 



autumn shades are all the rage in dah- 

 lias, and rightly so, for are they not 

 appropriate to the season of dahlias t 

 No other colors can compare with them 

 in the exquisite blendings of deep 

 cream, amber, old gold, orange, brown, 

 fawn, dove, salmon, etc., in their many 

 combinations. 



Perhaps it is a matter of habit with 

 those florists, and others, who cling to 

 the colors of years ago exclusively, but 

 anyone once using the autumn shades 

 effectively and appropriately will as- 

 suredly be a convert to their use. 



E. L. Kunzman. 



AUTUMN SHADES IN DAHLIAS. 



As one notes the innumerable and 

 beautiful autumn shades of dahlias on 

 the markets nowadays, one must wonder 

 at the fact that not until recent years 

 was the autumn color considered de- 

 sirable in dahlias. Even today there 

 are many districts, mainly rural, how- 

 ever, where these shades are not con- 

 sidered, the prevailing colors being 

 white and pink, with a few yellow 

 and a few red. In the most cultured 

 centers, however, especially in the ex- 

 treme eastern and western states, the 



SAND SAFER IN UTAH. 



When C. W. answered B. N. 8., of 

 Utah, in The Review for December 29, 

 in regard to whether or not cinders 

 were injurious to pot plants when placed 

 on the benches to hold moisture, he did 

 not take into consideration that a great 

 deal of the Utah coal contains ^kali 

 and the cinders from it are, therefore, 

 unfit to use on benches for setting plants 

 on them. It checks the plants' growth, 

 even if it does not always kill them. In 

 Utah sand is safer than cinders. 



F. W. Sobransky. 



NOT BARBERRY. 



I am sending you a specimen of what 

 is said here to be barberry. I should 

 like to know the true name. 



M. F. J.— Va. 



The small shoot and fruits, which 

 were almost crumpled to powder when 

 they arrived, are not barberries, but 

 Symphoricarpos vulgaris, or Indian cur- 

 rant. C. W. 



THE COST or COAL. 



The coal trade is in the middle of a 

 depressed condition without parallel in 

 the history of the industry and, as the 

 cost of fuel is one of the largest items 

 of expense in operating greenhouses, the 

 subject is one of special interest to us. 

 Frank S. Peabody explains the present 

 prices of coal by pointing to the labor 

 cost. "There are," he says "10,000 

 coal mines in the United States today, 

 as against 6,000 mines at the beginning 

 of the war. Those 6,000 mines at the 

 beginning of the war, if operated 250 

 days per annum, were able at that time 

 to supply the entire demands of the 

 United States, including the export 

 tra^e, and the same is true now. Those 

 6,000 mines could today take care of 

 every ton of coal that can be burned in 

 the United States, and for export, even 

 if business today were normal. There 

 are enough miners, if the mines were 

 worked 250 days per annum, to produce 

 twice the amount of coal the United 

 States could use. Consequently the men 

 are idle half the time, but must earn dur- 

 ing the period at work sufficient to live 

 during those idle days. The unions hold 

 for $8, $9 and $10 a day for their men." 



But the inexorable law of supply and 

 demand is beginning to get in its work. 

 The Black Diamond says: "The wage 



question is the matter of prime impor- 

 tance at this time. In union fields, where 

 the range in wages has been widened as 

 between those paid in non-union fields, 

 more and more mines were being forced 

 to close down, since the producers are 

 unable to meet the competition of coal 

 produced at a lower cost. The week saw 

 smokeless coal moving in the central 

 western markets on a mine-run basis at 

 $2 a ton on contract, which makes this 

 grade a real competitor for all Indiana 

 and Illinois domestic sizes. In the east 

 a similar situation exists, non-union coal 

 from West Virginia more and more eat- 

 ing into the markets formerly absorbing 

 a comparatively large tonnage of union 

 outputs. Some operators in the union 

 fields have definitely taken the policy of 

 shutting down their mines until a wage 

 adjustment downward is effected next 

 April." 



The wage agreements between mine 

 owners and labor unions run out March 

 31. Efforts already are being made by 

 the employers to get the unions to agree 

 to a new basis for next season, but the 

 union officials are holding off, realizing 

 that any change which brings lower cost 

 of coal to the consumer must result in 

 sending many men out of the mining in- 

 dustry, those who remain to do increased 

 work for the same amount of money. 



