MAbCH 18, 1915. 



The Florists^ Review 



47 



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WILL CARNATION COME BACK? 



IT NEVER WENT. 



II m II III II HI II rn ii iii 



If til 



I ILL the car- 

 nation come 

 back? What 

 a question ! 

 No, the car- 

 nation will 

 not come 

 b.'ck. It is here. The only ques- 

 ti(^n is how much abuse it will be 

 aUe to withstand and still hold 

 it- popularity with the people. 

 Ei'mund A. Harvey's paper, printed in 

 Tie Eeview for March 11, suggests a 

 fe'>v observations that, I think, have a 

 di ect bearing on the subject. 



Mr. Harvey suggests that the hybrid- 

 izers pay more attention to fragrance. 

 That fragrance has been one of the 

 potent factors in making the carnation 

 popular with the public, no one can 

 deny, and the grower and hybridizer is 

 just as much aware of the fact as any- 

 one. But has the grower ever received 

 any encouragement from the retailer, 

 or the public either, to work for fra- 

 grance in his blooms f True, occasion- 

 ally one hears a comment on the carna- 

 tions of today not being as fragrant 

 as those in the olden days, etc. That 

 is as far as it goes. Nearly every 

 grower knows that if he offers the 

 Btoreman two varieties, one a large 

 flower without fragrance, and the other 

 a half -inch smaller and quite fragrant, 

 the smaller bloom will be turned down 

 for the larger one even though the 

 quality in every other respect be ex- 

 actly equal. I have frequently asserted 

 that just as soon as the retailer and 

 the public are willing to put a market 

 value on fragrance, the hybridizer will 

 produce varieties possessing this most 

 desirable quality. 



Size vs. Keeping Quality. 



The same is true of keeping quality. 

 I need only cite the career of Pink De- 

 light as an example. From the start, 

 the trade has known that this variety 

 will outkeep Enchantress nearly two to 

 one, and yet, how many growers have 

 displaced Enchantress with Pink De- 

 lightf Its only drawback is that it is 

 not quite so large. The color is at least 

 as good; it is quite as free, and it does 

 not split. If the storeman will taboo the 

 varieties that he knows will not keep as 

 Well as other varieties in the same color, 

 Wo will soon have less complaint about 

 the poor keeping of carnation blooms. 



That there are varieties in all colors 

 thit will keep as well as any of the 

 ol;' sorts no one can deny. Matchless 

 wil keep as well as any of them. Pink 

 !>< light will do the same. Gloriosa is 

 nor far behind, and Rosette is noted 

 fo: its keeping and shipping qualities. 

 St. Nicholas, in scarlet, and Pocahontas, 

 ^ crimson, will never give anyone 

 traible, and Yellow Prince will travel 

 ^■cross the continent in good shape. The 

 8a ne may be said of Mrs. C. W. Ward. 

 ^'' these have enough quality to sat- 

 '8f/ the most , fastidious. 

 , ••'ew storemen keep posted on the va- 

 ^<tie8 of carnations as they should. 

 When they order, it is so many white 



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or so many flesh pink or medium pink, 

 etc. And when they get them, they 

 don't know whether a bunch of red is 

 Beacon or Portia. 



The above observations all concern 

 the storeman. Perhaps I should not in- 

 clude them all in one class, because 

 there are some who really do discrimi- 

 nate and try to eliminate the faults 

 enumerated, and from these we hear 

 little complaint. They work in har- 

 mony with the growers who supply 

 them, and each helps the other in put- 

 ting before the public carnations that 

 do give satisfaction. It is the store- 

 men who scorn the name "florist" 



Tbe Kdltor Is pleased 

 wben a Reader 

 presents bis Ideas 

 on any subject treated tn 



t^jtuz 



As experience Is tbe best 

 teacber, so do we 

 leam fastest by an 

 ezcbansre of experiences. 

 Many valuable points 

 arebrougbt out 

 by discussion. 



Good penmanship, spellintr snd 

 irrammar, though desirable, are not 

 necessary. Write as you would talk 

 when doing your best. 



WX SHAIX BX GLAD 

 TO HEAR FROM TOU 



(they call themselves "merchants") 

 that do the howling. To them a white 

 carnation is a white carnation, a pink 

 one is a pink one, and a deep cerise 

 may even be called red at times. To 

 them there is no beauty in a flower ex- 

 cept as it represents so many dollars 

 and cents of profit. We need more re- 

 tail "florists" and fewer "merchants." 

 The troubles of the carnation should 

 not all be laid at the door of the store- 

 man, however. He contributes his 

 share, but the grower contributes his 

 share as well. Knowing, as he does, 

 that the retail customer will grab for 



the large bloom, he 

 feeds his plants beyond 

 reason in order to get 

 size at tbe expense of 

 substance. 



Perhaps his worst of- 

 fense is in his method 

 of marketing his products. He 

 will work early and late to pro- 

 duce the finest stock he knows 

 how, only to ruin it in getting it 

 to the market. Have we not seen him 

 take a hundred carnation blooms of 

 the finest quality, tied in bunches of 

 twenty-five, and wrap them in paper 

 as though he were wrapping a bundle 

 of dry goods! 



When he ships by express, he bunches 

 the blooms, wrapping the stems with 

 twine within a few inches of the 

 blooms, so that the bunch looks more 

 like a head of cabbage than so many 

 individual blooms. When he packs 

 them in the box, he wads them into 

 one solid mass, the bottom bunches 

 bearing the weight of the entire lot. 

 Could any carnation bloom, could a 

 bloom of any flower, be expected to 

 come through such abuse loqking any- 

 thing like it did when it was cut from 

 the plant? I have seen thousands of 

 them, and invariably they look like a 

 rag on the end of a stick. There is no 

 form to the flower, even if it is not 

 bruised beyond using. A few days ago 

 I saw, in a well known wholesale house, 

 a person wrapping 400 carnation blooms 

 in one bundle. What do you think they 

 looKed like when unwrapped? 

 Abased in Handling. 



In many of the wholesale houses you 

 will see great mounds of carnation 

 blooms lying on the tables. They are 

 taken from the shipping boxes, where 

 4;hey had been at least over night, and 

 laid out on the tables without having 

 been in water since starting to market. 

 They are left until nearly noon if un- 

 sold, which means eighteen hours out 

 of water. Can such blooms be expected 

 to keep satisfactorily? 



The whole system for handling car- 

 nation blooms is wrong. Any bloom 

 that is supposed to preserve its indi- 

 viduality should be handled individ- 

 ually. When the carnation growers who 

 ship their product return to the method 

 of packing their blooms in layers in- 

 stead of in bunches, they will realize 

 better returns, and the carnation will 

 continue in popular favor. No flower 

 with the natural beauty of the carna- 

 tion can go out of public favor, if it is 

 put into the hands of the public in its 

 original beauty. 



I can hear some of our wholesale 

 men snort at the idea of going back 

 to the slow and tedious method of han- 

 dling carnations singly instead of in 

 bunches. To them, speed is everything. 

 The more dollars' worth of blooms each 

 man can handle in a given time, the 

 more efl5cient they believe themselves 

 to be. We cannot fail to recognize 

 speed as a considerable part of efll- 

 ciency, but it is not all of it, and unless 



