JONB 10, 1915. 



The Florists' Review 



17 



Establishment of the Cudahy Floral Co., at Cudahy, Vis., Just South of Milwaukee. 



as an investment proposition. For many 

 years people of wealth have valued 

 greenhouses as fine things for country 

 estates and the fact that shrewd busi- 

 ness men of the type of Mr. Cudahy 

 are taking up greenhouses commer- 

 cially is a good indication that the 

 freenhouse business in the United 

 tates has come to be one of the coun- 

 try's standard industries. 



The Cudahy establishment consists 

 of four iron-frame houses, each 58x320 

 feet. The service building is 58x75 

 feet, with walls eighteen feet high. 

 The front of the building, facing the 

 street, has several openings for unload- 

 ing coal, and the coal pit is concrete 

 on one side and boarded inside and 

 outside on two sides. In front of the 

 building is a concrete drive, so that 

 wagons can drive right up to the win- 

 dows and unload the fuel. The service 

 building contains two boilers, of 125 

 horsepower each. The boilers are par- 

 titioned off from the rest of the build- 

 ing, which contains a large office, pack- 

 ing room and a pump room with a 

 double set of boiler feed and vacuum 

 pumps. 



Each house in the range contains 

 nine 4-foot benches. In the house next 

 to the service building are five benches 

 of Beauties, two benches of Russell and 

 two benches of Richmond. This house 

 was planted June 13, 1914. The second 

 house contains two benches of Bulgarie, 

 one bench of Sunburst, one bench of 

 Shawjer, one bench of Killarney, two 

 benches of Killarney Brilliant and two 

 benches of Ward. This house was 

 planted July 3, 1914. The third house 

 contains Killarney and White Killar- 

 ney and was planted August 1, 1914. 

 The fourth house is devoted entirely 

 to carnations and was planted August 

 17, 1914. About the middle of Decem- 

 ber this range averaged a shipment of 

 about 10,000 roses per week, cut from 

 approximately 30,000 plants. The Amer- 

 ican Beauties, of which there are 4,600 

 plants, produced well during December, 

 giving an average cut of about 1,000 

 flowers per week, of which approxi- 

 mately sixty per cent were long- 

 stemmed. The output is all shipped to 

 the commission house of Gust Rusch & 

 Co., in Milwaukee. 



It is a policy of the manager, G. W. 

 Scott, who was formerly with O. C. 

 Barber, at Barberton, O., to arrange his 

 stock so that he has blooms coming all 

 the time; he does not crop any of his 

 stock. Mr. Scott is of the opinion that 

 this method improves the condition of 

 the plants and allows him to get a 

 more even price, and he also thinks 

 there is an advantage in that the roots 

 are always kept active, especially the 

 first year. 



The growers say they have had ex- 

 ceptional results with Bulgarie and 

 Russell and that they have had little 

 trouble with Bulgarie coming blind. 

 Mr. Scott is an advocate of wide 

 houses. In regard to this he says: "I 

 think our success is due in great part 

 to our large, wide houses, which are 

 so airy that the atmosphere feels just 

 as sweet and pure as it does in the 

 open; this is getting near to natural 

 conditions." 



The houses were built by the John C. 

 Moninger Co., which also installed the 

 vacuum heating system. Mr. Scott, who 

 enjoys taking trade visitors through 

 the place, has the following to say re- 

 garding this part of the range: "I 

 was afraid there would be a great vari- 

 ation in the temperature from one end 

 to the other end of the houses, because 

 of the length of the heating coils, these 

 being 320 feet long, but I find that my 

 fears were unfounded, as we are able 

 to preserve an even temperature. This, 

 I think, is due partly to the large vol- 

 ume of air in such houses, and its 

 ability to resist winds and outside con- 

 ditions. I also think this large volume 

 of air is partly responsible for the fact 

 that we suffer little from insect pests, 

 such as thrips or aphis, or from fungous 

 disease. Throughout the winter we 

 had practically no black spot or mildew 

 and as proof of this we grew Shawyer, 

 the most easy victim of mildew, in the 



View in one of the Wide Houses at Cudahy, Wis. 



