464 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



January 19, 1905. 



the pots in a suitable place since plant- 

 ing. How will I proceed to get the 

 desired result! R. P. 



You potted all your bulbs much too 

 late, yet if the hyacinths, narcissi and 

 tulips are outside and covered with three 

 or four inches of soil or tanbark and 

 stable litter or leaves, you will have no 

 trouble in flowering them finely at Eas- 

 ter. This festival arrives so late this 



year that these bulbs will be far ad- 

 vanced and other years when Easter came 

 as late we found that two weeks in the 

 greenhouse was plenty of time to bring 

 them into flower. Don't forget that. 

 The Lalium Harrisii potted as late as 

 December 6 will hardly have made any 

 top growth as yet and would be better in 

 50 degrees at night and about middle of 

 February give them the 60 degrees tem- 

 perature. W. S. 



CARNATION NOTES.-EAST. 



Selection in Propagation. 



I will venture the statement that you 

 are anxious to improve or at least to 

 keep every variety you grow up to stand- 

 ard and have decided on what sorts you 

 will continue. During daily attention to 

 watering, disbudding, cutting, etc., you 

 have no doubt noticed some particularly 

 vigorous and shapely plants, or others 

 from which numerous blooms have been 

 cut. It is well to take careful note of 

 the quality of bloom from these plants as 

 an aid in deciding what plants are worthy 

 of becoming ancestors. 



In a bench of 1,000 or 2,000 you can 

 single out 100 or 200 and treat them as 

 stodc plants without materially affect- 

 ing the cut of bloom. 



Propagation by cuttings is supposed to 

 produce plants exactly like the parent, 

 but we know this is not literally true. 

 Probably if the same conditions could be 

 maintained as were during the growth 

 of the parent plant, there would be no 

 perceptible variation but this is a physi- 

 cal impossibility, owing to conditions be- 

 yond our control, and it is well this is 

 so, as it is these variations that allow 

 selection of higher or improved types. 



Inasmuch as the hybridizer must select 

 vigorous parents to produce varieties of 

 superior merit, so must the grower, to 

 maintain these meritorious qualities, 

 choose his young stock from plants ap- 

 proaching the nearest to perfection, or, 

 as stock breeders say, from thorough- 

 breds. 



Heavy feeding or strong forcing for 

 the production of large quantities of 

 bloom is not conducive to the making of 

 thoroughbreds, as by this means the 

 greater part of the energy is expended 

 in the efforts of increase through the 

 medium of seed, while our plan is to 

 employ cuttings. 



As advised in former years, and inti- 

 mated above, the ideal way to obtain 

 strong, desirable cuttings is to grow 

 plants for the purpose. I do not mean 

 Dy this that they should be prevented 

 from blooming, for, on <the contrary, 

 there are good reasons why they should 

 be allowed to do so, but under restric- 

 tion. 



It is an unvarying law of nature that 

 the ability or power of a plant to flower 

 or increase will d^enerate and be lost by 

 disuse; that is, if prevention from bloom- 

 ing is carried too far this property will 

 become impaired or destroyed and the 



whole plant weakened. On the other hand 

 if restricted to the extent that its gland 

 system can replace the worn out parts, 

 the plant gains vigor. 



Now, if you have a thrifty batch of a 

 paying variety and wish to grow it 

 largely next year, do not trim the plants 

 to bare poles and ride it hard for cut- 

 tiugs. Better take two years in work- 

 ing up a vigorous stock by careful se- 

 lection than to take chances of board- 

 ing a lot of "would bes" and "has 

 beens" next winter. If the variety pos- 

 sesses true merit you cannot get all 

 there is in it during one season. We see 

 examples every year of sterling varieties 

 joining the silent majority through the 

 mad rush for cuttings. 



Geo. S. Osborn. 



CARNATION NOTES.— WEST. 



Value of the National Meeting. 



Have you arranged to attend the 

 American Carnation Society's convention 

 at Chicago next week? If you have not 

 made up your mind to go you had bet- 

 ter do so at once. It will pay you 

 handsomely for the time and money it 

 will cost. The exhibition alone will 

 be worth going many miles to see, to 

 say nothing of the valuable information 

 one always gathers at such a place. 

 There you will see all the new candi- 

 dates of the year, besides those of re- 

 cent years, and you can compare them 

 and select those you may want to in- 

 vest in. If you have already ordered 

 some new ones you will be sure to meet 

 the originator, and you can talk to him 

 about their peculiarities and their likes 

 and dislikes, and you will be «ure to 

 have better success with them as a re- 

 sult. 



Then, again, you will be able fo see 

 how your own stock compares with that 

 from the best growers of the land. If 

 you bought some new ones laat spring 

 and they have disappointed you, you 

 may run across some grower who is 

 showing some extra fine blooms of those 

 same varieties and you can find out 

 from him where you have erred. 



If you have some extra fine stock your- 

 self and ynu imagine there is none so 

 good in the land, take a bunch along and 

 show them what you can do. You may 

 change your mind after you see some of 

 the other fellow's stuff. If you have 

 some pet seedlings, by all means take 

 some along and compare them with those 

 from other jarrowers. It's the best place 

 in the world to see whether you are 

 keening up with the procession in your 

 work. If "vou have some extra ordinarilv 



good ones you will profit immensely by 

 having shown them and, on the other 

 hand, if they are not as good as you ' 

 imagine it will help you to make up 

 your mind to discard those that are not 

 up to the mark. 



But don't think that your free bloom- 

 ing varieties will have to measure in 

 size with the largest blooms you see 

 there. Your variety may be much more 

 profitable than the large one, and most 

 probably it will be. So when you se- 

 lect the varieties you wish to buy, don't 

 be influenced too much by the size, but 

 find out all you can about freedom and 

 the quality of culture required, etc. Al- 

 ways bear in mind that these bloom» 

 are in most cases grown by expert grow- 

 ers and have received the very highest 

 possible culture and that another va- 

 riety which looks far inferior, if it had 

 the same degree of culture, perhaps it 

 would show up just a» good. A very 

 good illustration of how misleading the 

 list of prize winners might be occurred 

 at Detroit last March, when Alba de- 

 feated Lady Bountiful, The Belle, and 

 several others. Those who have grown 

 these varieties know how much inferior 

 Alba is to the others as a money maker. 

 The varieties that produce the largest 

 bloom and score the highest are not 

 necessarily the most profitable ones for 

 the commercial grower. See how the 

 variety Adonis has been laying all other 

 reds low, but I have yet to see the 

 grower who wa« able to make any money 

 out of it. So don't be carried off your 

 feet by the fine appearance of a variety 

 unless you are satisfied that it has the 

 health and freedom necessary to make 

 it profitable. 



And after you have absorbed all the 

 information and good in general there 

 is to be had, don't be so ungrateful as 

 to leave without becoming a member of 

 the society. The two-dollar fee will 

 not hurt you, but it vrill help the so- 

 cietv to keep up. It is the only means 

 of income the society has. and think 

 of what this society has done for everv- 

 grower of carnations! Besides it will 

 give you admission to the banquet, 

 which alone is worth several times the 

 price, and surely you would not impose 

 upon your friend who is a member, by 

 asking him to take you in. He may not 

 want to refuse you, but he really has 

 no right to take you in and he cannot 

 if the committee in charge does its duty. 

 So plank down your two dollars and 

 join the society that has done you more 

 real good than any benefit society ymi 

 have ever belonged to. 



A. P. J. Batjb. 



CARNATIONS FOR SUMMER. 



I have a bench of American Beauty 

 roses that have, I might say, failed, due 

 I think to the use of wood ashes too 

 freely. The Beauties did very well up 

 to about September. We used a barrel 

 of ashes to a bench 5x110 feet. About 

 September the foliage began to yellow, 

 flowers short-stemmed and of little value. 

 I have a flne lot of Enchantress and 

 Lawson just potted in 3-inch pots. Will 

 it do to take the Beauties out, turn the 

 soil and plant the carnations for sum- 

 mer blooming f My intention is to pull 

 these out again in the autumn and re- 

 plant for winter blooming. J. H. 



If the wood a^es were strong enough 

 to seriously injure your Beauties I cer- 

 tainly would not advise you to plant an^-- 

 thing else in the same soil. Better take 



