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1226 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



April 13, 1905. 



Establishment of S. B. Chester, East Liverpool, Ohio. 



them. Go them one better and the 

 crowd will come your way and the gen- 

 eral store will find flower sales of no 

 value to them. A great many florists 

 are doing it. Notice the dozens of thou- 

 sand-lot orders that go out of Chicago 

 and other large cities every Friday. ' ' 



Said another house: "We believe 

 that we ship as many flowers to Kansas 

 City as any firm in Chicago. We ship 

 to the leading retailers, to the fellows 

 with less elaborate fixtures, but who 

 nevertheless do business, and we ship to 

 the department stores. And there is 

 one thing we can truthfully say, that 

 there is no place from Pittsburg to Den- 

 ver, or from the Twin Cities to New 

 Orleans, where the florist's business is 

 increasing at the rate it is in Kansas 

 City, the city where the department 

 stores sell cut flowers by the wagon load 

 at cost every Saturday in spring. ' ' 



THE USE OF CONCRETE. 



Can one of the readers instruct me 

 which materials and how much of them 

 it will take to make a good mixture for 

 concrete? My boiler cellar will have to 

 he six feet -deep in the ground. 



R. A. V. 



This is a question that is of interest 

 and importance. For greenhouse bench- 

 es, walls of greenhouse, imitation blocks 

 of stone for house basements and many 

 other purposes, cement and sand are fast 

 displacing the natural stone or bricks. 

 As an instance of this, our locality .is 

 blessed with an abundance of limestone 

 for building purposes, and there are also 

 several large manufacturers of hydraulic 

 cement, sold here at 75 cents per barrel. 

 Yet the great Lackawanna Steel Co., in 

 erecting their mammoth buildings on 

 the outskirts of this city, used exclusive- 

 ly cement for foundations and walls, 

 and the foundations of their largest 

 building costing $80,000 for concrete 

 alone. 



We have used concrete for the floors 

 of stoke holes and for the walls of same. 

 For walls of stoke holes or any cellar 

 where little weight is carried eight 

 inches is thick enough. Use four parts 

 of sand to one part of cement. Now, 

 there are several kinds of this hydraulic 

 cement. There is our common cement, 

 which is probably manufactured in many 

 localities. Then there is the American 

 Portland, and there is also sold the 

 genuine English Portland, which is not 

 made from a rock at all and is alto- 

 gether too expensive for our use. The 

 common cement is all you want. In 

 mixing with sand for use, first thor- 

 oughly mix the sand and the dry 

 cement, then add the water, mixing with 

 a hoe as you add the water, and be sure 



not to make it too wet. It should ap- 

 pear to you rather on the dry side. It* 

 proper consistency is this: When you 

 shovel it into tiie wall and tamp it 

 with a wooden rammer, if moisture, or 

 perhaps I should say water, appears on 

 the surface, then you have it right. For 

 a dwelling house cellar floor or a cel- 

 lar where you are going to keep flowers, 

 this concrete will do very well, but 

 should be finished off with a coat of 

 one-fourth inch of half cement and lialf 

 sand finely sifted and made quite thin, 

 so that it will make a smooth, perfect- 

 ly even surface. 



Now, for a stoke hole or boiler house 

 floor, where heavy lumps of coal are 

 smashing around, and more especially 

 shoveling is continually going on, I 

 much prefer a brick 'floor. Make the 

 surface quite even, but with a slight 

 grade to the sewer. Then spread half 

 an inch or so of dry sand over it, so 

 that your bricks make an even surface. 

 Let there be a half-inch space between 

 each brick, which, of course, should be 

 laid flat. When your bricks are in 

 place, mix some cement half and half 

 with sand and wet until very thin. 

 Spread it on the brkk floor with a 

 scoop shovel or pail and sweep into the 

 spaces between the bricks with a corn 

 broom and you will have a floor that 

 will last longer than you will. 



You must excuse me, Mr. Editor, for 

 going into this cement business at much 

 greater length than the plain question 

 required, yet there may be a hint for 

 some other beginner in cement construc- 

 tion, and I do feel slightly competent 

 to have an opinion, for during the first 

 few years of my American education it 

 was my pleasure (?) to mix and lay 

 several hundred barrels of cement for 



cellar floors and very recently I have 

 used the same material for cellar walls 

 and low walls for greenhouse beds. 

 While four parts of sand to one of 

 cement is the thing for a wall of, say, 

 six to eight feet in height, a little wall 

 for a rose or carnation bed, which is 

 seldom over a foot in height by four 

 inches thick, can be five parts of sand 

 to one of cement and will be amply 

 strong. William Scott. 



MECHANICAL WATERING. 



Since the sub-irrigation idea became 

 pretty thoroughly exploded, at least so 

 far as concerns commercial growers, at- 

 tention has been turned toward mechant- 

 cal and semi-automatic devices for 

 watering the* plants on or in greenhouse 

 benches. The best invention of this char- 

 acter to date is that of C. W. Skinner, 

 Troy, O. This, as is quite well under- 

 stood, consists of a line of pipe with 

 small patent nozzles inserted at short in- 

 tervals, producing a rain-like spray. This 

 pipe is fitted to turn on a swivel, so 

 that the spray may be directed over a 

 large radius. The device has not yet 

 been thoroughly tested for use in plant 

 houses or cut flower houses, but its ap- 

 plication to vegetable houses, particu- 

 larly where lettuce is grown, was suc- 

 cessful from the first. 



One of the accompanying illustra- 

 tions shows the establishment of S. B. 

 Chester, the president of the Cleveland 

 Market Gardeners' Association, and one 

 of the most progressive of the younger 



§ rowers in that section. He has the 

 kinner device in four connected houses 

 30x150 feet, which are used exclusively 

 for lettuce. There are no benches in 

 these houses and the heating is by hot 

 water from two Furman boilers, the pip- 



S. B. Chestei^s Lettuce House with Irri£atiii£ System in Operation. 



