

1502 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



May 11, 1905. 



the supply is exhausted the better stock 

 is sorted over and the poorer flowers 

 put in at the cheap price, even at a 

 loss. No one who enters looking for the 

 advertised flowers is ever disappointed. 

 It is a plan worth experimenting with 

 for anyone who does not feel that the 

 "tone" of his establishment will be 

 lowered by the offer of cheap prices. 

 Of course, the advertised prices will de- 

 pend on your location, quality of goods, 

 character of the neighborhood, etc. 



BRITISH HAIL ASSCX:iATION. 



The greenhouse owners in Great Brit- 

 ain are insured against loss from hail 



by an organization now in its eleventh 

 year. Harry J. Veitch is chairman and, 

 with the directors and secretary, has held 

 office continuously since tlie inception of 

 the concern. The income for the tenth 

 year was in the vicinity of $15,000. The 

 assets are now over $100,000 and the re- 

 serve fund is $45,000. The association, 

 like the American one, supplies a form 

 of insurance not to be had elsewhere 

 but, unlike the society which has done so 

 well for greenhouse owners in the United 

 States, this is a limited liability cor- 

 poration and pays a profit to its share- 

 holders, last year seven and one-half per 

 cent. 



MISCELUNEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Various Kinds of Benches. 



The time will very soon be here for 

 bench building and repairing and many 

 are doubtless considering whether the old- 

 fashioned, wooden table can be improved 

 upon. If I could have the ideal bench 

 for roses and carnations, and we may say 

 also for plant benches, it would be of 

 4-inch socket tile filled with cement for 

 legs, tee iron for cross pieces and hollow 

 brick for the floor of the bed, with an 

 edging of four or five inches of cement. 

 Here would be a bench, if not everlasting, 

 at least with unrottable material. Ex- 

 pense, however, is of great consequence to 

 most commercial men and to avoid the 

 continual rotting out and renewing of 

 wooden benches has driven many to adopt 

 the solid or semi-solid bed. The very 

 great majority of greenhouses are de- 

 tached, or have a dividing partition, and 

 without a good space of glass in both the 

 front and back walls the low beds are 

 not at all suitable; they must be raised. 

 In the large blocks of houses with no 

 partition walls between thsm and only 

 perhaps a 2-ineh pipe supporting the gut- 

 ters, the low beds get just as much light 

 if the surface of the soil is one foot 

 above the floor as if it is throe feet. But 

 light, in our opinicn, is not the whole 

 question, which we will come to directly. 



A Very Good Bench. 



A low wall of cement, say twelve inches 

 high by three inches thick, and filled 

 in with any material you have at hand, 

 clinkers, ashes, stones or soil even with 

 the top of the wall and then a floor of 

 tile, with an edge of cement, must mako 

 a most excellent bench. The surface of 

 such a bench would be eighteen or nine- 

 teen inches above the floor. 



In some large establishments, instead 

 of the little cement wall, they lay up 

 four bricks. It may look neater than 

 cement and perhaps is as quickly built, 

 but the brick is much more expensive 

 and certainly not more durable. Others 

 make a cement wall a foot or fifteen 

 inches high and fill in with rubble stone 

 up to the depth they want for soil. Now 

 this six to eight inches of stone, or coarse 

 gravel or clinkers, must afford perfect 

 drainage for the roots and as for the air 

 at the roots, which it is claimed the drain 

 tiles or the hollow bricks afford, we can- 



not believe that it is an essential. At the 

 same time the tiles also give a perfect 

 drainage and such a bench is much more 

 pleasant to clean out and shovel off than 

 the stone, gravel or clinkers and, if it 

 can be afforded, we much prefer the tiles 

 for a floor. Some believe so strongly in 

 the tiles or hollow bricks for the floors of 

 benches that they build as if for an ordi- 

 nary wooden bench, but instead of boards 

 for the floor of the bench they use tiles. 

 This takes considerably more cross-pieces 

 to support the tiles, whether you run 

 them lengthwise or across, and after all, 

 the wood, if pine or hemlock, is going to 

 rot after a time. 



Pecky Cypress. 



That wonderful wood, the southern cy- 

 press, such a boon to greenhouse men 



CUT FLOWERS 



May be a luxury but are not 

 necessarily an eztravas^aoce. 



We have 



Carnations, 20c doz. 

 Koses - - - 35c doz. 



Also a full line of Palms^ 

 Ferns and Flowerinj; Plants 



— at reasonable prices. — 



A. Hustler, Florist, 



711 Progress Street. 



A Retailer's Adv. that has paid well. 



and used almost entirely for some years 

 for all kinds of horticultural structures, 

 from the hotbed sash to a crystal palace, 

 is now being used for bench building. 



In the construction of twenty houses 

 w ithin fifteen years we have never seen in 

 bare, ridge plate, gutters, or any other 



piece of cypress the smallest knot and up ■ 

 to date see no sign of decay, even in the 

 most abused places, like gutters. This 

 clear cypress would be too expensive, but 

 what is called "pecky" cypress is now 

 largely used for benches. This quality 

 would, of course, have some knots but is 

 not unsound and, while few, if any, 

 have used it for benches long enough to 

 testify to its durability for that purpose, 

 we believe it remains sound at least three 

 times as long as the quickly rotting white 

 pine or hemlock. The latter has about 

 doubled in price within eight years, cost- 

 ing now $20 per thousand feet, and this 

 pecky cypress can be bought within $1 or 

 80 of that price. There is no question, 

 if building a wooden bench, which you 

 will use. 



Grculation of Air. 



Now I said earlier that light was not 

 the whole question. The fullest light, we 

 know, is a necessity for producing 

 blooms in the dark days, but there is also, 

 we think, a good deal to consider about 

 the circulation of the heat or condition 

 of the atmosphere in different parts of 

 the house. In October and April, when 

 air can be freely given, there may be lit- 

 tle difference in the atmosphere of the 

 house one foot from the floor or six feet, 

 but it is between those months, when lit- 

 tle ventilation is given and fire heat 

 almost entirely depended on, that we 

 think there is a purer, lighter atmosphere 

 say five feet above the floor than there is 

 one foot. I have previously had occasion 

 to reiiiark on the great health and vigor 

 that many plants show on a shelf very 

 near the glass and that there were other 

 influences at work besides perfect light 

 and that circulation and pure air were 

 found, and had much to do with the free ■ 

 and robust growth of plants, near the 

 roof. 



The same principle will apply to plants 

 on the benches and, therefore, I think 

 that every foot you rise from the floor 

 the more genial and purer the air. If 

 the surface of your bench is thirty inches 

 above the floor the top of your plant, 

 rose or carnation, is three feet six inches 

 and soon it is another foot and, though 

 it may cost more, we believe there will 

 be found a great advantage even in the 

 little difference between a bed thirty 

 inches above the floor and one only a 

 foot. 



The Right Height. 



I want to say as modestly as possible 

 that we have tried every bench described, 

 from six inches of good soil right on the 

 ground up to a bench three feet high, and, 

 what is of more value to me, is that the 

 best roses we ever saw and by far the 

 finest lot of carnations in the depth of 

 wipter were on benches about thirty 

 inches high. We are not going back to 

 hemlock boards that will rot out in three 

 years, but shall try the cypress. We do 

 not attach any importance to the air 

 space beneath the bench and will say, con- 

 cluding this subject, that whether they be 

 built of wood or of bricks or cement walls 

 with tiles, keep them thirty inches above 

 the floor. 



Distribution of Heat. 



It is quite true in connection with these 

 benches that much depends on the plan 

 by which the houses are piped. If the 

 steam pipes are confined to the side 

 walls, as they often are, then it is still 

 more necessary that the benches or beds 

 should not be too low, because the heat 

 rises to the roof and the air near the 



