'^'^^fsiif!i!3fjlj^j^»]!^\f,w:^'f^ ■ 



iixx 11, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



J509 



A Comer of the Store of the Scott Floral Co., Denver, Photographed Jast Before Easter. 



glass area. By a little figuring you can 

 estimate what it will take to run a place 

 of any size. 



"Taking the man who used fourteen 

 pounds of Pocahontas as a basis, to heat 

 the whole hundred million square feet of 

 greenhouses in the country last winter 

 must have taken around 1,400,000,000 

 pounds of coal— 700,000 tons— 20.000 

 cars ! 



"As a matter of fact only a small 

 proportion of the greenhouses are burn- 

 ing Pocahontas; most of them in the 

 west bum the cheaper grades of western 

 steam coal and in the east many bum 

 anthracite, but where the greenhouse is 

 at a distance from the mine the florist is 

 hkely to use a pretty good grade of fuel. 

 First cost does not stand in his way; if 

 you can figure out to him that you can 

 save him money in the end he will do 

 business. He has leamed to be fore- 

 handed in his purchases. The larger 

 growers will make coal contracts in Feb- 

 ruary, March or April for a good deal of 

 coal for delivery in July and August; 

 others will buy in the summer for imme- 

 diate delivery. Then there are many 

 others who do not look so far ahead who 

 are in the market all winter, so the en- 

 terprising coal man can find something 

 doing all the year around among the 

 florists. ' ' * 



five per cent of the cuttings have been 

 lost in this way. 



The roots from which the cuttings are 

 obtained are bedded into houses about 

 Christmas, and allowed to start slowly 

 into growth, a temperature of about 60 

 degrees being maintained. The cuttings 

 are taken off during February and 

 March, and dibbed into beds in a house. 

 The bottom heat is procured from three 

 rows of pipes mnning round the side 

 beds and under the center one. The bed 

 of soil is about five inches in depth, and 

 Messrs. Bobbie's experience is that the 

 cuttings root as well in fresh, clean, 

 slightly sandy loam as anything. The 

 bottom heat in this house runs from 70 

 to 80 degrees, and the top heat always 

 10 to 15 degrees less. Shading is, of 

 course, essential, and dewing with water 

 is given whenever required. — Gardeners' 

 Magazine. 



PROPAGATING DAHLIAS. 



Bobbie & Co., Bothesay, England, have 

 been long recognized as among the very 

 largest growers of dahlias. This season 

 propagation has been carried on under 

 the happiest condition?, owing to an al- 

 most entire absence of damping. Bamp- 

 ing off at one time was a serious matter, 

 but the firm had some houses built spe- 

 cially for striking cuttings, and ever 

 since damping has been a lessening evil, 

 until this season not more than three to 



ARNOLD ARBOHETUM. 



[An extract from a paper by Wllhelm MUIer, 

 read at St. LonU, NoTember 10, 1904.] 



One of the most fruitful gifts that 

 was ever made to humanity was that 

 which resulted in the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum, the best collection of hardy trees 

 and shrubs in the United States. Al- 

 though the arboretum is of immense 

 practical value to horticulture, the 

 chances are that the story of its foun- 

 dation is unfamiliar to the majority 

 of this audience, even to those who 

 have had the pleasure of a visit to it. 



James Arnold was not particularly 

 interested in trees and shrubs; he did 

 not leave the money for that specific 

 purpose, and his gift was rather small. 

 He was a New England merchant who 

 retired at fifty, enjoyed a good gar 

 den, and had confidence in the judgment 

 of his friend, George B. Emerson, author 

 of the well-known report on the forest 

 trees of Massachusetts. Boubtless act- 



ing on Mr. Emerson 's suggestion, he 

 left the money for the improvement of 

 agriculture or horticulture, purposely 

 stating the object in the vaguest possi- 

 ble manner, so that the trustees could 

 put the money into whatever promised 

 the biggest returns to humanity. It 

 happened that they put the money into 

 a collection of trees and shrubs. It 

 happened that they were fortunate to 

 secure as director a wealthy man, who 

 not only gave them the best collection 

 of books on trees and shrubs in the 

 vrorld, but, better still, has devoted his 

 life to the service of science in the 

 same spirit and with the same effective- 

 ness as Lawes and Gilbert or Charles 

 Barwin. In fact, it was this director, 

 Professor Sargent, who made the no- 

 table bargain with Harvard University 

 and the city of Boston which has mag- 

 nified the original gift of Jaaes Amold 

 to an effectiveness far beyond hia 

 dreams. 



Let us now examine this triangular 

 l»rgain between city, college and hor- 

 ticultural institution and see what each 

 party gets out of it and whether there 

 IS anything left for the people. Harvard 

 University owns a big piece of land, 

 given to it by the founder of the Bus- 

 sey Institution, which it has no funds 

 to develop. The city of Boston takes 

 this land by the right of eminent do- 

 main for use as a park, but leases it back 

 to the university for 999 years. The 

 city builds, maintains and polices the 

 roads, as it would have to do with any 

 other park. The arboretum gets for 

 nothing the use of the land on which 

 to grow its trees and do its other work; 

 the university gets for nothing a splen- 

 did new department, viz., a great out- 

 door laboratory where classes go to 

 study botany, forestry, horticulture and 

 landscape gardening; the city gets a 

 park for a thousand years without tax- 



