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JUNK 8. 1905. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



\Si 



Paeooia Festiva Maxima at the Petetson Nursery, Chicago. 



growing will pay you back the first sea- 

 son. It is difficult to build a sash house 

 as light or as warm as a regular bar 

 and glass house and they can never be 

 built as tight. However, if you decide to 

 use the hotbed sash I would advise you 

 to build as follows: 



The sides should be about four feet 

 high. On top of these nail a plate 2x6 

 and give it the same slant the roof is to 

 have. Let the plate cover two-thirds of 

 the top of the post and let the lower 

 t'dge project over the siding so that the 

 water will drop clear of the siding. Put 

 mp a framework to lay the sash on and 

 to hold the ridge. A 2x4 should run 

 from the plate to the ridge wherever the 

 sash meet. This 2x4 will throw less 

 shade if put with the flat side against 

 the sash. Each side of the roof will 

 need to be nine feet to give the proper 

 pitch, so the ventilators will have to be 

 a few inches over three feet to allow for 

 the lap on the sash where they meet. 

 You can hinge the ventilators to either 

 the ridge or to the sash if you have 

 them made the same width as the sash. 



A. F. J. Baur. 



PINE NEEDLES IN SOIL. 



We have a compost pile intended for 

 carnations this summer but one of our 

 growers condemns it because there are 

 pines growing nearby and the needles are 

 mixed with the soil, though not in very 

 large quantity. Can you tell me whether 

 they will do harm? H. S. A. 



I do not imagine that the pine needles 

 would do your soil any harm if it is 

 f*°f wjse good. I have never noticed 

 tuat the vegetation around pine trees or 

 cedar trees is any less luxurious than 

 anywhere else. We all know that right un- 

 oer the trees the grasi is usually less 

 thrifty than it is farther out, but that 

 comes from the dense shade produced by 

 the trees. Under other very dense trees 

 you will notice the same thing. This 

 however, is merely my opinion. I have 

 never had any actual experience alone 

 3, , *' ^° '^ y°^^ friend claims to 

 -I'll ^. »t°ow from experience it might be 

 well to heed his advice. In that case 1 



would not discard the whole pile, but 

 only a layer of a few inches thickness 

 where the needles supposedly are. Try 

 a little of the soil with a good lot of the 

 needles mixed in and if it proves harm- 

 ful let us know about it next winter. It 

 may help some one else in the future. 



A. F. J. Baur. 



STEAMER SAILINGS. 



In the larger cities many retailers keep 

 the New York steamer sailings posted 

 in their show windows as a means of 

 attracting orders for the delivery of flow- 

 ers on board, these orders being then 

 mailed or telegraphed to one of the firms 

 represented on the Review's page of 

 Leading Betail Florists. The principal 

 sailings for the next two weeks are as 

 follows : 

 Date. Steamer. Destination. 



June 10 — Umbrla Liverpool. 



June 10 — Pennsylvania Hamburg. 



June 13 — Kaiser Wllhelm II.... Bremen. 



June 14 — Majestic Liverpool. 



June 14 — Ryndam Rotterdam. 



June 15 — La Savole Havre. 



June 15 — Fredk. der Grosse .... Bremen. 



June 16 — Cedrlc Liverpool. 



June 17 — St. Lonls Southampton. 



June 17 — Lucania Liverpool. 



June 17 — Vaderland Antwerp. 



June 21 — Baltic Liverpool. 



June 21 — Rotterdam Rotterdam. 



June 21 — Hellg Olav Copenhagen. 



June 22 — La Bretagne Havre. 



June 22— Deutschland Hamburg. 



June 24— Etrurla Liverpool. 



June 24 — Patricia Hamburg. 



June 24 — Philadelphia Southampton. 



June 24 — Kroonland Antwerp. 



THE BEST WHITE PEONY. 



Charles Klehm, of Klehm's Nursery, 

 Arlington Heights, 111., where they con- 

 sider 6,000 dozen peonies as only an av- 

 erage crop of cut flowers, and often har- 

 vest them in a week, says that he has a 

 very pronounced idea at variance with 

 the usual opinion as to what is the best 

 white peony. The average grower will 

 answer unhesitatingly that the best va- 

 riety is Festiva maxima. Mr. Klehm 

 speaks for that sort known variously as 

 Queen Victoria, Whitleyi or Wliittleseyi. 

 Mr. Klehm deals in cut flowers for the 

 Chicago wholesale market rather than in 

 plants. 



"Whitleyi is a splendid keeper. It 



may be picked in tight bud and placed in 

 cold storage, where it will remain in good 

 condition for as much as six weeks. On 

 coming out it opens quickly when free 

 from its wrappings and exposed in a 

 store. It develops even better than on 

 the plant and wiU retain its beauty for 

 twenty-four hours or so, after which it 

 goes to sleep. Festiva maxima does not 

 keep so well in storage and on coming 

 out of storage it pop,s open and very 

 quickly drops its petals. Festiva max- 

 ima is a taller grower and a larger flow- 

 er but where great quantities are grown 

 for cut flowers Whitleyi is a much more 

 profitable sort." 



ACETYLENE IN GREENHOUSES. 



At Cornell University experiments 

 have been made with acetylene gas to de- 

 termine its relation to plant growth. 

 These have been prompted by the claim 

 that acetylene more closely approximates 

 the light of the sun than does any other 

 artificial light. The experiments have 

 been closely watched by Prof. Bailey and 

 Prof. Craig and are thus described by 

 M. J. Irons in a recent issue of the 

 Acetylene Journal : 



Has "Old Sol" a substitute? The 

 torch, the dip, the candle, the lamp, gas, 

 electricity, acetylene — all these mark 

 successive stages in man's effort to an- 

 swer that question. In the plant world 

 it would seem that the answer must ever 

 be negative, but Prof. L. H. Bailey 

 showed that in some cases, even in pl&nt 

 growth, electricity helped out if not re- 

 placed sunlight. As acetylene has proved 

 efficient in cases where electricity has 

 failed, it occurred to Prof. Craig to try 

 and see if in plant growth acetylene 

 would not succeed where other kinds of 

 light had been, unsatisfactory or failed 

 entirely. By his suggestion, I took up 

 the subject for investigation and have 

 . carried it on for some three months and 

 ^er. 



This question has two sides, the scien- 

 tific and the commercial, and I have 

 tried to learn as much for each side as 

 possible, though naturally laying more 

 stress on the scientific side. As said 

 above, the experiment has been carried 



