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1406 



The Weekly Florists' Rcvfew. 



NOTEMBEB 9, 1905. 



inches deep, I would advise planting a 

 depth of three inches. By doing this 

 the plants are not so liable to bend 

 after coming into bloom. 



Bulbs once forced are not damaged 

 if allowed to ripen in the bench. If 



the space is needed, carefully loosen 

 the soil when removing the bulbs and 

 heel in the ground, which, if done, 

 ninety-five per cent of such bulbs will 

 thoroughly ripen. 



Arthue Cowee. 



CARNATION NOTES.-EAST. 



I 



Marketing the Product. 



"Whether you are a wholesaler or re- 

 tailer of your product, it is of the ut- 

 most importance that every effort be 

 made to place your goods before the 

 buyer in the most attractive manner and 

 also in the freshest state possible. 



This can be done much easier and 

 better by laying out the work of cut- 

 ting, grading, counting, etc., according \D. 

 some system. That is, have a regular 

 time for cutting, appoint certain help to 

 do certain parts o^ the work, make each 

 one responsible fol" something. Arrange 

 it to soil yourself, but by all means have 

 a sysiem^ and stick to iff 



Our practice is to make two cuts a 

 day, one before 8 in the morning, the 

 other about 4 in the afternoon. The 

 afternoon cut, which is usually the 

 larger, is used to fill orders going out the 

 following day. Orders arriving late in 

 the day are filled with the early morning 

 cut. Any left-overs are either used in 

 design work or sold for what they are. 



Always use a sharp knife in cutting 

 blooms, making a sUghtly slanting up- 

 per cut through the stem, and bear in 

 mind the fact that every second of time 

 the fresh-cut end is exposed to the air, 

 the means of free passage of water into 

 the stem is being reduced, so have your 

 system provide against injury from this 

 source. A good plan is to have vases 

 of water distributed at intervals along 

 the bench. 



In the effort to supply large blooms, 

 many carnations are left on the plants 

 too long. Better cut when three-quar- 

 ters developed, letting the consumer have 

 at least a fraction of the "come out" 

 and all the ' ' out. ' ' 



Do not crowd too many in a vase, but 

 arrange loosely. The more stems in a 

 vase, the less water, to be sure, but 

 water is cheap and so are vases when it 

 is considered how long they last. Have 

 the water in which blooms are to be 

 put about the temperature of the house 

 where grown. Five degrees either way 

 will matter little, but the point is not 

 to chill them suddenly by plunging the 

 stems in ice water, and the only flower 

 I know of which should be placed in 

 tepid water is the poinsettia. 



Store the vases of cut blooms where 

 no draughts will reach them, but not 

 where the air is stagnant or laden with 

 other odors. Keep the temperature not 

 over 50 degrees or under 45 degrees. 

 Change the water daily and at least 

 once a week give the vases a good inside 

 scrubbing and rinsing. 



No matter how well the blooms have 

 been grown, careful attention to all the 

 details connected with proper handling 



of same is necessary to give your product 

 the stamp of quality. 



Qeoboe S. Osborn. 



CARNATION STEM-ROT. 



Perhaps the worst difficulty which 

 carnation growers have to contend' with 

 at the present time is the presence of 

 stem-rot. There are at least two spe- 

 cies of fungi involved in this trouble, 

 one Qftused by fusarium, which' pro- 

 duces i^Mt i» known as the dry rot, 

 and the other by a fungus termed 

 rhizoctonia, which OAuses the so-called 

 wet ret. Prac|,ical growers state that 

 the wet felt ir*the more comflton of the 

 two, but in my section ot the country 

 I find much>mOre dry rot than wet. 



It is only within recent years that 

 we have heard very much about any 

 of these stem-rots, and in my opinion 

 the prevalence of these rots has kept 

 pace with the modern methods of forc- 

 ing. With the old system of cultivat- 

 ing carnations, where less forcing was 



practiced, the stems were sufficiently 

 hardy to become apparently immune to 

 stem-rot. Whether this is the whole 

 cause or not I do not know, but I 

 think this at least accounts for a* large 

 amount of the increased stem-rot. 



I am of the opinion, therefore, that 

 remedial measures must be based upon 

 modification of the cultural methods, or 

 by breeding and selecting more hardy 

 varieties. The sterile fungus rhizoc- 

 tonia can be absolutely controlled by 

 heating the soil, or what is termed 

 sterilizing. Our numerous experiments 

 with this fungus have shown conclu- 

 sively that when soil is sterilized rhi- 

 zoctonia is eliminated. If the carna- 

 tion cuttings, however, should happen 

 to be placed in soil outdoors which 

 contMiied this fungus, sterilizing would 

 be 0^, little value. 



This latter remedy, however, in my 

 opinion, is of little use in connection 

 with the dry stem-rot, since fusarium 

 fungus bears spores profusely, and 

 these spores are wafted about by the 

 wind and are likely to be found every- 

 where. Moreover, according to our ex- 

 perience in growing aster seedlings in 

 sterilized soil, we found that there is a 

 larger percentage of stem-rot occurring 

 from fusarium where the plants were 

 started in flats in the greenhouse in 

 sterilized soil than where the plants 

 were started in ordinary soil outdoors. 

 In our opinion this was due to the fact 

 that the aster seedlings in the steril- 

 ized soil were more tender and succu- 

 lent and were therefore more suscepti- 

 ble to stem-rot than those grown in a 

 different temperature outdoors. 



Geoege E. Stone. 



CUTTINGS. 



The style of cutting preferred by most 

 growers is the three-eyed cutting. This 

 gives two eyes above the sand and one 

 at or near the base of the cutting. 



A keen edged knife should be used 

 and the cut should be short and clean, 

 avoiding a long slice, as the shorter 

 and cleaner the cut so much quicker wUl 

 the callus form and the arrangement of 

 the root will be more perfect. The most 

 perfect arrangement of roots is when the 

 rootlets are in a whorl and this can only 

 be attained by being careful in making 

 a clean, short cut. 



The depth of sand or other propagat- 

 ing medium should be about four inches 

 after being pounded firm and thoroughly 

 moistened. With a rather thick-bladed 

 knife draw a straight line across the 



sand, making the bottom of the cut 

 reach half-way to the bottom, so that 

 the base of the cutting will be as near 

 as possible half-way between the surface 

 and the bottom, thus securing a uniform 

 amount of heat and moisture at a point 

 where these essentials are least liable to 

 fluctuation. 



The cuttings should then be put in 

 about one inch apart, taking care to see 

 that each cutting reaches the bottom of 

 the cut. The sand should then be packed 

 firmly around them and the whole bench 

 thoroughly watered. Beauties, owing to 

 their heavy foliage, will require more 

 room. 



The bench should only be shaded dar- 

 ing bright sunshine and the shading re- 

 moved as soon as the sun ceases to 

 shine on the bench. The temperature of 

 the sand should be 60 or 62 degrees, with 

 a house temperature of 50 or 52 degrees. 

 This low temperature of the house is 

 necessary to. keep the buds from start- 

 ing and making wood while root forma- 

 tion is in progress. 



Some growers use a higher tempera* 



