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Febkuaky 22, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



923 



Chicago Establishment from which Many Large Growers Draw their Supplies of Lumber. 



pipes, both flow and return, follow this 

 grading. The heater is at the west end. 

 Now, this heater will not do the work. 

 The pipes ueat up, but not hot enough; 

 I can get only 40 degrees in zero weath- 

 er and I thought it ought to be 60 de- 

 grees with that number of pipes. Have 

 I too many pipes for the heater or where 

 can the trouble be? The circulation 

 seems slow. Would I increase it by 

 placing one 3-inch flow under the ridge 

 and will one flow be sufficient for six 

 returns Are not seven 3-inch pipes too 

 much for this size house! G. O. K. 



If your pipe heaiev contains nine 2- 

 inch pipes, thirteen feet long, it has a 

 heating capacity for about 580 square 

 feet of radiation when working under 

 full fire. Your house, however, requires 

 about 650 square feet of radiation. 

 This is equivalent to saying the heater 

 is too small. It should be increased 

 about one-fourth to have sufficient ca- 

 pacity. So far as the piping of the 

 house is concerned this is slightly de- 

 ficient. There should be 650 square feet 

 and you have provided in the seven 

 3-inch pipes 639 square feet of heat- 

 ing surface. With a good boiler the 

 pipe in the house ought to do the work. 



L. C. C. 



COST OF PRODUCTION. 



A writer on violet culture in an Ameri- 

 can contemporary has the following pas- 

 sage in his remarks on profits obtained: 

 "In interviewing a number of growers it 

 was the general opinion that it costs 

 about 23 cents per square foot of bed to 

 grow violets." 



We call attention to this entirely apart 

 from the subject of the article from 

 which the extract is made, and would like 

 to put the question as to how many nurs- 

 erymen or growers here would be pre- 

 pared to answer an inquiry as to what 

 it cost them to grow any particular crop 

 of flowers, plants, etc. It is an axiom 

 so obvious as to scarcely need repetition, 

 that if a man can only tell what his stock 



costs to grow, he knows at what price 

 he has to sell to make a living profit. 

 If our producers would only go into the 

 matter, we should hear less of ' ' cut 

 throat prices, " " ruinous competition, ' ' 

 etc. There would naturally still be 

 glutted markets, and other occasions 

 when stuff must be sold below cost of 

 production, but the producer would then 

 know what he was doing and take meas- 

 ures accordingly, and not wait until the 

 bailiffs were in, to find out that he was 

 working on a rotten system. — Horticul- 

 tural Trade Journal. 



THE TREND OF TRADE. 



It is interesting to watch the way in 

 ■which trade moves in certain well de- 

 fined channels. There are in every large 

 city many sources of supply for most 

 articles of florists' use, but as a rule 

 trade naturally flows to and is prac- 

 tically monopolized by one or two es- 

 tablishments. For instance, there are in 

 Chicago a number of houses dealing in 

 steam fitters' supplies, but the John 

 Davis Co. has practically all the green- 

 house business. It is the same way in 

 the matter of bench material, posts and 

 other lumber not supplied by the manu- 

 facturers of roof material. There are at 

 Chicago dozens of great lumber yards, 

 but the florists' business practically all 

 goes to one concern, the Adam Schillo 

 Lumber Co., which was established in 

 1869. Adam Schillo was related by mar- 

 riage to some of the pioneer growers 

 north of Chicago. His associations were 

 such that he had a personal acquaintance 

 with those who established the great 

 greenhouse and vegetable forcing in- 

 dustry of Cook county. The result was 

 that he had the business of the early 

 greenhouse builders and, as years have 

 passed, the corporation which was or- 

 ganized at his death has been equally 

 favored. 



The accompanying illustration is from 

 a photograph showing the Schillo estab- 

 lishment. It will be of particular in- 

 terest to the growers from the fact 



that, although they have spent thousands 

 of dollars with the company, many of 

 them have never seen the place. Prac- 

 tically all the business is done by mail 

 or telephone, few of the customers tak- 

 ing the trouble to visit the yards. Un- 

 der the management of John Schillo, 

 who became the head of the company at 

 his father's death, the business has been 

 extended to include car load shipments 

 to florists in widely separated parts of 

 the country. This has been facilitated 

 by the general adoption of Pecky 

 cypress as a bench material. When 

 growers became interested in the endur- 

 ing qualities of this ill-appearing wood 

 they asked Mr. Schillo to procure small 

 lots of it for trial. The results were so 

 satisfactory that the handling of Pecky 

 cypress for greenliouse benches has be- 

 come an important specialty with the 

 company. They have in recent seasons 

 not only supplied many thousands of 

 feet to Chicago growers, but have sent 

 many cars to growers throughout the 

 Mississippi valley. They have booked 

 orders for larger quantities than ever for 

 delivery this spring, much of which will 

 be shipped from th?* Louisiana mills 

 direct to the greenhouses, several cars be- 

 ing booked to go direct to the growers' 

 own sidetracks, for many greenhouses, 

 and practically all the new places, now 

 have track facilities to save the teaming 

 of coal. 



Mr. Schillo says that because of the 

 great popularity Pecky cypress has at- 

 tained for bench material, the mills are 

 steadily advancing the price. It was 

 marketed with diflSculty before the 

 greenhouse people took it up. 



Caldwell, Kan. — Mrs. George H. 

 Yantz, proprietor of the Border Queen 

 Greenhouse, has some very good seedling 

 geraniums raised from seed procured 

 from the Templin Co. One in particular 

 is a bright red, with an unusually large 

 truss of flowers carried on stems a foot 

 long. The plants are very floriferous. 

 Mrs. Yantz will work up a stock of this 

 variety. 



