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August 16, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



759 



\ 



Then the competition you may have 

 to contend with will cut a figure. If 

 you have to buck up against some large 

 grower of high grade stock, you will 

 have a hard time of it unless your cut is 

 of considerable proportion, or is very 

 high in quality. If you can grow a grade 

 of blooms that cannot be obtained from 

 your competitors you need not fear them, 

 whether you cut 100 blooms a day or 

 1,000. 



Your facilities for delivery must be 

 taken into consideration. If you have to 

 drive a considerable distance to your 

 customer, or to the express office, the 

 quantity you send out each trip will 

 count. You can haul several thousand 

 blooms as cheaply as you can a hundred 

 in your wagon. 



We take it for granted that you are a 

 first-class grower and that you will pro- 

 duce high grade stock. You are indus- 

 trious and sober, and you will manage to 

 make every foot of bench space pay a 

 high revenue. All these are very essen- 

 tial, especially on a small place. We 

 need say nothing of being economical 

 and thrifty. On these will depend 

 largely whether you want to make any 

 headway in adding to your glass area 

 and building up your business. 



If you are alone in the field and can 

 dispose of whatever you cut to fair ad- 

 vantage, then the question is easy to 

 solve. All you need is enough glass to 

 produce enough stock to bring in a cer- 

 tain amount of revenue in a season. You 

 can figurejpretty well what your expenses 

 will be by enumerating the larger items, 

 such as labor, fuel, water, etc., and then 

 making a liberal allowance for inciden- 

 tals. You can do that better than I 

 could do it for you. In figuring up what 

 you ought to take in, you will have to 

 take into consideration what kind of 

 prices your market will pay. In one 

 market the products from a house 25x100 

 may bring $1,000, "while in another they 

 may bring fully twenty-five per cent less. 

 And finally after all is said and done, it 

 will depend on the man in charge whether 

 the business goes or not. I have. known 

 men who started on a small scale, and in 

 the face of strong competition made a 

 success, and they could do it again to- 

 day. The fact remains, however, that 

 the little fellow is at a great disadvan- 

 tage in many ways, and it frequently re- 

 quires fine management to keep his head 

 above water. 



After weighing the matter carefully, 

 I believe that 10,000 feet should be the 

 minimum amount of glass a wholesale 

 grower of cut flowers should put up 

 under average conditions, in the way of 

 competition, prices obtainable, etc. 

 Even then he will be obliged to special- 

 ize on one or two things in order to 

 work to advantage. A. F. J. B. 



CARNATION RUST. 



I am sending a few leaves from some 

 diseased carnation plants. The trouble 

 has become bad on my young Crusader 

 plants, the other varieties not being af- 

 fected. Can this be checked? They are 

 losing lots of foliage. R. B. T. 



Your Crusader carnation plants are 

 affected with the common carnation ru?t. 

 This variety seems especially subject to 

 this disease, and is ever ready to con- 

 tract it after every check. To get rid 

 of it, pick off all the spotted leaves and 

 burn them. Spray these plants over- 

 head just as little as possible, and give 

 them every possible opportunity to grow. 



Malmaison Carnation Princess oE Wales. 



If they are well established, you might 

 dust them with air-slaked lime, but don't 

 do it unless the plants are well estab- 

 lished. The disease, like many others, 

 requires a certain amount of moisture to 

 be active. When kept absolutely dry, it 

 remains dormant and will do no harm. 

 From this we have learned to keep the 

 foliage dry, except to keep down spider, 

 etc. A. F. J. B. 



MALMAISON CARNATIONS. 



Accompanying this is a reproduction 

 of one of the Malmaison carnations, 

 Princess of Wales, shown in a group of 

 carnations by Hugh Low & Co., Bush 

 Hill Park, London, which lifted the sil- 

 ver cup at the recent Temple flower 

 show. These plants carried on an aver- 

 age sixty flowers and buds. This firm 

 is one of the oldest and largest carnation 

 growers in England. They grow three 

 large houses full of the pink Malmaison, 

 and handle some of the American varie- 

 ties in similar fashion. 



It will be interesting to the American 

 carnation growers to know that the 

 average Malmaison flower measures eight 

 inches across, and realizes in Covent 

 Garden market from six to twelve shil- 

 lings per dozen, whereas Enchantress 

 would bring from two to" four shillings 

 per dozen on the same market. Of 

 course, the cut of the latter would be 

 considerably heavier during the season. 

 At present the Malmaison reigns supreme 

 during the London season, yet all this 

 is significant of the fact that there is 

 still an opening for a carnation even 

 larger than Enchantress or Nelson Fisher, 

 particularly if it possessed the perfect 



pink shade of Malmaison Princess of 

 Wales. 



Many American growers smile at the 

 antiquated method of propagating the 

 Malmaison carnation followed in Europe, 

 but it is practically impossible to propa- 

 gate this class of carnation by cuttings 

 and meet with any measure of success. 

 Those which you did root would only 

 produce flowers half the size of those 

 propagated by layering. This will be 

 most easily understood when it is taken 

 into consideration that the wood of the 

 layer or cutting is half an inch thick 

 at the propagating period, which is 

 July and August. During the winter 

 months this plant lies dormant. We all 

 agree that the Malmaison will gradually 

 decrease in popularity, while the per- 

 petual flowering carnation will increase. 

 Montage C. All wood. 



PLANTS FOR PARK. 



We have a piece of ground to bed for 

 a private park, and are puzzled as to the 

 nature of plants to use. The bed is in- 

 tended for a miniature mountain and 

 runs east "and west. It must be planted 

 with hardy stock that will make a good 

 show and withstand the winter weather. 

 The temperature runs as low as zero and 

 sometimes 5 to 10 degrees below. We 

 can get any amount of hardy ferns, if 

 you think that they can be transplanted 

 safely. The ferns which we speak of 

 would come from Pennsylvania. Ferns 

 are wanted for the north side of the 

 mountain. What shall we plant on the 

 south side? The mountain has shade in 

 the afternoon and partial shade in the 

 morning. The outlet of an artificial lake 

 passes around the north base of the 



