1404 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



APBIL 5, 1906. 



possible. This is all right when the 

 plants arc strong enough to stand it, but 

 it is a serious mistake to go to excess 

 in this and then blame the introducer 

 for sending out a worthless variety. As 

 a matter of fact the blame lies with 

 the buyer, who has killed the natural 

 vigor of the plant by propagating it to 

 death. This happened in one case to 

 my knowledge last year with Mrs. Wil- 

 liam Duckham, and in such cases the 

 blame should be placed where it be- 

 longs. 



Flies on Plants. 



At this season, when plants are seen 

 to have flies on them, one is apt to 

 leave them, as they are not numerous 

 enough to demand fumigating, yet more 

 than there should be for the health of 

 the plant. Dust them over with the to- 

 bacco prepared expressly for this pur- 

 pose, which is the very best thing to 

 use. It takes little time and is very 

 effective. A stitch in time saves nine. 

 Charles H. Totty. 



THE PRODIGAL RETURNS. 



It coultl not be said that the boss 

 ' ' fired ' ' Jaggs — he permitted him mere- 

 ly to sift out of the adjacent landscape. 



It may be that the moral tone of the 

 establishment was distinctly improved by 

 his absence — it is true the night fireman 

 showed a tendency to lessen the monoto- 

 ny of his evenings by going to revivals 

 when he was supposed to be on duty — 

 but there is no question that Jagg's de- 

 parture cast gloom over the Lonesome- 

 hurst greenhouses. 



Time passed slowly on; the horticul- 

 tural graduate had retired to an agri- 

 cultural college and Davie had taken 

 a solemn farewell to the entire estab- 

 lishment and started on his threatened 

 visit to Greenock. Even Tommy had 

 grown restive and talked morosely of 

 retiring across the Atlantic to the pater- 

 nal chandler's shop in Camberwell. 



The place was short-handed, one of 

 the boilers persisted in suffering from 

 general debility every cold night, and 

 the boss acquired such a constitutional 

 "grouch" that the greenhouse cat took 

 to dodging under a bench at the sound 

 of his distant footstep. 



' ' Talk about cheerfulness, ' ' groaned 

 Tommy, turning his tobacco box upside 

 down to extract the last grain of con- 

 solation therein, ' ' I believe a second 

 'and morgue would be joyouser than this 

 'ere bloomin ' old sepulchre. What does 

 a chap break into the florist business 

 for, anyway ? ' ' 



The propagator modestly admitted that 

 the habit of eating three meals a day 



was responsible for his entry into the 

 trade, but Tommy continued to mutter 

 savagely while he stripped some loose 

 scraps from a bundle of tobacco stems, 

 to oke out the dottle smouldering in his 

 old briar pipe. 



The wind howled around the potting 

 shed, blowing aside the burlap portieres 

 arranged to cover the cracks around the 

 windows. Suddenly Cinders, the unre- 

 generate terrier attached to the green- 

 house force, deserted his special corner 

 of the ashpit, and rushed wildly to the 

 door. 



"If I didn 't know as Davie was 

 gone, ' ' remarked Tommy doubtfully, 

 ' '■ and Jaggs — ' ' 



The door opened with a jerk and the 

 terrier began to jump with yelps of joy 

 at two snow-sprinkled figures. 



"Well, of all the — Davie, you old 

 ruffian, 'ave you been gettin' Jaggs out 

 0' jail?" 



"Ellis Island," remarked Jaggs, un- 

 abashed. ' * Wanted to keep me out o ' 

 the bloomin ' country, along of a lot o ' 

 Dagoes and Skowagians, when I've been 

 over here long enough to vote four times 

 at one election." 



" 'Twas a lad on the Anchoria, " ex- 

 plained Davie, "tell't me there's a lad 

 I know that's in a fair way to be sent 

 back, so I just got him awa'. " 



"And what's the matter with your 

 goin ' back yourself?" asked the propa- 

 gator. 



* ' Well, ' ' remarked Davie, philosophi- 

 cally, "Greenock '11 keep a wheen long- 

 er. '■' 



With that Davie began to draw a suit 

 of frayed overalls over his decent Sun- 

 day blacks, and passing around a plump 

 tobacco pouch, settled down in his old 

 corner. Jaggs looked affectionately at 

 the dusty rafters, whence the young owl 

 Tommy was educating looked down sus- 

 piciously. 



"Well," said he, "there ain't no 

 place like 'ome after all. Many's the 

 time I've thought o' this 'ere pottin' 

 shed, while I was dodgin' wolves and 

 snow leopards, and savages, over there 

 t'other side of the Himalayas," 



' ' Them Himalayas down around Snake 

 Hill?" asked Tommy, pleasantly. 



"Many's the time I've said to my- 

 self, ' ' continued Jaggs, affectionately 

 shying a lump of coal at Tommy, "when 

 I was tryin' to hold on to my hair while 

 I was slidin' down a precipice 14,00P 

 feet high, 'well, it's Jersey for mine if 

 I ever get out o ' this ! ' Leaky boilers 

 and busted hose ain't near as mussy as 

 fallin' into extinct volcanoes, and say, 

 I'll bet even money that all the plagues 

 of Egypt drifted out to Tibet, includin' 

 the chilblains." 



"But how did you get to Tibet?" 

 asked the new fireman. 



"Walked, o' course," responded Tom- 

 my. "Drive ahead. Jaggs, old boy, and 

 tell us all about it." 



"It were this way, ye see," explained 

 Jaggs; "when they was sendin' that 

 chap out from London to hunt up new 

 plants in the Forbidden Land, as them 

 Chinks call it, I just naturally went 

 along. I reckon I've told you about tak- 

 in' a little jaunt up there once before, 

 huntin' rhododendrons; there's a blue 

 rhododendron up there that ain't never 

 been brought to Europe yet — don't sup- 

 pose it ever will, unless I take a notion 

 to go and get it. That's where I learned 

 to talk their lingo that sounds like 

 choppin' hash in a wooden bowl. A 

 scientific gent as I met in Kashmir once 

 tells me as I speaks them foreign dia- 

 lects pretty near as grammatical as I 

 speaks my own; we'd have been in a 

 tight place now and then if it wasn't 

 for that. 



' ' 'Course, most o ' the chaps that goes 

 to Tibet makes for Lassa and they ain't 

 runnin' any Cook's tours around them 

 diggin's yet, either, but we made for 

 the open country where we'd heard about 

 some kind o' tree sunflower with flow- 

 ers tvvo feet across. O' course, them na- 

 tives is such horrid liars as you can't 

 believo the half o ' what they tells you. 

 Dirty, too; some o' them looked like they 

 hadn't been washed for 400 years. 



* ' We 'adn 't gone far before Johnson 

 and me decided that while we didn't 

 want to cause any 'ard feelin's, we just 

 'ad to wash the cook. So I made some 

 o' the bearers undress him and start to 

 scrub him with a birch besom. And, 

 d'ye know, after they'd been scrubbin' 

 away for fifteen minutes they come 

 down to another suit o ' clothes ! 



* ' Johnson seemed to have a notion it 

 wasn 't lucky to wash that cook, and 

 maybe he was right, for blessed if that 

 there artist didn't light out that night, 

 after tryin' to vaccinate me with a 

 bowie knife. Still, as I says to John- 

 son, he'd have killed us with his cookin' 

 anyway, if he'd stayed. 



' ' As things turned out, we didn 't 'ave 

 anythink to cook most o ' the time, as we 

 spent a month or two playin ' tag over 

 the mountains with a lot o ' whiskery 

 gentlemen that looked like Shems and 

 Japhets out o ' some toy Noah 's ark. 



