H08 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



April 5, 190G. 



evenly. I dust a bed 12x60 feet in two 

 minutes. It is washed off by the first 

 touch of water and, when plants are 

 dry apply again. 



My experience is that lettuce should 

 not be watered often, but thoroughly. 

 The so-called lettuce rot is encouraged 

 by continued dampness. When I can 

 see but little of the ground between 

 the plant, thus indicating that there is 

 sufficient air circulation to insure plants 

 drying, I water thoroughly for the last 

 time. This washes off the last dust and 

 a couple of light smokings will answer 

 until the lettuce is cut. Though warned 

 of the ravages of this insect, by this 

 treatment 1 have kept the bed perfectly 

 clean with no trouble and very little 

 expense. 



Lettuce Rot. 



Begarding tho lettuce rot, which has 

 been shot at so much by the big guns 

 that it seems idle for me to shoot at 

 all; even the governor has fired away 

 and promised a variety so vigorous as to 

 be immune. 



I recall that during the war the sol- 

 diers were troubled with scurvy, caused 

 by the lack of some ingredient in their 

 very limited menu. Then, too, some of 

 our "upper ten," who have more cents 

 than sense, have the gout, caused by 

 their unlimited menu. Might it not be 

 that in our anxiety to force our lettuce 

 by means of very rich soils, nitrate of 

 soda and other concentrated fertilizers, 

 we give them the gout or scurvy or both 

 and thus render them susceptible to dis- 

 eases they would otherwise escape? 



It is a principle in medicine that a 

 heaMhy man may wai'd off even contagious 

 diseases; the deadly germs not being 

 able to find green pasture, die of star- 

 vation. Why is not the same principle 

 true in plant life? Might we not escape 

 many of the ills of plant life, if we 

 looked more to such fertilizers as would 

 produce a perfect plant as nature in- 

 tended, rather than the watery, loose 

 tissued things we often find? And 

 again, there was much complaint in this 

 market la.st winter about the lettuce be- 

 ing in some cases insipid in flavor and 

 in others of pronounced flavor not usu- 

 ally found in lettuce. To such extent 

 were these manifest that many refused 

 to buy hothouse lettuce, claiming it to 

 be unfit to eat. 



Should Seek Flavor Also. 

 Now, I hold there is something wrong 

 somewhere. Is it in these scientific 

 remedies, or stimulants; which? We 

 of the glass-houses should seek to pro- 

 duce an article not only of size but of 

 flavor. Good butter has that which 

 makes it good — its flavor. Bad butter 

 has its flavor. The same is true of let- 



tuce. Not all lettuce is lettuce. Some 

 is only grass. 



I am a ' ' greenfly ' ' at growing lettuce, 

 but by means of good potting soil, I 

 have had no rot, but have produced 

 three crops that have been pronounced 

 the finest flavored, most durable lettuce 

 ever sold in the markets I have sup- 

 plied. S. C. T. 



TOMATOES. 



The accompanying illustration shows 

 the last planting of the season, on which 

 the first fruits are just showing color. 

 The variety is Lorillard, the old stand- 

 by, which we find the most reliable, as 

 it will succeed under conditions where 

 others would fail, or at least fail to give 

 really good results. We find that it can 

 be grown, if desired, at a temperature 

 at least 5 degrees lower than most of 

 the other varieties. Of course, at a 

 temperature of 55 degrees growth will 

 naturally be slower than at 60 degrees, 

 but it will set freely and produce just 

 as good fruit. If the higher tempera- 

 ture can be given it, so much the better, 

 but it sometimes happens that the com- 

 mand of heat is not so good as might 

 be desired, and in cold spells the house 

 is apt to run a bit low. Under such con- 

 ditions Lorillard is the variety to grow. 

 We have seen it succeed where Stirling 

 Castle, a free growing and free setting 

 variety under suitable conditions, has 

 failed to give a satisfactory crop. 



Lorillard is sometimes inclined to 

 come a bit rough in the fruit. Some at- 

 tribute this trouble to insufficient pol- 

 lination, but our observation leads us 

 to believe that it is due more to rank- 

 ness of growth. Most varieties of toma- 

 toes are rampant growers when allowed 

 free scope in regard to root space and 

 all are more or less inclined to come 

 rough in the flower. Bough flowers 

 usually result in rough fruit, as the pis- 

 til, in place of being round, as it would 

 be in a well-formed flower, comes more 

 or less flat shaped, and unevenly formed 

 fruits inevitably follow. Lorillard per- 

 haps is as bad an offender in this re- 

 spect as any of them, but by confining 

 the roots to a limited space and checking 

 the rank growth, much can be accom- 

 plished in the way of producing well- 

 shaped fruits. 



The plants here illustrated are grown 

 in boxes thirty inches long, nine inches 

 wide, and eight inches deep. These 

 boxes accommodate three plants nicely 

 when grown to single stems, and we very 

 seldom have much trouble with badly 

 shaped fruits. 



In the selection of seed also the 

 trouble may be eliminated to a great 

 extent by selecting well-formed fruits 



for seed purposes. As quite a number 

 of seeds can be procured from one well- 

 ripened tomato, it does not take so 

 many fruits to give a supply of seed for 

 quite a large forcing establishment. We 

 usually save the seed from the late 

 spring crop, as the weather conditions 

 which prevail at the time they are set- 

 ting are more congenial to the proper 

 fertilizing of the flowers than in the 

 case of the earlier crops. Hence a larger 

 percentage of the seed is sure to be fer- 

 tile and well developed. 



W. S. Croydon. 



PIPES FOR HOT WATER. 



Will a boiler four feet long and thirty 

 inches in diameter, with eleven 3-inch 

 flues, be large enough to heat one green- 

 house 20x60? By using an expansion 

 tank how shall I run the pipes? The 

 house will have glass in the east gable 

 and none in the walls. It is sheltered on 

 the west by boiler shed and is two feet 

 in the ground. I wish to run the pipes 

 under the outside benches. I wish to 

 use hot water. S. C. C. 



If the boiler in question is an upright 

 tubular boiler with fire box built in the 

 shell, so that the fire has a water jacket 

 about it, the boiler probably will carry 

 400 to 450 feet of radiation. The house 

 in question, to be run at 60 degrees, will 

 require 400 feet of radiation and at 70 

 degrees wiU require 450 feet. If 2-inch 

 pipes are used, 640 lineal feet will sup- 

 ply 400 square feet of radiation. . This 

 is equivalent to saying eleven lines of 

 pipe the length of the house. A 2-inch 

 flow can be arranged under each side 

 bench, one of these flows to supply four 

 and the other to supply five 2-inch re- 

 turns. The flow pipes should be run 

 from the boiler to the far end of the 

 house and there enter a manifold carry- 

 ing the returns, four in one case and 

 five in the other. The boiler is a pretty 

 close fit and does not allow much of a 

 margin for safety. L. C. C. 



SHADING A PALM HOUSE. 



I would beg leave to^ ask through the 

 columns of your valued paper if any of 

 your readers has had experience with 

 painting glass on the inside of palm 

 houses for the purpose of shading them, 

 and if it can be recommended? Also 

 what was used? H. D. C. 



It is not a good practice to paint the 

 inside of the glass on a palm house for 

 the purpose of shading, from the^ fact 

 that under such conditions the shading 

 would remain on the glass for the whole 

 year, and the plants would be likely to 



Establishment of Peirce Bros., 'Waltham, Mass. 



