Decbmbeb 27, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



407 



Longiflorumt* 



It is high time now to bring in your 

 Japan lilies that are wanted in flower at 

 Easter. Some may say it is late. If 

 they have been protected by a covering 

 of litter and shutters or sash, to keep 

 out severe frost, the lilies are as well 

 out in a frame as indoors, because they 

 have been making roots and will be in 

 right condition to endure a good strong 

 heat from New Year's on to Easter. 



Give them a week or ten days in a 

 night temperature of 50 degrees. After 

 that raise the temperature 10 degrees 

 and never let it drop, even for a few 

 hours. The last four weeks before Eas- 

 ter you can do the most effectual forcing. 

 A drop of a few degrees in temperature 

 will stunt a lily more than any plant I 

 know of, so once you raise to 60 degrees 

 at night and 70 degrees in daytime keep 

 it steadily at that. 



Tulips. 



Tulips can now be brought in for ear- 

 liest cutting. La Eeine, Vermilion Bril- 

 liant, Yellow Prince, Cottage Maid and 

 Proserpine will all flower satisfactorily 

 from now on. I have had occasion to 

 mention recently the conditions best 

 suited to flower them. It is simply a 

 top heat of 80 degrees to 85 degrees, a 

 spraying and watering daily and a heavy 

 shade a foot or so above the flats to draw 

 up the stems. "Without this shade the 

 flowers will open close to the surface of 

 the flats and be useless. What is known 

 as bottom heat, or heat at the roots'' is 

 not at all necessary with tulips, but they 

 must have a strong heat around their 

 leaves and flower buds or the growth will 

 be stunted and the flower abortive. Few 

 of us have a house especially constructed 

 for this, but it will take only a little 

 ingenuity to contrive some means of em- 

 ploying the heat of the pipes beneath the 

 bench on the growth of the tulips. Nor 

 is the shading hard to manage. 



Lily of the Valley. 



Last fall's importation of lily of the 

 valley will force readily from now on. 

 This little flower requires quite different 

 treatment from tulips and narcissi. The 

 latter should have an abundance of roots, 

 and the roots require only the heat of 

 the house, while a greater heat is needed 

 to develop the foliage and flower. The 

 valley makes scarcely any roots while 

 being forced, yet they need a high tem- 

 perature at the roots to induce them to 

 ■develop their foliage and flower, and the 

 top heat need be only the temperature 

 of the house. The sand in which the 

 roots of valley are inserted should be 85 

 ■degrees and the top heat may be 60 de- 

 grees. This is for the first month or 

 two. As the time of natural flowering 

 approaches less bottom heat is required, 

 but the top heat never should be over 60 

 <iegrees. 



Dahlias. 



■ In a rose house temperature, where you 

 have a vacant bench with five inches of 



single, pompon or cactus dahlias. If 

 planted at once you will cut flowers by 

 the middle of April, and from then on 

 in abundance. There are a number of 

 varieties suitable for the purpose, but 

 one of the best and most prolific is the 

 single Twentieth Century, a grand flower, 

 with a fine long stem. I know of no 

 difficulty in growing dahlias under glass, 

 except the common green aphis, which 

 is easily kept down by any or the liquid 

 nicotine solutions, applied with the com- 

 pressed-air bellows; and, perhaps, red 

 spider in May or June, which is kept in 

 subjection by the hose and pure water, 

 applied with a pressure of seventy-five 

 pounds to the square inch. 



Freesias. 



Plant a few more pans of freesia. 

 They will not flower much before Easter. 

 Instead of pots, put fifteen bulbs in a 

 6-inch pan. They are beautiful, sweet 

 flowers, and when thick with blossoms 



are attractive to all, but when only a 

 few bulbs are planted are thin and not 



attractive. 



William Scott. 



TO PROPAGATE HYDRANGEAS. 



Would hardwood cuttings of Hydran- 

 gea grandiflora be much more likely to 

 grow if started in sandy soil in pots 

 next spring than if set out in the open 

 ground? J. L. D. 



The way to propagate Hydrangea 

 grandiflora from hard wood is to cut oflf 

 the growths of last summer and keep 

 them in a cool cellar, with the ends of 

 the cuttings in moist sand or sandy loam' 

 till next April, when the cuttings can be 

 made into pieces of three eyes and put 

 into beds of a light soil. 



Another method of propagating the 

 useful shrub is to take off the young 

 growths in June and insert them in three 

 inches of sand in a hotbed, which must 

 be kept close and shaded for two weeks, 

 gradually admitting air. As you give 

 ventilation increase the water. They will 

 be rooted in four or five weeks and in 

 two months from the time of putting in 

 the cuttings the sash of the hotbed can 

 be entirely removed and the rooted cut- 

 tings can be planted out in nursery rows 

 the following September. Most of our 

 hardy shrubs can be propagated in this 

 way. W. S. 



THE CRAFT AND 



THE CRAFTSMAN 



Choice of a Craft 



Some men succeed in every business 

 and every legitiniate avocation, while 

 some others do not succeed in those same 

 pursuits, under equally favorable condi- 

 tions. The difference, therefore, between 

 success and failure does not necessarily 

 lie in the craft, but in the craftsman 

 himself. This is axiomatic — a self-evi- 

 dent truth. And it is equally true that 

 no man, however successful he may be, 

 or may have been, in one department of 

 our many-sided activities, will' succeed 

 equally .well in every other, or any other. . 



It is, then, of the greatest importance, 

 that every man selects for, hig craft that 

 which he likes, and likes because of his 

 adaptability thereto. It is my good for- 

 tune this evening to address sl company 

 of gentlemen who have chosen their craft 

 and are in the earnest pursuit of it. 

 The production of fruits, vegetables and 

 flowers, the decoration of the home, the 

 lawn and the landscape, is an avocation 



I worthy of the best there is in the best 



'. of men. 



Your field of activity is broad — so 

 broad that the man has not yet been 

 born who can say, with any approxima- 

 : tion to truthfulness, he has mastered it. 

 This fact alone makes your calling one 

 of peculiar interest to a thoughtful man. 

 Mother Earth is so full of mystery, and 

 delights so often in doing the unex- 



An address by W. H. Wyman, of the Bay 

 State Nurseries, North Ablngton, Mass., read 



«6il, you might plant some roots of De'^embe''rM',*'V^'6.^"**"'"'' ""'^ ^^°'''*'' ^'"^' 



pected, that one is kept ever on the alert. 

 He knows that the unexpected is sure to 

 happen. Then again. Nature guards so 

 jealously the citadel of her secrets, that 

 only observing mortals are allowed to 

 profit from her. The wisest of men suc- 

 ceed only by the most careful observation 

 and practical, persistent application. 



, Conditions Must be Considered. 



Every plant has its own peculiarities, 

 it will succeed in one soil and will not in 

 another. It must have its own conditions 

 complied with or no returns are given. 

 Nothing is more capricious and nothing 

 is more exacting than a living plant, and 

 the higher the order, the more exacting 

 its demands. Hence, the soil, the tem- 

 perature and all the conditions that have 

 to do with the plant, must be reckoned 

 with before the actual work of production 

 has been begun. The man who does not 

 carefully consider this feature of his 

 problem, acts the part of the man who 

 builds his house upon the sand, without 

 giving 4ue regard to the foundation 

 thereof. Disastrous consequences are 

 sure to follow. 



The time was, when people in general 

 thought that the boy who was stupid in 

 his books, not capable of making a law- 

 yer, or a doctor, or a minister, would do 

 to make a cultivator of the soil. But 

 the time has come when men realize tuat 

 it takes as good brains to compel Nature 

 to give her best, as to do anything else 

 that is worth the doing. It is one thing 

 to cultivate the soil, it is another to com- 

 pel Nature to do her best. 



