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JANUABY 3, 1907. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



477 



Wide House of L. B. Coddiagtotif Murray Hill, N. J. 



comes in, for your men can shut down 

 the sash in about half the time it takes 

 to run up and down three small houses 

 covering the same space. ' ' 



' * Now, tell me about your benching. ' ' 



' ' Well, the house runs east and west 

 at a perfect level, but with an inside rise 

 of two and a half feet from south to 

 north. Then, the first bench . is only 

 sixteen inches in height and each follow- 

 ing bench is two inches higher, making 

 the back one thirty-two inches. Taking 

 this in connection with the two and a 

 half feet of floor rise, each bench is 

 about five inches higher than its south- 

 erly neighbor. During the shortest day 

 you can stoop to the edge of the bench 

 on the farthest walk and always see the 

 sun. Then, you understand, the highest 

 bench is perfectly easy to work without 

 any elevation of the walk or the mighty 

 unhandy way of straddling from bench 

 to bench in making your cuts." 



"Let's see, how many benches are 

 there?" 



"Nine, three feet eleven inches wide, 

 with ten walks each twenty-two inches 

 wide. Four plants to a bench are all that 

 can be worked to advantage and I believe 

 thoroughly in the side w^k; you make 

 up in quality what you possibly lose in 

 quantity — and that's another thing 

 strongly in favor of the wide house. 

 The quality certainly is better — and 

 quality is what we fight for." 



"Twelve thousand plants, eh! " I said. 

 "It must take a lot of wiring?" 



"About eleven miles — more than I'd 

 care to walk this cold day. 



"The heating is steam — the gravity 

 system. You see all these houses are 

 connected with center passages and the 

 8-inch mains and 5-inch returns are in 

 trenches right through them. There are 

 two 11/4 -inch pipes under each bench, two 

 flows under one bench, two returns un- 

 der the next lower, and four 1^4 -inch 

 pipes hanging on each side of the 

 house. ' ' 



"Do you think the large house is 

 cheaper to heat?" Here the foreman 

 chimed in emphatically. 



"Decidedly. We haven't figured it 

 out on a percentage basis, but here is a 

 comparison: When there are two pipes 

 on the 181/4-foot house, then by the same 

 token there should be four on the 37%- 

 f oot house and six on the 55-foot, but 

 we only run three on the 37i/{>-foot and 

 four on this." 



"How do we account for it? Well," 

 said Mr. Coddington, "there isn't so 



much outdoors about the big house and 

 then there's that big volume of heatecf 

 air up there, and as I said before, once 

 heated up it is easy enough to keep up. 

 Yes, there is a great economy and con- 

 venience in working one of these large 

 houses, to my mind that's one of the 

 strongest points. 



' ' Now you must see the workroom, we 

 wanted it as near fireproof as possible. 

 The siding is plaster board with a peb- 

 ble-dash finish on the outside and this 

 floor is made with iron beams and brick 

 arches between, the whole thing cemented 

 over. Another time we would make a 

 solid concrete floor and no bricks. Tn 



the boiler-cellar these concrete walls were 

 built right in the trenches without any 

 framing, and then the cellar dirt dug 

 out. An experiment, but it worked and 

 saved all that expense of framing a 

 mould. 



' ' Yes, we are in every way satisfied 

 with the construction of that big house. 

 The firm that erected it knows its busi- 

 ness and understands putting things 

 through, as well as being pleasant to 

 deal with. You can put me down as a 

 firm believer in the iron-frame house, the 

 wide house. But the next time you come, 

 remember you are to take lunch with 



us.' 



Leddra Wood. 



CARNATION NOTES.- VEST. 



Care of Young Stock. 



In speaking of the soil to use for pot- 

 ting the young carnation plants, I urged 

 you to always bear in mind that noth- 

 ing should be considered too good for 

 them, but that they should be given every 

 advantage possible. The same thought 

 should be in your mind when you select 

 the bench to set the pots on. 



When obliged to throw out a lot of the 

 blooming plants to make room for them, 

 one is apt to throw out those that are 

 the least promising, or those that have 

 done the least in the past, regardless of 

 what may have been the reason for the 

 failure. The point is this: While of 

 course it would seem unwise to throw 

 out a bunch of plants that are in good 

 condition and to keep a lot that are in 

 a bad way, yet if the reason for the fail- 

 ure was poor light and poor ventilation, 

 then it would be wiser to vacate the good 

 bench to make room for the young plants. 

 It would be folly to set the young plants 

 on a bench that is so situated that it 

 failed to grow good blooms. The young 

 plants should have a bench that gets all 

 the sunlight there is to be had and good 

 ventilation. These are the two elements 

 that promote a sturdy growth. 



If you discard blooming plants to 



make/ room, don 't fail to take out the 

 soil and place in the bottom of the bench 

 an^ch of clean sand to set the pots on. 

 To leave the soil in and set the pots on 

 it is a lazy man's way. The drainage 

 will be imperfect and bye and bye, when 

 the roots fill the pots, they will go 

 through the bottoms into the soil and a 

 quick, soft growth will result, a bad con- 

 dition to get your plants into. 



Set the pots in straight rows across 

 the bench and place the label the same 

 as you do in the propagating bench. Be 

 sure the first watering penetrates to the 

 bottom of the pot. If your potting soil 

 was in the right state of moisture, filling 

 the pots with water once will be suffi- 

 cient, but examine them and make sure. 

 After that water only when needed to 

 keep the soil from getting too dry. Be 

 careful not to overwater them until the 

 roots have worked through the soil in ail 

 directions. Shade from the sun for a 

 few days to prevent wilting. You will 

 have to be guided by the condition of the 

 cuttings in regard to how long to con- 

 tinue shading them. Varieties that grow 

 soft and fleshy take longer to catch hold 

 than the wiry ones and you must shade 

 as long as the sun wilts them. Four to 

 six days is the usual time and in some 

 cases a couple of days longer, during a 

 few hours in mid-day. Look them over 

 every day and water the dry spots with 

 a can. You will find that where they are 

 close to a steam pipe and where the sun 



