January 24, 1907. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



705 



Bright Pink Seedling Carnation Exhibited at Toronto by W. G. Saltford, Pooghkeepsie, N. Y. 



(Blooms measure four inches. The variety is as yet nameless.) 



Some Poor Varieties. 



There is one more point, t\je last but 

 not least: Many varieties that are so 

 well spoken of and advertised in your 

 papers as gaining different awards of 

 merit prove very poor varieties with us. 

 The following are a few: Fiancee, Car- 

 dinal, Ethel Ward, Candace, Indianapo- 

 lis, Nelson Fisher, Abundance and Fla- 

 mingo. If this continues, your European 

 buyers will certainly decrease, as it is 

 hardly sufficient, with the losses we sus- 

 tain through shipping, to make the game 

 worth the candle when procuring really 

 first-rate standard varieties. 



MECHANICAL WATERING. 



[A paper by Louis Wittbold, Chicago, read 

 before the American Carnation Society at the 

 Toronto Conrentlon.] 



I have been asked by your secretary 

 to give my views on mechanical water- 

 ing, and I wish to ask, do any of us 

 believe that the present mode of water- 

 ing cannot be improved upon? If we 

 look back at the different things that 

 have been accomplished all along the line 

 in greenhouse construction and heating, 

 etc., even in watering, inasmuch as the 

 hose has superseded the can, we certainly 

 must admit that there is always room for 

 still further improvement. It is only a 

 short time ago when all watering in 

 greenhouses was done with the watering 

 can, and we all know with what prejudice 

 the hose was looked upon as a factor in 

 greenhouse work. This prejudice has 

 gradually been overcome until today even 

 our cousins across the water are using 

 rubber tubes to save time and labor. 



Modem Improvements. 



The improvements in construction, 

 pumping machinery, specializing of stock 

 grown, etc., have made possible a sav- 

 ing of a large part of the labor of water- 

 ing. Formerly a mixture of different 

 kinds of plants were grown in one green- 

 house in one grand conglomeration, and, 

 of course, each different species of plant 

 needed different care and special atten- 

 tion, and the watering pot or hose could 



hardly be dispensed with. But at the 

 present time, when there are houses and 

 ranges of houses of one kind of plant; 

 when conditions are equal or as nearly 

 equal as it is possible to get them, this 

 has been changed, and a watering ma- 

 chine can be applied and the labor of 

 watering, which formerly took hours, can 

 now be done in so many minutes, with 

 less waste of water than with the hose 

 and with more equality in its distribu- 

 tion. 



Proof Required. 



The question will, of course, be asked, 

 what have I to prove the above asser- 

 tions? And I must admit it is a natural 

 question, as talk is cheap, and facts are 

 what we want in this year 1907. Gold 

 bricks are good things for the con man 

 and we can hardly be blamed for being 

 skeptical about things which are not en- 

 tirely clear to us and with which we are 

 unfamiliar. But is it fair to allow 

 prejudice to put a brake on improve- 

 ment? When every minute of time saved 

 is money in our pocket, and when a labor, 

 which now must be attended to by the 

 most experienced, can be mechanically ar- 

 ranged so that, after it has been studied 

 out to the satisfaction of the proprietor, 

 he can give his instructions, so that water 

 is given in just the amounts he has by 

 experience found best for the good of 

 the plants. 



Practical Experiments. 



I have been asked to give my experi- 

 ence up to date, and will say that I, at 

 first, started using a watering system, for 

 syringing palms, by running a pipe along 

 underneath the plants in the center of 

 the bench, using my patent nozzles which 

 produce a sheet of water in fan shape so 

 that, when these nozzles are spaced along 

 the pipe they will produce a sheet of 

 water the full length of the pipe. 



A pipe is connected with a swivel 

 wheel so it can be turned so that, if soil 

 only should be watered, the nozzles can 

 be turned downward, wetting only the 

 soil, and by turning the nozzles upward 

 the foliage can be sprayed. In this way 



I was able to water or syringe my palms 

 when required with a saving of, at least, 

 ninety per cent of time and labor. I 

 then used the system for watering Bos- 

 ton ferns, suspended overhead in the 

 greenhouse, hanging a plant directly 

 under each nozzle so that, by turning on 

 the water just a little, the water will come 

 from the nozzle in a solid stream and flow 

 into the pot, just as much as is wanted, 

 causing only the drip from the water 

 that runs through the soil, while with a 

 hose, at least ninety per cent of the water 

 would drop on to the plants below. Then, 

 by turning on full pressure, the plants 

 can also be sprayed or syringed. In this 

 way I have been enabled to grow double 

 the amount of stock in my palm houses 

 and with less labor than previously used. 

 I now have a large portion of our two 

 ranges of palm and fern houses equipped, 

 both at our Lake View place and at 

 Edgebrook, and am working on more 

 lines right along, as I find the time 

 saved will pay for the outlay in a short 

 time. 



As Applied to Vegetables. 



The next experiment I made was in 

 Davis Bros.' cucumber houses at Au- 

 rora, 111., and I quote you the following 

 from a letter: "It saves ninety per 

 cent of our watering labor. We now 

 have the Wittbold system in all houses. 

 Do the watering in an hour which for- 

 merly took twelve hours and do better 

 work. We are recommending the sys- 

 tem to our friends." I wish to say that 

 Mr. Davis is using it now for the sec- 

 ond winter and is much pleased. 



The next experiment was in lettuce 

 at Chamberlain & Bunker's, Fremont, 

 Mich., who are large vegetable growers, 

 and the letters I have received from 

 these gentlemen have given me much en- 

 couragement. I only mention these ^o 

 places as a few facts; more woiJ^d'only 

 tire you and would only be a-reftetition 

 of what these gentlemen have s&id. You 

 gentlemen are representative carnation 

 growls, and I wish to ask, if a water- 

 ing system can be applied in palm and 

 fern houses, in cucumber and lettuce 



