1896 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



Mat 0, 1907. 



makes it a long-lived wood, which no man 

 can imitate with any degree of success. 

 Your subscriber refers to Carbolinum 

 for treating pine to give it durability, 

 but on making inquiry of several large 

 chemists and wholesale druggists we can 

 find no such article, or learn of it. Chem- 

 ists tell us that every wood preservative 

 contains some coal tar, as before stated, 

 and this precludes any question as to 

 whether it is desirable for greenhouse 

 structures or not. It is safe to say that 

 cypress would never be used for green 

 house structures if pine, or a cheaper 

 grade of lumber, could be treated with 

 chemicals and made to fill its place. We 

 repeat, that the man who uses cypress 

 and gets the right kind of cypress makes 

 no mistake and will always be glad that 

 he did not try something else. - 



John C. Moxixger Co. 



PLATYCERIUMS FOR MARKET. 



I am more than ever convinced, says 

 a writer in the Horticultural Advertiser 

 (England), that it only requires a little 

 perseverance to make platyceriums among 

 the most popular plants for decorations. 

 I have a plant which has been in the 

 house for some weeks and it is as good 

 now as when it first came; in fact, it 

 is making growth. It is much admired 



broad basal fronds and a few long ones 

 radiating out. The plant referred to 

 above has five fronds about eighteen 

 inclies long, some shorter ones, and the 

 pot is entirely covered with the broad, 

 sliell-like basal ones and can only be 

 moistened by standing it in water. 



Although the platyceriums will grow 

 on a piece of wood, I find more liberal 

 treatment encourages better growth. 

 Plenty of sphagnum and peat, with a lit- 

 tle dried cow. manure or artificial fer- 

 tilizer, or even liquid manure, will help 

 tliem. The best way to increase the stock 

 is to fix the stock plant on blocks of 

 j)eat. The roots soon penetrate and bulbils 

 are formed which develop into young 

 plants. This does not apply to all. 

 Grande, as an instance, never prodtices 

 bulbils and can only be propagated from 

 spores, which should be sowm on sphag- 

 num, crock dust, and peat. 



PHILODENDRON SODIROI. 



Ssveral of the philodendrons are un- 

 suitable for making shapely ornameptal 

 plants, but the species illustrated, P. 

 Sodiroi, is one that makes a handsome 

 specimen. As all the species are na- 

 tive of tropical America, they require 

 a warm, moist atmosphere, our summar 

 nights in the north being often too cool 



Phitodendron Sodiroi. 



by every one who sees it. It is a hand- 

 some plant, of the best type of Alci- 

 corne. I am not sure if I have men- 

 tioned it before, but a friend writing 

 from America told me that he had made 

 a specialty of them and used them with 

 great effect for house decorations. The 

 small, dense-growing plants are not so 

 desirable as those grown well, with 



to grow them well. From spring until 

 fall, their growing season, they should 

 be copiously watered and consequently 

 the drainage of the pot or pan should 

 be ampl? and the compo?t of very por- 

 ous material, some fibrous loam with 

 peat, fmall lumps of charcoal and 

 chopped sphagnum moss. Less water 

 should be given during winter. Al- 



though by no means a plant for the 

 commercial florist, it is rich and orna- 

 mental for the warm conservatory. Its 

 handsome leaves are described as milky 

 white above with reddish veins. W. S. 



THE DEATH ROLL. 



Patrick Creighton. 



Patrick Creighton, aged 85, died April 

 26 at his home on Frank street, McKees 

 Rocks, Pa. He was born in Ireland and 

 came to this country in 1846. He was a 

 member of the Roman Catholic church. 

 Three daughters, three grandchildren and 

 two great-grandchildren survive. 



Mrs M. A, Farrington. 



Mrs. M. A. Farrington, until recently 

 proprietor of the Fairview Greenhouses, 

 at Victoria, B. C, died last week. She 

 sold out last summer and took a trip to 

 California for the benefit of her health, 

 returning home about a month ago. 



Charles Balderston. 



Charles Balderston, a well-known rose 

 grower at Colora, Md., died April 28, 

 after an illness with the grip. He was 

 61 years old. Mr. Balderston was re- 

 nowned for his success with Jacqueminot, 

 of which he had for many years sent 

 some splendid flowers to city markets. 



NOTES FROM ENGLAND. 



Our large forcers of market roses 

 have in some cases had strange and even 

 disastrous experiences this season. Vis- 

 iting some large forced rose growing es- 

 tablishments during last January, I 

 heard many complaints of the manner 

 in which pot roses growing for cut 

 bloom were behaving, in some cases 

 whole houses of many thousands abso- 

 lutely refusing to grow or to respond to 

 the application of heat and forcing 

 treatment, except in a very slow, irregu- 

 lar and unsatisfactory way. It is the 

 practice to get the pot roses under glass 

 and gradually give them more and more 

 heat some considerable time before 

 Christmas, if the roses are required to 

 be cut in the early spring months. In 

 the last week in January, or thereabouts, 

 the buds should be assuming consider- 

 able size, but many of the houses I in- 

 spected were only then getting into 

 growth and had buds in some instances 

 no larger than oat grains, in spite of 

 the fact that the grower had given them 

 precisely the same treatment as in the 

 previous year, which should have pro- 

 duced growth fully a month in advance 

 of what was actually done. 



Many were the theories advanced by 

 the various growers as to the cause of 

 this costly loss of time and cultivation, 

 and for the benefit of American growers 

 who may have had a similar experience 

 I give the two most likely theories as 

 told to me by the largest and oldest 

 growers. One theory was that the whole 

 trouble arose from the ripening of the 

 wood in the hot weather experienced dur- 

 ing the summer of 1906, the prolonged 

 hot weather and comparative absence of 

 rain causing the sap to dry up and the 

 bark to become very hard and dry and 

 very tightly compressed round the inner 

 wood. Thus, when required to be forced, 

 there was not sufficient sap in the plant, 

 and even what there was could not work 

 freely, owing to the hard and tight na- 

 ture of the outside bark. It is a well- 

 known fact that the quicker the sap of a 



