■*T^/V;"K~ 



MAY 9<»1907. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



1897 



plant can be got into motion the quicker 

 will the growth be made. In the opinion 

 of some the foregoing fault can be 

 remedied by more copious supplies of 

 water during these hot, dry summers, 

 and by not practicing the drying off 

 method so heavily when inducing the 

 plant to ripen off. 



According to another theory the cause of 

 the trouble was the almost total absence of 

 frost during October and November of 

 1906 in this country. Practically speak- 

 ing, up to the time of being taken into 

 the houses for forcing, the plants never 

 felt the effects of a single frost. Con- 

 sequently they were never properly dor- 

 mant or ripened, and when forcing com- 

 menced they were only partly at rest, 

 or in fact had never had the required 

 rest from the time of ripening to the 

 time of starting into growth again. It 

 is a well-known fact that the longer and 

 better a forcing article is ripened and 

 rested, or in a dormant state, and the 

 more absolute the dormant state is, so 

 much better and quicker will it respond 

 to forcing treatment afterward. The 

 following remedy for this half dormant 

 state was suggested to me: Before 

 placing the plants in the forcing house, 

 subject them to a week or two of a few- 

 degrees of frost in an ice chamber, and 

 thus, as it were, put them more soundly 

 to sleep. This process would certainly 

 appear more natural, judging from the 

 behavior of roses grown out of doors, 

 which, it will be noticed, grow better and 

 produce their blooms earlier outside when 

 the preceding winter has been severe. 

 Whether the method would be too costly 

 for commercial use remains for the ex- 

 perimenter to prove, but I imagine the 

 time is coming when every up-to-date 

 market nursery will consider a refriger- 

 ating plant on the premises quite as 

 necessary as the heating apparatus. 



Winter or American carnations are 

 continuing to make headway in public 

 favor, and although the quantity is in- 

 creasing rapidly the demand is fully 

 equal to it and prices continue at a 

 profitable level. Certainly they will 

 never become so popular here as in 

 America. In England almost every de- 

 scription of flower is grown and a public 

 demand exists for it, no one flower being 

 very much above anything else in public 

 favor. Judging from appearances, in 

 America roses and carnations absorb 

 three-fourths of the public taste, leaving 

 the host of other flowers to fill up the 

 other quarter. In England the contrary 

 is the case; to a certain extent every- 

 thing is popular and in demand as its 

 season comes round; consequently those 

 big establishments devoted to practically 

 one cultivation are seldom met with here, 

 but at least a dozen or more subjects are 

 grown in every nursery. J. B. 



JOHN W. DUNCAN. 



John W. Duncan, good gardener that 

 he is, was born at Glack, Aberdeenshire, 

 Scotland, thirty-eight years ago, where 

 his father had charge of the estate and 

 gardens for over thirty years. He served 

 his apprenticeship in gardening under 

 his father and came to America in 1886. 

 His first place on this side of the Atlan- 

 tic was on the W. D. Pickman estate, 

 Beverly, Mass., one of the finest old 

 places on the now popular North Shore, 

 where he stayed several years. He was 

 next for two years under Mr. Monteith 

 on the G. A. Nickerson estate in Ded- 

 ham, Mass. This place was at that time 



John W. Duncan. 



famous for its crotons and other stove 

 I)lants. On leaving there he took charge 

 of the summer estate of J. A. Rararill, 

 New London, Conn., where he stayed 

 several years. He was next located in 

 Bridgeport, Conn., for two years. 



After this he took charge of the 

 estate of W. H. S. Wood, Greenwich, 

 Conn., where in a short time he got to- 

 gether one of the finest collections of 

 trees, shrubs and lierbaceous plants to 

 be seen in that section. His frequent 

 contributions from here to the shows of 

 the American Institute in New York 

 were always attractive. About six years 

 ago he removed to Boston to accept the 

 position of assistant superintendent of 

 parks, which he still retains. 



Mr. Duncan was for several years sec- 

 retary of the American Association of 

 Park Superintendents and is now one of 

 its vice-presidents. He is a member of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 and since coming to Boston has been a 

 staunch supporter of the Gardeners' and 

 Florists ' Club. He is up to date, per- 

 sistent and progressive, a thorough 

 gardener and a staunch friend. 



W. N. Crak;. 



MENDEL'S THEORY. 



"The Mendelian Theory" was the 

 subject of an address at once interest- 

 ing and instructive, gi\-«n by P. Murray 

 Thomson, at the March meeting of the 

 Scottish Horticultural Association. In 

 the course of his address Mr. Thomson 

 directed attention to the fact that, al- 

 though Mendel 's paper was published in 

 1865, it was lost to the world of science 

 till 1900, but that since its discovery 

 numerous experiments have been carried 

 out to test what is now generally known 



as the Mendelian law. Mendel worked 

 with forms of garden peas possessing 

 characters remaining constant from gen- 

 eration to generation, crossed with other 

 varieties having differentiating constant 

 characters. The lecturer showed, large- 

 ly by means of diagrams, the results 

 which Mendel observed when experiment- 

 ing with each of seven pairs of differ- 

 entiating characters, and the interesting 

 deductions which he drew from them. 

 Crossing tall with dwarf peas, or round, 

 smooth poas with wrinkled, he obtained 

 in tlie first generation all tall or all 

 round, smooth, according to the pair ex- 

 perimented with, but that on this prog- 

 eny being self-fertilized, and the result- 

 ing seeds grown, the character which 

 had been recessive or suppressed in the 

 first generation reappeared, the plants 

 of the second generation producing tall 

 and dwarf, or round, smooth and 

 wrinkled, in the proportion of three 

 ' ' dominants ' ' to one ' ' recessive. ' ' He 

 further observed that while the reces- 

 sives and one-third of the dominants 

 tiiereafter continiied to breed true, two- 

 thirds of the dominants continued to act 

 as the hybrids of the first generation 

 iiad (loiio. In-eaking up into two classes, 

 three-fourths showing the dominant 

 character and one-fourth the recessive. 

 With a knowledge of Mendel's law the 

 work of the hybridist and plant breeder 

 has been much simplified, and the speak- 

 er urged all horticulturists, particularly 

 the younger generation, to engage in a 

 little experimental work, believing that 

 thereby their labors would be made more 

 interesting. 



Bardom.v. N. Y.— Mrs. J. W. Van Os- 

 trand, Jr., has given up her flower busi- 

 ness. 



