January 9, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 1 1 



New Range of Hotises of the Clyde Floral Co^ Qyde» Ofiio. 



not make the mistake of putting into the 

 sand a lot of soft shoots, which have 

 no energy stored up within themselves. 

 A week or ten days longer on the plants 

 will make firat-elass cuttings of them. 



Take no cuttings from the plants 

 when the soil is very dry and the plants 

 look wilted. The same holds good when 

 the sun is shining strongly during mid- 

 day. Take your cuttings in the morn- 

 ing of clear days, or on cloudy days. 

 "With proper foresight this can be man- 

 aged very well. Cuttings taken from 

 plants which have been highly fed will 

 not root as satisfactorily as those taken 

 from plants which have been growing on 

 a moderate diet. 



Inserting: the Cuttjns;s. 



After the cuttings are taken from the 

 plants they should be gotten into the 

 sand as speedily as possible. While they 

 are being prepared they should be kept 

 cool and moist at all times. In pre- 

 paring the cuttings, make a clean cut 

 at the bottom and remove entirely from 

 the stem all those short leaves which 

 would sink below the surface of the 

 sand. Cut back only the longest lower 

 blades and leave all the upper blades 

 intact. 



The sand in your propagating , bench 

 should be about three inches deep after 

 it is packed firmly. Set the cuttings into 

 the sand about an inch deep and press 

 the sand along each row after it is filled. 

 Set the cuttings about three to every 

 two inches and set the rows about an 

 inch and a half to two inches apart. 

 These distances may be modified accord- 

 ing to the size of the cuttings, but they 

 are a good average. Water in well after 

 you have a number of rows set, and 

 never allow the sand to become dry 

 thereafter. Further instructions will 

 follow in my next. A. F. J. Baus. 



A MODEL CARNATION PLANT. 



Those who have an interest in carna- 

 tion growing find it well worth their 

 while, when visiting Chicago, to make 

 the trip to a point two miles north of 

 Wheaton, 111., to see the model carnation 

 growing establishment of E. T. Wanzer. 

 Here are six houses, ridge and furrow 

 plan, each 23x200, erected two years ago 

 by William Reitmeier, of material sup- 

 plied by the A. Dietsch Co. The heating 

 IS hot water supplied by a Kroeschell 

 holier, the pipes all being on the floor of 

 the greenhouses. 



Mr. Wanzer spent a number of years 

 on the Chicago Board of Trade and went 

 into carnation growing because of his in- 

 terest in the work. He selected an ideal 

 spot on a farm where the soil is the deep, 

 "CJi prairie loam and put up a thor- 

 oughly well built establishment, but with- 



out any frills. He then turned the work 

 of carnation growing over to R. Scheffler 

 and became that efficient grower's first 

 assistant. The quality of the stock turned 

 out from the beginning was an evidence 

 that the needs of the carnation are thor- 

 oughly understood and provided for. 



The range houses 35,000 plants. Law- 

 son 'being grown in largest quantity, but 

 with Enchantress a close second. Lawson 

 occupies two houses and Enchantress one 

 and one-half houses. Victory occupies a 

 whole house and the remaining house and 

 one -half provides space for Winsor, 

 Aristocrat, White Lawson and Boston 

 Market. Each of the varieties is in ex- 

 cellent shape and there is no sign about 

 the place of any of the diseases the car- 

 nation is heir to. But the visitor invaria- 

 bly is first impressed with the splendid 

 color in Lawson. It is much brighter 

 than usually seen and Mr. Scheffler says 

 it is due to the soil, which is a rather 

 light, black, friable loam, quite different 

 from that in use in many places around 

 Chicago where good carnations are grown. 



Winsor is well liked, but fault is found 

 with the keeping qualities of Aristocrat, 

 which Mr. Scheffler says has such hard 

 wood that it does not draw up water with 

 the freedom of the more fleshy-stemmed 

 varieties. He thinks Winsor can be 

 grown with profit by anyone who can 

 make money on Lawson, but Victory is 

 his especial favorite. The first season 

 this was grown it was full of rust and 

 obtained a poor start, but in the end 

 gave a fair account of itself. This year 

 it has done splendidly, there being no 

 special difference in the plants which 

 were benched early and those which were 

 housed late in August. Mt. Scheffler says 

 it will establish itself and give a cut of 

 good quality quicker than any other vari- 

 ety of which he knows. Another point is 

 that it gives a steady cut, the shoots 

 being in all stages of growth — but this 

 is a characteristic of all the varieties in 

 the Wanzer place. They cut 1,500 Vic- 

 tory flowers December 22 and realized 

 over 10 cents each for them. It pays 

 them better than any other sort on the 

 place and next year they will plant 10,- 

 000 of it. Mr. Wanzer says he has vis- 

 ited practically all the carnation growers 

 around Chicago this season and has seen 

 no place where either Craig or Beacon 

 was good enough to compete with Vic- 

 tory. 



While Enchantress is doing well with 

 Mr. Wanzer, as with practically every 

 grower, he is of the opinion that the vari- 

 ety is overdone and he will grow less of 

 it next year. Part of the space will be 

 given to White Enchantress, o'f which he 

 already has some fine stock from John 

 Reitmeier, brother of the man who built 

 the greenhouses. 



Visitors are interested in Mr. Schef- 

 fler 's method of propagating. He uses 

 about half sand and half soil and roots 

 his cuttings with little moisture. Over 

 the cutting bed he erects a frame of lath 

 and wire on which he spreads newspapers 

 for shade and says the cuttings get much 

 better attention through the daily re- 

 moval of the shade than where it is ac- 

 complished by simply winding up a long 

 sheet; every spot in the bench comes di- 

 rectly under the propagator's eye. That 

 his method is an excellent one is shown 

 by the fact that no stronger lot of cut- 

 tings could be found anywhere than those 

 now about ready for potting and to make 

 room for which a fine bench of Enchant- 

 ress has had to be thrown out. This year 

 Mr. Wanzer is propagating more heavily 

 than last year, it being his intention to 

 make a specialty of rooted cuttings as 

 soon as he can establish a reputation for 

 his stock. 



The store room for blooms is worth a 

 moment's consideration. It has been fit- 

 ted up with galvanized iron tanks for 

 hardening the flowers. The tanks are 

 deep enough to let the stems in almost up 

 to the flower and are provided with racks 

 dividing each tank into small squares for 

 each handful of blooms. The tanks are 

 emptied by merely pulling a plug as in a 

 bathtub and are filled by opening a fau- 

 cet, so that fresh water can always be 

 had. Here the flowers stay twelve hours, 

 before packing for shipment to the A. L. 

 Randall Co., Chicago, which has sold 

 every flower the place has turned out, ex- 

 cept a few which are retailed from the 

 greenhouses. 



Mr. Scheffler makes good use of every 

 bit of space in the greenhouses. He has 

 just finished cutting a crop of fine stevia 

 grown in the walks and he has a box of 

 sweet peas at each end of each bench. 

 Chrysanthemums are grown as a catch 

 crop in the propagating house and in the 

 field there is a plantation of peonies. 

 Gladioli will be added this season and it 

 is expected they will do better than the 

 100,000 asters picked did last year, al- 

 though asters still will be grown. Gera- 

 niums also are propagated for wholesj^l- 

 ing as well as for retail trade. 



CLYDE CARNATION HOUSES. 



The accompanying illustration is from 

 a photograph of the carnation growing 

 establishment of the Clyde Floral Co., at 

 Clyde, Ohio, a few miles east of Belle- 

 vue. The range was built by Arlin & 

 Arlin, but the business is now conducted 

 under the former name. There are four 

 houses 21x100, erected of material fur- 

 nished by the Foley Mfg. Co., Chicago. 

 The up-to-date varieties of carnations are 

 grown and the season thus far has been 

 an excellent one. 



