January 30, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



25 



ered from the stem with an upward and 

 outward movement. This takes the leaf 

 and part of the wood of the flowering 

 stem with the cutting. The old wood is 

 then cut off an eighth or sixteenth of an 

 inch from the end of the shoot, and the 

 cutting is ready for insertion in the sand. 

 In March or later it is well to clip off 

 the ends of the leaves, to reduce the 

 transpiration or loss of moisture. Cut- 

 tings not taken with a heel, and cut oflE 

 at the base to any extent, should be cut 

 slightly below a joint, so that when the 

 lower leaves are pulled off backwards 

 they strip off the outer bark, leaving the 

 inner cambium tissue adhering to the 

 wood. It is on this tissue that the roots 

 form. "Whatever may be the method of 

 taking and trimming the cutting, the 

 most important thing is its treatment 

 after reaching the sand. 



After trimming, the cuttings are given 

 a drink by soaking for a half hour to an 

 hour in fresh water, to thoroughly fill the 

 tissues and prepare them for the ordeal 

 to come. 



The Propas;atis2 Bench. 



The best propagating bench is six 

 inches deep, with a layer of brick on the 

 bottom to distribute the heat dnd moist- 

 ure evenly, and filled up with clean, sharp 

 sand. This is wetted down and packed 

 hard with a brick. Then wet again 

 slightly, and cut a crack in the sand with 

 an old putty knife and straight edge. 

 The rows can be two inches apart and 

 three-fourths of an inch in the row, or 

 three inches apart and one-half inch in 

 the row. The cuttings should not extend 

 more than one-half inch below the sur- 

 face of the sand. After the cuttings are 

 in, water with a sprinkling can, or with 

 the hose if you have it fitted with a 

 sprinkler head. Syringe lightly for sev- 

 eral mornings; then gradually let the 

 sand dry out, always being careful, how- 

 ever, that the foliage is not allowed to 

 wilt. During this period the cuttings 

 are very impatient of drafts, and venti- 

 lation must be carefully looked after, as 

 a trifle too much air may result in the 

 loss of an entire crop of cuttings when 

 all other details have been faithfully car- 

 ried out. Direct sunlight should not be 

 allowed on the cutting bench, at least 

 until the cuttings show signs of rooting, 

 after which anything but midday sun 

 will prove beneficial. The propagating 

 house should be 45 to 50 degrees at 

 night, with 60 degrees in the sand. Some 

 prefer to have no bottom heat, but we 

 have had no success without it. 



Planting Out the Cuttings. 



In three or four weeks the cuttings 

 will be ready for planting out, and for 

 speed and good results generally we al- 

 ways plant directly to a bench, in three 

 inches of soil that is somewhat spent. If 

 such soil is not available, mix enough 

 sand with it so it will not be too rich, as 

 a rich soil will cause considerable damp- 

 ing off. If so desired, they can be pot- 

 ted up in 21/^ -inch pots, using a heavy 

 loam lightened with well decomposed 

 leaf-mold. They can be planted into the 

 field without a shift, and this ball of soil 

 will remain intact when lifting time 

 comes. December struck cuttings planted 

 directly into a bench four inches apart 

 each way, and January struck cuttings 

 three inches and a half each way, can 

 '>e planted in without field culture by 

 'Tune 1. But by all means plant out into 

 ♦he field all cuttings coming from the 

 propagating bench later than the middle 

 of February. If you can have your 



bench for young stock arranged to give 

 a gentle bottom heat for a few weeks 

 after coming from the cutting bench, the 

 plants will show grateful appreciation. 

 This is not necessary, but it is desirable. 

 During this period weeding and stopping 

 should be carefully attended to. We 

 make it a rule to go over the young stock 

 once a week regularly and then stop or 

 cut back only those plants that are really 

 ready for the operation. When a plant 

 is ready for stopping it will be brittle 

 and can be snapped off very readily, and 

 this method cannot be too strongly ad- 

 vocated, since the knife will carry dis- 

 ease from one plant to another. At this 

 stage the plants are very tender and dis- 

 ease is most easily transmitted. 



Removing to the Field. 



About May 1 the young stock is ready 

 for the field. Benched plants can be 

 taken up with a trowel with a good ball 

 of earth, slightly pressed together to 

 keep it intact. Place in flats and take to 

 the field. Let one man or boy distribute 

 the plants about where they ought to go 

 in; this can easily be determined from 

 the adjoining row. Another follows with 

 the trowel, with which he makes the hole 

 with a single stroke, inserts the plant 

 and presses firmly into place without 

 dropping the tool. The rows should be 

 sixteen to eighteen inches apart and from 

 eight to ten inches in the row. 



Weather conditions at this time of the 

 year are uncertain and the work should 

 be so planned as to get as many plants 

 as possible out before a rain. In sandy 

 soil without a bottom, and in dry sea- 

 sons, a Wittbold or Skinner watering 

 system is very beneficial in the field. 

 Neither is expensive to install and the 

 benefits are out of all proportion to the 

 cost of installation. 



After the plants in the field become 

 well established,, stopping should begin 

 again and continue weekly to within a 

 week or ten days of lifting time. Use a 

 hand wheel cultivator to keep the weeds 

 in check, and mulch the soil to conserve 

 the moisture. If artificial watering has 

 been resorted to, cease the operation long 

 enough before lifting begins to ripen the 

 growth. 



Rebenching the Plants* 



In our locality, lifting begins from 

 July 15 to August 1, according to the 

 quantity of plants to be benched. At 

 this time have a convenient number of 

 crates, eighteen inches wide and three to 

 four feet long, prepared. Spread the 

 bottoms with one or two inches of wet 

 moss, to keep the roots moist until plant- 

 ed in. Two men with spades dig on both 

 sides of the plant simultaneously, and 

 lift. A third shakes off the soil, inserts 

 the roots in a bucket of water and places 

 them in the crates with roots standing on 

 the moss. 



When the plants are lifted from the 

 crates the roots are shaken out so they 

 will spread, and a man on either side of 

 the bench does the planting by making a 

 hole with the hand or trowel, spreading 

 the roots out evenly, bringing the loose 

 soil around the roots, jumping the plant 

 up and down gently to distribute the soil 

 particles among the roots and then firmly 

 pressing in, leaving a shallow depression 

 around the plant to receive the first few 

 waterings. The plants should not under 

 any circumstances be set lower in the 

 bench than they were in the field. Ob- 

 serving this caution will save many a loss 

 by stem-rot. Care should also be taken 

 to have the smallest plants on the south 



side of the bench and the largest in the 

 center or north of the center of the 

 bench. By winter you will be able to 

 distinguish but little difference in the 

 size of the plants. 



During the planting-in period the glass 

 should be heavily shaded with a clay 

 wash squirted on the glass with a syringe, 

 to cool the houses and prevent wilting. 



The Soil for the Bench, 



And now let us take up a matter that 

 has been omitted, the soil for the bench. 

 If you can secure top soil from a pasture 

 where the soil is loamy and to the feeling 

 velvety, you have an ideal carnation soil. 

 We do not mean to say that carnations 

 cannot be grown on any other kind, for 

 the writer has seen most excellent results 

 secured from widely divergent textures of 

 soil. We merely mean that the soil men- 

 tioned requires the least skill to get good 

 results. When you have secured the soil, 

 remove four or five inches of turf; place 

 in piles grass side down, with one-fourth 

 good cow manure, during the fall preced- 

 ing the time wanted. Chop down and 

 work over several times during the winter 

 and spring, add a 4-inch potful of air- 

 slaked lime to one barrow of soil, run 

 through a coarse mixer and it is ready 

 for use. If this is impracticable, take 

 any good loam that contains no decaying 

 vegetation, work it over several times to 

 germinate and kill the weed seeds it con- 

 tains and wheel on the benches, after 

 spreading an inch and a half of well 

 decomposed manure on the bench bot- 

 toms. Add the lime as with the compost. 



Kesuming the treatment of the plants, 

 syringe lightly several times a day and, 

 as the plants take hold of the soil, grad- 

 ually remove the shade. From now on 

 water the entire bench, and after the 

 weeds have been thoroughly disposed of, 

 a mulch of spent manure mixed with light 

 soil will be beneficial in retaining the 

 moisture. Syringe once a week on bright 

 days throughout the season, to keep down 

 red spider. Fumigations of nicotine prod- 

 ucts every two weeks will keep aphis in 

 check. 



Proper Feeding. 



If the soil has been well enriched, fur- 

 ther feeding will be unnecessary until the 

 first crop of flowers has been harvested. 

 Then, after a week or two of rest, a 

 light mulch of sheep manure, with one- 

 tenth part of dried blood added to give 

 a generous surplus of nitrogen, may be 

 given to hustle the growth along. This 

 may be followed two to three weeks 

 later by a dressing of wood ashes to 

 ripen the growth. After another inter- 

 val a dressing of bone meal will mate- 

 rially assist the development of the sec- 

 ond crop of buds. This rotation may be 

 continued to the end of the season, by 

 increasing the quantity according to the 

 growth of the plants. Towards spring a 

 mulch of rotted cow manure may be 

 added. Among the commercial fertilizers 

 as good a combination as we have yet 

 found is 500 pounds of bone meal, 200 

 pounds muriate of potash and 100 pounds 

 nitrate of soda, the latter two well pul- 

 verized and the whole well mixed and 

 applied at three-week intervals at the 

 rate of a handful to two rows halfway 

 across the bench. 



In conclusion let me say that this is 

 far from being an exhaustive treatment 

 of the subject. It would be impossible 

 to give one within the limits of such a 

 paper. Every grower will find it neces- 

 sary to adapt his cultural methods to his 

 local conditions, and these he can only 

 find out by actual experience. 



