Apbil 0, 1008. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



33 



House 35x250 of Guiutions in Pots at Hugh Low & Son's, Bush Hill Park, London, England. 



the blooms through most of the season 

 and we get every bloom the plant would 

 produce up to late in March or early in 

 April, as it will take the last of the 

 blooming shoots until that time to bloom. 

 Then, too, when we take off a batch 

 of cuttings it is not such a severe check 

 to the plant as it would be if it car- 

 ried little or no blooming growth at 

 the time. 



The term massacring can hardly be 

 applied to this method. We do not get 

 quite as many cuttings this way as we 

 would if we kept the plants «cut down 

 for cuttings from the beginning, but 

 with varieties which we are trying and 

 which we want to get acquainted with 

 we find it the best way. And then, too, 

 if a variety does happen not to meet 

 with a ready sale, we at least have the 

 cut of blooms up to April 1, and the 

 bench space is not wholly wasted. 



Just how many cuttings the plants 

 should average cannot be stated offhand. 

 Varieties differ considerably, and what 

 would be a good average for one variety 

 would fall away short for another and 

 be too high for still another. Last year, 

 I am sure, we averaged twenty cuttings 

 to the plant of White Perfection, besides 

 the blooms, though a considerable portion 

 of the cuttings came out of the sand late 

 in April. Rose-pink Enchantress aver- 

 aged about the same. Victory did not 

 average nearly- so well. 



Your plants were housed late and 

 came into bloom late; therefore your 

 breaks came late also. If you had plant- 

 ed in during early August, you would 

 have begun cutting in October and you 

 could have taken off lots of nice cut- 

 tings early in January. A. F. J. Baue. 



CARNATIONS IN ENGLAND. 



I am forwarding a photograph of one 

 of the new carnation houses of Hugh 

 Low & Son, Bush Hill Park, near Lon- 

 don, England, taken in January. The 

 house is 35x250 feet, with a long span 

 to the south. It has proved to be a style 

 of house well adapted to the dull British 

 climate, and has produced a high grade 

 of flower during the entire winter, which 

 has been one of the foggiest we have ever 

 experienced. 



Another addition which has been made 

 to the carnation department this season 

 is a ridge and furrow house, 56x250 feet. 

 This is a fine house, yet we prefer the 

 former style of the two. 



I also forward a photograph of a side 

 bench in one of our even-spanned carna- 

 tion houses, 250 feet long, filled with 

 80,000 young carnations in 2-inch pots. 

 This was the first propagation and photo- 

 graphed in December. Last season we 

 rooted over half a million young carna- 

 tions, selling them all in small pots, this 

 being the most satisfactory method of 

 selling the young stock. At the end of 

 the season we found we had run ourselves 

 rather short of first-class stock in keep- 

 ing our customers supplied. This season 

 we are trying to get ahead of our sales, 

 yet find it no easy matter to do so. 



The trade in carnations throughout 

 Great Britain generally is good, both 

 from a cut flower and plant sales stand- 

 point. Yet the ambition of a few grow- 



ers is to sell at American prices. This 

 is all well in talk, but in practice it is 

 hardly practical, because the two climates 

 are so different. The stock cannot be 

 handled in Britain nearly so cheaply. 



It is a fact yet to be proved, that car- 

 nations in England can be planted out- 

 side during the summer and lifted, so as 

 to produce a high grade of bloom during 

 the winter. Pot cultivation, as we all 

 know, is an expensive practice, while en- 

 tire greenhouse cultivation means an 

 early end to the flowering stock. The 

 season in Britain runs much later than 

 that of America and the plants should 

 have time to make up for the lighter 

 winter crop of bloom. 



The primary reason why young carna- 

 tions cannot be sold in Britain at Amer- 

 ican prices is because of the difference in 

 the two climates. Over here it is March 

 before cuttings are produced with the 

 same freedom that they are during De- 

 cember in America, while often the au- 



Young Stock in 2-inch Pots at an English Carnation Grower's. 



