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OCTOBKB 1, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



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MORE ABOUT 



BENCH BUILDING 



L^ 



A CHEAP CEMENT BENCH. 



I frequently see in the Review some- 

 thing about cement benches and I would 

 like to give my way of making them. 1 

 made my first one four years ago and 

 find it all right. I am now making them 

 all of eement as fast as the wood rots 

 out. 



The following is the cost of a bench 

 5x55: Blocks for drainage holes, 30 

 cents; lumber for leg molds, sides and 

 bottom, $6.25. I used old rafters for 

 supports to hold up the frame. Cement, 

 two -and three-quarters barrels, at $1.50 

 net, $4.13. Sand I hauled with green- 

 house horse, and paid for the sand 50 

 cents. Total cost, $11.18. 



I use only greenhouse hands, paying 

 for no extra labor. I get my leg molds 

 from dressed lumber, 1x4, cut it up in 

 2-foot lengths, nail it up and make a box 

 2x4. I use fivepenny nails and when I 

 want to take the molds off I can easily 

 draw the nails with a claw hammer, as 

 they are not driven all the way up. I 

 use a 6-inch dressed board on the outside 

 and a 4%-iii(!h board on the inside, for 

 the sides and ends, placing the boards 

 one and one-quarter inches apart. 



Make a miter box out of 6-inch board, 

 to place the inch strips in. This holds 

 twenty strips, 1x1 inch. Cut them up in 

 blocks one and a quarter inches long. 

 As yon eut twenty at one sawing, it is 

 soon done. Throw them in water and 

 •drive a fivepenny nail through the center 

 while wet and they will not split. Dot 

 * these about on the floor of the bench 

 form for drainage. Put on your cement 

 and trowel it well to avoid cracks when 

 set. Under glass it is well to wet it 

 frequently until it sets well, to keep it 

 from cracking. 



Before putting on the cement and 

 blocks, cover the boards with paper to 

 keep the eement from running through 

 the cracks of rough boards, and unroll 

 «hicken wire down the bench on top of 

 the paper. Tack on the blocks and then 

 cement. This gives a bench one and a 

 quarter inches thick, which will hold a 

 man after it sets. 



When the boards come down they leave 

 the blocks in the cement, the nails draw- 

 ing out, or at least most of them. As 

 the blocks are covered over with about 

 an eighth of an inch of cement in order 

 to trowel the cement easily, the blocks 

 cannot be seen, but you can get under 

 the bench and back the nails up. A very 

 light tap will bring them up enough to 

 show where the blocks are. Then take 

 a piece of wood and a hammer and push 

 them through. You can push them out 

 with your finger if you will let them 

 stay about ten days, but if you have 

 more than one bench to make you cannot 

 wait over four or five days, as you want 

 all your blocks and lumber to go to the 

 next bench. In the statement of the 

 cost of my bench, there is $6.55 of the 

 $11.18 that can be used for a dozen 

 other benches. 



To hold the inside board of the sides 



in place, let it rest on one of the 1^- 

 inch blocks, putting a small nail in the 

 block, and let the board push against it 

 when filled with cement. Tack a small 

 strip across the top of the two boards, 

 to hold them securely in place until your 

 concrete has set. 



Good cement benches can be made 

 cheaper than wooden ones. 



Make the cement as follows: One part 

 cement; four parts good, clean, sharp 

 sand. Turn four or five times before 

 watering. Make it quite wet, as it will 

 pack in the sides better. Be sure that 

 the sides are well packed, or you will 

 have cracks, holes, etc., in it. The sides 

 of my benches show the grain and knots 

 in the timber. Several people thought 

 they were wood, they show so plainly. 



I was in the cement business and had 

 considerable experience before going 

 into the greenhouses. I do not use any 

 lumber when cement will answer. In 

 my boiler room I put down a lot of old 

 brickbats and slushed them over with 

 very wet cement, mixed one to five, and 

 have a good cement floor. My steps are 

 made of old rocks, bats or anything I 



can get, and slushed over with cement. 

 Trowel it oflF and it looks like solid 

 cement and is just as good, if not better. 

 My partition walls are made in the same 

 way, with old bats, and are only four 

 inches thick. In these one part eement 

 and six parts sand are sufficient. Use 

 good Portland cement in all. 



W. A. Lankford. 



GLADIOLL 



Will someone please tell me how to 

 treat gladioli for winter blooming, how 

 and when to plant them and how soon I 

 can get them to bloom f S. N. M. 



The early flowering sections of glad- 

 ioli, such as G. Colvillei and G. nanus, 

 can be placed in flats in late September 

 or early October. Keep cold in a pit or 

 frame until January. Then give a night 

 temperature of 48 to 52 degrees. None 

 of the gladioli like hard forcing. Flow- 

 ers should be had on the G. Colvillei va- 

 rieties late in March. They can be had 

 even earlier, but we would prefer not to 

 endeavor to rush them too much. By 

 starting a few flats at intervals of ten to 

 fourteen days, a long succession of flow- 

 ers may be had. 



G. Gandavensis varieties and others of 

 the large-flowered, outdoor type cannot 

 be planted before November. They do 

 well planted in benches in four or five 

 inches of soil. They are often dropped 

 in among carnations, snapdragons and 

 other crops. The night temperature 

 should not exceed that given to carna- 

 tions. Flowering will commence in March 

 and a succession may be had until out- 

 door ones come in season. C. Wj 



PROPAGATING GERANIUMS. 



One Cause of Failure. 



There must have been something rad- 

 ically wrong in the treatment given 

 geranium cuttings if forty or fifty per 

 cent failed to survive the rooting process, 

 no matter by which method the work 

 was attempted, if the cuttings were of 

 normal condition when inserted. After 

 twenty-five years' experience in rooting 

 large numbers of geranium cuttings by 

 means of various methods of treatment, 

 I have found the only instances of fail- 

 ure to be due altogether to crowding 

 after growth commenced. This can 

 easily be avoided if it is possible and 

 practicable to pot the plants whenever 

 they are sufficiently rooted, but it hap- 

 pens with many growers not to be con- 

 venient to pot them in time to avoid 

 this. 



There are at least three methods more 

 or less generally practiced in the propa- 

 gation of geraniums, and it may be said 

 that each one of the three has something 

 to commend it, by reason of its being 

 best suited to the circumstances and con- 

 ditions under which the work has to be 

 carried on. The grower who roots ge- 

 raniums in quantity seldom confines him- 

 self to one method. 



Roctins: in Shallow Flats. 



Although the method of placing the 

 cuttings in moderately shallow flats is 

 not the most expeditious by any means, 

 yet I have found that I could obtain 

 fully as good results from this metliod of 

 rooting as I could from that of placing 

 the cuttings in sand in a bench in a 

 greenhouse. For the last five or six 

 years I have abandoned the practice of 

 using sand exclusively for the filling of 

 the flats, and instead I put about three- 

 quarters of an inch of loam or leaf-mold 

 screenings in the bottom of each box 

 and then fill up to within an inch of the 

 top with soil composed mainly of leaf- 

 mold, with just a little sand thrown in. 

 This soil should be made firm and then 

 at least half an inch of clean sand should 

 be put on for a top covering, before 

 the cuttings are inserted. 



The reason why I have decided that 

 soil is better, in the proportion stated, 

 than sand, is that while the cuttings root 

 as quickly and as well in the soil as in 

 the sand, they also make more roots, 

 which work into the soil. And the soil 

 not only sustains the plants, but adheres 

 to their roots while being removed for 

 potting, to such an extent that the plants 

 receive no check whatever as a result of 

 the operation. 



