

The Weekly Florists' Review* 



October 8, 1908. 



TO CARRY OVER TEA ROSES. 



"Will you kindly inform me how to 

 care for tea roses f I have several hun- 

 dreds I wish to take up and carry over, 

 to be set out in the spring. I do not 

 wish to force them during the winter, 

 but just keep them in good shape for 

 the spring. F. W. M. 



Assuming that these roses are just now 

 in the bench, they should be well ripened 

 before lifting. This can easily be done 

 by withholding or diminishing the sup- 

 ply pf water until the wood is ripe. Dur- 

 ing this process, give plenty of air and 

 do i^t let red spider denude the plants 

 of their leaves. 



Lift the plants carefully, leaving a 

 goo^ ball of earth on the roots. Store 

 them in some cold pit or cellar until 

 spring. They will require periodical in- 

 spection, so that none of the plants shall 

 become too dry. 



After planting out, when the new 

 growths are well in sight they can be 

 pruned. Ribes. 



ROSES ON WALLS. 



While freely admitting the unsur- 

 passed beauty of roses when in bloom 

 and, because of that, their desirability 

 for planting on rough walls, some people 

 raise the point that during a great part 

 of summer they do not fully answer their 

 purpose as a covering, and that they are 

 not, of themselves, very decorative in 

 effect. 



To get rid of this objection, Bignonia 

 radicans, which comes into bloom much 

 later than most clin;ibing roses, should 

 be planted on such wills alternately with 

 the roses. The bignonia has density of 

 foliage to make up for the lack of it in 

 the roses, while the flowers of the former 

 are by no means insignificant or incon- 

 spicuous. M. 



WHITE FLIES AND SCALE. 



We are troubled here with some sort 

 of small white flies. They are numerous 

 and will cover one all over under trees 

 or shrubbery. They also make a scale 

 on the branches. Please advise me how 

 to get rid of them and also the scale. 

 They are, of course, in the greenhouse. 

 I am using tobacco stems by soaking 

 these in the water and sprinkling with 

 the water. J. T. 



If these white flies have any connec- 

 tion with the scale insects, which I very 

 much doubt, they are only males and 

 cannot do harm to the plants, as they 

 have no mouths and only live a few 



days, their Sole function as perfect in- 

 sects being to fertilize the females. They 

 visually emerge early in the season in 

 the form of minute flies, with the head, 

 thorax and abdomen distinct and well 

 formed, two delicate wings, six legs and 

 usually two slender filaments at the 

 hinder end of the body. 



Artificial scale remedies are many. 

 Among the most useful are kerosene 

 emulsion, fir tree oil, whale oil soap, etc. 

 Any of these, diluted to the proper 

 strength and applied to the bark with a 

 stiff brush, will soon clean the plants. 



It would have been more satisfactory 

 had this querist sent a few specimens of 

 both flies and scale for inspection. 



BiBES. 



RHEA REID WINS OUT. 



The E. G. Hill Co., Richmond, Ind., 

 last week received a cable from Secretary 

 Forestier, Paris, France, announcing the 

 awarding of the grand prize, the gold 

 medal of the municipality, to Rose Rhea 



The Dorrance Mildew Machine. 



Reid as being the premier variety among 

 some eighty-four sorts entered for the 

 international contest. 



Last spring the first judging was held 

 at the Bagatelle gardens, Paris, and at 

 that time the Hill Co. had another rose. 

 Admiral Evans, that scored as high as 

 Reid, but on the second, held last month, 

 the Rhea Reid rose received such a high 

 rating that the judges decided it was en- 

 titled to the grand prize. In the first 

 judging Lyon -Rose scored ten points, 

 being the only variety to rank so high. 



Franklin, Mass. — M. I, Van Leeu- 

 wen, of the Continental Nurseries, has 

 begun work on a new greenhouse, 50x200 

 feet. 



THE MILDEW MACHINE. 



If anyone knows mildew, it should be 

 Benjamin Dorrance, for he has been bat- 

 tling with it since 1882, and it surely is 

 of prime interest that he thinks he has 

 found a means of destroying this great 

 affliction -of rose plants and therefore of 

 rose growers. The Dorrance mildew ma- 

 chine is shown in the accompanying il- 

 lustration. It has been used at the Dor- 

 rance rose houses, Dorranceton, Pa., for 

 five years. 



' * Mildew, ' ' says Mr. Dorrance, ' ' is the 

 bane of plant forcers, whether for flow- 

 ers or fruit. Being a parasitic fungus, 

 having as its host the plants of our 

 greenhouses, its control is one of the 

 vital problems confronting the grower. 

 The problem is rather a peculiar one, 

 since both are plants — death to the one 

 may mean death to the other. Mildew 

 yields to the fumes of sulphur, and is 

 more susceptible than the host. Hence 

 the question becomes one of getting the 

 sulphur fumes into the house when, where 

 and of the strength needed. Three meth- 

 ods have been used, painting sulphur on 

 steam pipes; vaporizing it in one of the 

 various devices, home-made or bought, or 

 dusting it on the plants themselves. 

 Painting the pipes is not satisfactory — 

 the fumes go all through the house, fad- 

 ing or defacing the blooms; they are in 

 the house for a long time, and are equally 

 distributed in all parts, whether needed 

 or not; steam must be used to start 

 them. When mildew is rife during the 

 summer, steam is a detriment. The dif- 

 ferent vaporizers, ignoring the fact that 

 sulphur, when heated to the kindling 

 point, will burst into flame, have in them 

 a great source of danger, and being sta- 

 tionary, if they do 'go wrong and take 

 fire,' much damage is done before they 

 are discovered or can be put out. When 

 dusted on the plants it is necessary, to 

 make the fumes effective, to take off all 

 ventilation and raise the temperature 

 greatly. 



"Taking all these into consideration, 

 we worked out a device which makes mil- 

 dew and its attendant evils for us things 

 of the past. It is a lantern-like affair 

 of two compartments. In the upper, the 

 sulphur is put; in the lower, the lighted 

 alcohol lamp. When the sulphur begins 

 to melt, the lamp is put out and the 

 sulphur lighted. The fumes of the burn- 

 ing sulphur are given off through .the 

 many perforations, and the strength 

 controlled by opening and closing the 

 door of the sulphur compartment. When 

 the smell of the burning sulphur is no- 

 ticeable, we are ready for the fumiga- 

 tion. We shut the ventilators in the 

 house and go to and fro in the walks, 

 swinging the burner as if it were a 

 censer, until the fumes are distributed 

 where wanted. Then we carry the 

 burner outside, set it down, and go back 

 and open the ventilators. The deed is 

 done, the mildew killed. We can make 

 the fumigation strong or light as we 

 please, all over the house, or simply 

 where the mildew was. One tablespoon- 

 ful of sulphur and the same amount of 

 alcohol will fumigate a house 20x150. 

 Fifteen minutes will cover the whole 

 time of fumigation, from the closing of 

 the ventilat(ys to the opening again. 



"It is not a toy, but a device of un- 

 usual ability to do its own definite work 

 and do it well. It must be handled as 

 such, given only into the hands of com- 

 petent and intelligent men, not weeding 

 boys and apprentices. Burning sulphur 

 in a greenhouse is fatal to the stock, but 

 we ignite our sulphur before we go into 



