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The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



OCTOBBB 29, 1908. 



Spur and Henry Irving, then Von Sion, 

 Princeps, Sir Watkin, Ornatus, Emperor, 

 Empress, in the order named. Others 

 are forced, but not in quantity. 



Emperor makes top prices if not 

 crowded in the boxes, but probably, 

 everything considered. Sir Watkin beats 

 them all and is an ideal forcer. It sel- 

 dom goes down in the boxes like Em- 

 peror and Ornatus, a most disastrous 

 occurrence, and, second sized bulbs be- 

 ing certain to bloom, a good number 

 may be put in a box. 



Temperature in the House* 



Start them and all others cool, not 

 over 50 degrees, until the bud shows, 

 when the limit is 60 degrees by day and 

 55 degrees at night. Mind, I say the 

 limit; 5 degrees less is better, but do 

 not let your house run up above the 

 limit at any time or failure will result, 

 if it is fire heat or even partly so. I 

 know that in some southern sections it 

 is often this temjferature in January, 

 and with hot water there is trouble. I 

 can only say, open every sash and door; 

 shade the glass temporarily, that is, with 



leaving down two years. The second 

 cause is the greatest source of trouble, 

 but can be overcome by only growing 

 long-stemmed sorts, or, if the section 

 is a very sunny one, by using lattice 

 overhead. 



Keeping the soil loose and planting in 

 beds four feet wide will generally give 

 satisfactory results, if lifted early. Dar- 

 wins may stay down two or three years 

 if given ample room to start with, but 

 it must be ample — nine inches each way. 



Tulips do not like rich land. They do 

 exceedingly well after potatoes, if the 

 land was manured in the spring. 



Harvesting tulips is almost a profes- 

 sion. The Dutch have it down to a 

 science. Eoughly speaking, lift early 

 and lift dry. Store in a dark, cool room. 

 Lay thinly until well dried and pack in 

 boxes six inches deep. Keep the sun 

 and wind oS, or they will crack, but 

 early lifting is the great thing. You 

 can clean at leisure any wet day. As 

 you must not plant until November and 

 lift in early June, it will be seen that 

 another crop can easily be obtained. 



Keizerskroon, Prince of Austria, 



and makes a bunch. It is, both inside 

 and out, a grand doer' and sells well. 

 I strongly urge every florist in the coun- 

 try to buy some, being assured that in 

 any soil, section or climate it will in- 

 crease and it never deteriorates any- 

 where. The next best is Sir Watkin. 

 Why the next best! Well, it seems to 

 have got second place to Emperor, but 

 it often pays fifty per cent better than 

 the latter, as it is quite the ladies' 

 flower — a lovely chalice-cupped flower, 

 without a blemish, given to mankind by 

 the Almighty to denote the arrival of 

 spring. It must not be omitted from 

 the bulb order, being one of the money- 

 makers. 



I recommend also Barri conspicuus. 

 This is a cup variety, tinged with scar- 

 let, but will not force. In fact, it 

 glories in cold and dull weather. It 

 should always be gathered in bud and 

 kept dark, or the scarlet will disappear 

 and the beauty be gone. It is the fast- 

 est in propagation and may remain three 

 or four years undisturbed. 



Empress should be grown, as it is a 

 lovely bicolor; yellow trumpet with 



.* . V 



v--/-. 



.r*'^'! 



Tulip Chrysolorat Golden Yellow. 



clay and water; use a lot of water and, 

 if you fail to get down to 60 degrees, 

 the last remedy is to empty your pipes. 

 We have a hose on the boiler for this, 

 and a high tank to refill the pipes as 

 soon as they are emptied. 



Use boxes 12x18x41^ or 5 and do not 

 have two sizes. Plant as soon as your 

 bulbs arrive. Keep some out if a suc- 

 cession is desired. Drainage is almost 

 immaterial. As to soil, be sure it is not 

 rich; you will not get it too poor. 



In sending the blooms away, tie in 

 either twelves or twenty-fives and be sure 

 to paper the boxes heavily. Cut the fo- 

 liage with the flowers and dump the 

 bulbs, as they do not pay to fool with, 

 and by dumping you can save your 

 boxes. The information given here is 

 enough to enable the veriest tyro to suc- 

 ceed. 



Outdoor Culture of Tulips. 



I have not touched on tulips, as I am 

 writing on growing for profit and con- 

 sider that it pays best to grow these 

 outdoors. I admit that they have a 

 nasty way of deteriorating outdoors, but 

 this comes from want of practical knowl- 

 edge in cultivation and is due to these 

 four causes: Treading on the beds after 

 planting, cutting the stems too long, 

 breaking the foliage in cleaning, and 



Prince de Ligny, Vermilion Brilliant and 

 White Hawk are among the best earlies 

 and include white, red, yellow, orange 

 and yellow and red. Good late tulips 

 are Bouton d'Or, Golden Crown, Picotee 

 and Gesneriana. These are all good sell- 

 ers and profitable, but be sure to get G. 

 spathulata major superba. Excepting 

 Darwins, there are more dollars in this 

 article than in any other bulb I know 

 of. One object of this article is to ad- 

 vise florists to grow this tulip. It is a 

 perfect gold mine and the price is bound 

 to advance as its merits become known. 

 Get a dozen each of fifty sorts of 

 Darwin of a reliable man and choose the 

 best for yourself. Without a doubt, one 

 cannot go wrong if he buys Glow, Farn- 

 combe Sanders, Bartigon, Gustave Dore, 

 Margaret, Clara Butt, Isis, Mattia, Ant. 

 Eoozen, Zulu, C. Becker and Virginia. 



Dafiodils and Narcissi. 



I will revert to daffodils and narcissi 

 for outdoor culture. You may say. 

 Where do you draw the line between the 

 two? I have often been asked the ques- 

 tion and say that narcissi are white 

 without yellow — that is all — of course 

 barring the Polyanthus section, which 

 are all narcissi, independently of color. 



For daffodils I must start with Em- 

 peror, rightly named so, for it is large 



white perianth. It does well in any soil 

 or situation and forces well indeed. 



Lastly comes Grandee, the last to 

 flower, similar to Empress, but not suit- 

 able for forcing. 



You may venture to buy dwarf gla- 

 dioli, Spanish and Japanese iris and 

 Lilium candidum, all being good growers 

 and good sellers, but somewhat tricky to 

 force. These last three will give you 

 a succession of flowers from November 

 (Paper White) until June, after which 

 you do not need much, but could grow 

 peonies, Shasta daisies, asters and mums, 

 so as to have flowers every day in the 

 year. 



Usefulness of N. Poeticus. 



I find I omitted Narcissus poeticus, 

 or Pheasant's Eye, too well known to 

 need description and too cheap to leave 

 out. Moreover, in some sections it comes 

 for Memorial day and is then especially 

 valuable. I have known the flowers to 

 make $20 a thousand, several times the 

 cost of the bulbs. It will not force and 

 must not be planted thickly, or it will 

 not flower. In shipping use ice and 

 pack lightly, or the blooms will melt. 



I am not touching on the cultivation, 

 as it is so simple one can hardly go 

 wrong. Any depth over three inches 

 deep to six inches will do, in good soil, 



