24 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



January 27, 1910. 



house carnations as early from the field 

 as we do of late years. The variety was 

 Mrs. Fisher, which I at that time grew 

 as my principal white and with which va- 

 riety I had for some years great success, 

 but only in solid beds; it did not do well 

 for me on raised benches. 



Good Flowers When Most Wanted. 



I found that stock out of 3-inch pots, 

 planted under glass in spring, gave me 

 good flowers when such were scarce, say, 

 in September, October and November, 



pared in spring, cultivated it the same as 

 if under glass, and built a greenhouse 

 over it before fall. I am of the opinion 

 that this way of growing carnations, on 

 beds with no glass over them until fall, 

 would be an ideal way if it were prac- 

 tical, but I find it impossible now where 

 we are located and with the kind of 

 houses we build now. 



Some years ago Uncle John Wyland 

 said to me one day about the beginning 

 of June, "I am going to take the glass 

 out of my carnation house, clean it out 



W. T. Bell. 



and bloomed through the season as well 

 as did those planted from the field. They 

 did liot make as much surplus grass, but 

 grew more slender, with equally good 

 flowers and longer stems than the field - 

 grown plants produced, and they could 

 be planted closer. 



The soil I used at that time was taken 

 from an ordinary piece of garden ground, 

 as I could not procure sod, being located 

 in one of the city suburbs. This piece of 

 ground was manured heavily in the spring 

 with cow manure, plowed in and kept 

 plowed through the summer. Sometimes 

 we manured it a second time and pulver- 

 ized it with the harrow before taking it 

 into the houses. 



Another variety I grew with great suc- 

 cess at that time was Hector, a scarlet, 

 which did better with me than any other 

 red at that time and for some years 

 after. The only fault it had was weak 

 stems; I had to give it up when the trade 

 insisted on stiff stems. Hector grew very 

 tall under glass in summer, but bloomed 

 much better that way than when planted 

 from the field. 



Building Glass Over the Plants. 



I simply could not make Hector pay 

 when planted from the field, but it did 

 its best when I planted it in beds pre- 



and plant the young stock in it in place 

 of into the field." I said to him, "You 

 are going to have a big job on hand." 

 About the end of June I met him again, 

 and he said to me, "You cannot believe 

 how quickly we got that glass out and 

 put away; it took us about two days." 

 I said to him, "Well, you will find it a 

 bigger job putting it in again in the 

 fall, and you have now no carnations to 

 sell when I can get good money for 

 them — $2 per hundred." He never did 

 it again, although the carnations were 

 a success. 



The Lawson Varieties. 



Of late years we aim to plant the Law- 

 son varieties under glass instead of in 

 the field, and in this way we get earlier 

 flowers and longer stems than we can 

 from the field-grown plants. Unless we 

 can house these varieties from the field 

 by the first week in July, they hardly 

 give us a first crop before the holidays, 

 and then the stems are short and the 

 flowers not up to the mark. We propa- 

 gate them during December and January 

 and get them into 4-inch pots by May. 

 I find, though, that unless planted under 

 glass not later than the first week in 

 June, field-grown plants planted near the 

 end of June or in the first part of July 



are more satisfactory, as the plants in 

 pots are liable to suffer during June 

 from one cause or another. 



But the difficulty in this is, when car- 

 nations have a good sale during June, as 

 they do some years, and your plants are 

 in crop, to make up your mind to throw 

 them out and make room for young 

 stock. 



The spaces we are able to plant in 

 May are the beds we had in mums the 

 previous fall. Following these we take 

 out a crop of Grand Eapids lettuce, then 

 fill with potted up cuttings of carnations. 

 We prefer them all in pots, as they come 

 from the cutting bench, so that when we 

 plant in the field we have a good ball to 

 them; then the plants will not suffer 

 much if the ground happens to be dry 

 and we cannot get them watered right 

 away. 



Then, as soon as the plants are in the 

 field, we get this empty space planted 

 with Lawson and Winsor. 



Soil From the Open Field. 



The soil we use is sod plowed about 

 four inches deep the previous fall; then, 

 before we bring it in, we plow in a good 

 coat of rotten stable manure, pulverizing 

 it with the harrow. I have found that 

 soil prepared this way, in the open field, 

 is sweeter than when it is put up in 

 heaps, and the labor is less. Besides, the 

 sod piles are apt to sour unless they are 

 turned and cut down, Avhich means much 

 work for the laborers. 



I have found that other varieties than 

 the Lawsons also do well when planted 

 under glass in spring; in fact, I rather 

 think nearly all varieties would, if we 

 could only get the houses ready for them 

 without having to sacrifice hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars' worth of flowers 

 to do it. 



LOCAL MANAGEMENT. 



The local management of the conven- 

 tion was in the hands. of the Pittsburg 

 Florists' Club, the officers of which are: 



President — Fred Burki. 

 Vice-President — P. S. Randolph. 

 Treasurer — H. L. Blind. 

 Secretary — H. P. JosUn. 

 Assistant Secretary — C. L. Crall. 



The committees specially charged with 



the details of the affair were: 



Executive Committee — E. C. Reineman, John 

 L. Wyland, John Bader. 



Finance — E. C. Reineman. chairman; H. 

 Meuschke, E. C. Ludwlg, P. S. Randolph, John 

 Bader, George W. Burke. 



Entertainment — H. L. Blind, chairman; Sam- 

 uel McClements, E. C. Reineman, T. P. Lang- 

 hans. 



Exhibition — A. W. Smith. Jr., manager; H. L. 

 Blind, W. A. Clarke, W. N. Potter, John Jones. 



Reception — Charles ('rail, chairman; Gust. 

 Ludwlg, DeForest I.iuUvig, Gust. Frlschkorn. 

 Thomas Jpnkinson, B. L. Elliott. 



Press — William Falconer, chairman; H. P. 

 JosUn, George W. lUirke, E. C. Reineman. 



Decoration — Ernst Zleger, chairman; J. W. 

 Ludwlg, Ed. Blind, William Loew, James Wise- 

 man. 



CARNATION CULTURE. 



[A papi r by W. T. Bell, of Franklin, Pa., 

 read before the American Carnation Society at 

 the Pittsburg convention, January 26 and 27, 

 1910.] 



So many papers have been read and 

 discussed, at the various meetings of this 

 society, that the essayist who can add 

 anything new on the subject of carna- 

 tions will be almost as great a curiosity 

 as a 6-inch carnation flower, but as it 

 has been found to be a good plan, in 

 our schools, to require the pupils to re- 

 view the lessons previously studied, so 

 perhaps a general review of the sub- 

 ject that we have met to consider 

 may be of advantage to all present, and 

 especially to those younger members of 

 the society who are modest enough to 



