AUQUST 25, 1010. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



13 



and knows to a certainty that he gets 

 what he buys. 



Is there any reason why we could 

 not be put in position to buy a car of 

 coal with a guarantee as to its heating 

 value and an analysis showing the per- 

 centage of sulphur and other deleterious 

 substances? 



Scientific Study of Fertilizers. 



The whole science of fertilizing has 

 been studied and well worked out for 

 the farmer. This does not help us great- 

 ly. Our conditions are different. Our 

 culture is intensive. The farmer's needs 

 are reasonably good results, cheap. The 

 difference between "nitrate of soda and 

 sulphate of ammonia, between sulphate 

 of potash and muriate, are settled for 

 him. All those subtle distinctions be- 

 tween stem and leaf growth, color, size 

 of flower, substance, and date of ma- 

 turity of the flowers, are nothing to the 

 farmer, and everything to us. A dif- 

 ference of $10 per ton in fertilizers of 

 the same elements would be vital to the 

 farmer, while a difference of three 

 times that amount would be nothing 

 to us, if balanced by some small differ- 

 ence in effect on leaf or stem or flowers. 



We are so ignorant that we say, * ' Let 

 chemicals alone, even if you have to 

 start a dairy to obtain the natural 

 manure." This is right and proper so 

 long as we remain in our present state 

 of ignorance regarding the use of chem- 

 ical manures, but it is so, merely be- 

 cause we lack the "know how" ana 

 because it is too expensive for the ordi- 

 nary man to teach himself. There is 

 every reason to believe that equally 

 good results could be obtained by the 

 exclusive use of chemicals, in connec- 

 tion with the proper amount of humus, 

 as by the use of animal manures. It is 

 even quite probable that were this sub- 

 ject worked out to its ultimate end, 

 means would be at hand to attain re- 

 sults which our present wildest dreams 

 would not measure. The Illinois station 

 is working upon this line, but the sub- 

 ject is so extensive that half the sta- 

 tions in the country could investigate 

 it to good advantage for years to come. 



Breeding and Testing of Varieties. 



The cross breeding of varieties is a 

 most fascinating work. Breeding for 

 the purpose of obtaining new commer- 

 cial varieties is to be left to the com- 

 mercial grower, however, but there is a 

 vast field for the experiment station 

 worker in studying the many unknown 

 things about the subject which make 

 failure the rule and success the excep- 

 tion. 



Insects and fungous diseases, like the 

 poor, we have always with us, and new 

 forms are constantly appearing. The 

 demand for work here is never-ending. 



The testing of the commercial values 

 of varieties has no place in the station 

 work, except so far as making notes of 

 such facts as incidentally become evi- 

 dent in growing and studying plants for 

 more legitimate purposes. This is not 

 to be understood as applying to the im- 

 portation and testing of new or un- 

 known species, which is valuable and 

 legitimate work. The commercial grow- 

 er can do his own testing better and 

 quicker than the man who has no com- 

 mercial knowledge and can not work 

 under commercial conditions. 



What to Do About It. 



The foregoing are only a few of the 

 many ways in which the stations can 



help us. Almost without exception the 

 station managements are not only will- 

 ing, but would be glad to take up this 

 work for us. The funds are rarely 

 available, however. Our part of the 

 work is to get in touch with them, tell 

 them what our needs are, find out what 

 facilities they must have and then go 

 to the legislature and get the money. 



In closing, the writer wishes to urge 

 each member to look at the last year's 

 report of this society, page 171, and see 

 what his state is doing for floriculture, 

 which in most cases he will find to be 

 nothing at all. 'Illinois has a good start, 

 Maryland is doing well, while Pennsyl- 

 vania, the second (certainly not worse 

 than the third) state in the Union in 

 floriculture, is doing nothing. Indiana, 

 with its old and well organized State 

 Florists' Association, has allowed the 

 floricultural department, which was do- 

 ing such brilliant work a few years ago, 

 to die of starvation, and so it goes on 

 from bad to worse. It is a shame to us, 

 and might so easily be different. 



Truly, the farmer appears to have 

 more enterprise and more business sense 

 than we have, and he certainly has more 

 exact knowledge and better technical 

 training for his work. 



CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION. 



[An address before the Society ot American 

 Florists at Rocbester, N. Y., August 17, by 

 Edward D. Beyer.] 



The uses of Portland cement concrete 

 have become so general as to have be- 

 come almost universal and the knowl- 

 edge of its value has been so thorough- 

 ly disseminated that a paper on the 

 subject today is apt to be filled with 

 repetitions and contain little new, or 

 of interest to the listener. I had hoped 

 today to present to you lantern slides 

 of our collection of photographs of 

 greenhouse construction, as I believe 

 I could more successfully entertain you 

 in this manner than any other, but in 

 this I was disappointed, and I, there- 

 fore, beg your indulgence while for a 

 few minutes I endeavor to give you the 

 reasons why concrete in greenhouse con- 

 struction is so eminently superior to 

 any other material. 



Concrete has won its position as the 

 building material of the future en- 

 tirely on its merit. Whether in mono- 

 lith, in reinforced, in stucco or any of 

 its varied forms, it is entirely fire- 

 proof, absolutely vermin and frostproof, 

 never requires repairs and saves fuel, 

 as it retains heat and keeps out cold. 

 To my mind its value as a material 

 for the construction of little and use- 

 ful things is mostly from the fact that 

 it is plastic and easily worked, lend- 

 ing itself to practically any design. 



What Concrete Is. 



Concrete is a mixture of cement, 

 sand and gravel or crushed stone in 

 varied proportions, depending only upon 

 the strength desired, and when mixed 

 with water and placed to remain un- 

 disturbed, hardens into permanent 

 stone. Good concrete does not alone 

 depend on the cement; it is also nec- 

 essary to have good sand and gravel, 

 and by good sand and gravel I mean 

 material free from clay, loam or vege- 

 table matter — in other words, should 

 be perfectly clean, and as a safeguard 

 I consider it always well to wash these 

 aggregates. Sand alone with cement 

 makes good concrete providing the sand 

 is a graded one, that is, from fine to 

 coarse, and where the work is not 



thick, as in bench or table construc- 

 tion, I should consider the cement and 

 sand mixture the best, as with the fine 

 aggregate you are less liable to have 

 voids in the finished work. For this 

 class of work and for floors of green- 

 houses, where the latter need not be 

 over three inches in thickness, a one 

 to three mixture will prove generally 

 satisfactory. In foundation work or 

 in the molding of hotbed frames a 

 regular concrete can be used, composed 

 of one part of Portland cement, two 

 and one-half parts of sand, and five 

 parts of screened gravel or crushed 

 stone. Cinders from hard coal ash can 

 be also used in the place of gravel or 

 stone, but the cinders should be thor- 

 oughly washed and as free as possible 

 from particles of unburned coal. All 

 concrete for form work should be placed 

 wet and spaded or puddled into place. 



It is very difficult in a paper of 

 this character to specialize, as every one 

 of you have different problems, par- 

 ticularly of design, confronting you or 

 in contemplation, and I, therefore, feel 

 that I can only cover the subject in a 

 general way and outline the general 

 rules for the use of concrete in con- 

 struction such as you are engaged in. 



In Oreenhouse Construction. 



In greenhouse construction concrete 

 is particularly adaptable, especially in 

 the interior, where the constant use of 

 water tends to the rapid decay of wood, 

 and in consequence where wood is used, 

 as, for instance, in the tables or benches 

 that contain moist earth, it is short 

 lived and in constant need of repair. 

 Concrete when once placed never needs 

 repair. Water, instead of damaging, 

 improves it, and the unsightliness of 

 rotten sideboards is entirely eliminated 

 and the uniformness of it all lends to 

 the general appearance and proper up- 

 keep. 



The usual foundation for a green- 

 house building need not be over ten 

 inches broad and only deep enough to 

 be below the frost line, which, of 

 course, varies in different sections of 

 the country, and this concrete, as stated 

 before, to be a one part cement, two 

 and one-half sand and five gravel or 

 stone mixture. We will take as an ex- 

 ample the house described in the book 

 issued by the Atlas Portland Cement 

 Co., "Concrete Construction About 

 the Home and on the Farm," which 

 is assumed to be a total width of six- 

 teen feet. The ridgepole should be six 

 inches wide by eight inches deep, of 

 the same proportions of concrete as 

 above, reinforced with two V^-inch steel 

 bars. The beams should be 2^^x5 

 inches, extending from ridgepole to side 

 wall and reinforced with a %-inch steel 

 bar, which will be sufficiently strong to 

 support the sashes. [Evidently the au- 

 thor of the book was not describing 

 a commercial house. — Ed.] The side 

 walls can be seven inches thick to the 

 height required. Eight-inch square posts 

 reinforced with four i^-inch bars in each 

 comer, placed at 10-foot intervals, will 

 support the ridgepole. 



The concrete greenhouses pictured in 

 the book are at Westwood, N. J., and 

 are of this construction, and, as you 

 will note, have no wood to decay or 

 burn in their entire construction. The 

 concrete in this instance is not particu- 

 larly pleasing from the fact that care 

 was not exercised in spading the wet 

 concrete against the outside of the 

 forms and by not remedying this with 



