26 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



Januabx 11, 1912. 



SOIL FOR CARNATIONS. 



In The Eeview of December 31, J. E. 

 Weir, Jr., would like some one's ex- 

 perience with clay and sandy soils for 

 carnations. I have tried all kinds of 

 soils, from river bottom soil to heavy 

 clay, and have had best results from 

 well rotted sod from a clay soil, with a 

 liberal dressing of air-slaked lime be- 

 fore the beds were planted. I firmly be- 

 lieve stem-rot originates in the cutting 

 bench. I have lost only nineteen plants 

 out of 9,000 this year. I do not use any 

 bone when planted, but give them a 

 top-dressing of blood and bone the lat- 

 ter part of November, and I keep them 

 as near 48 to 50 degrees as possible, 

 with plenty of air on during fine 

 weather. H. B. McKnight. 



THE BBGEROW SEEDLING. 



H. B. McKnight, grower for the 

 Begerow Floral Co., Newark, N. J., has 

 a seedling, shown in the accompanying 

 illustration, which is liked so well that 

 a large house of it will be grown next 

 season. It is of the Enchantress color, 

 the result of a cross between Rose- 

 pink Enchantress and "White Perfection. 

 The flower is from four to four and 

 three-fourths inches across, with a 

 strong calyx and a stem sufficiently 

 rigid to carry the bloom erect. The 

 Begerow Floral Co. has found it an 

 extra good keeper as well as a non- 

 splitter. It is now in its third year. 



THE USE OF CYANIDE. 



In Small Houses. 



We are much interested in the hydro- 

 cyanic acid gas question, and hope that 

 we may know more about it with the 

 aid of those who are using it, although 

 we are inclined to think, from a lack 

 of testimony, that many florists are 

 not using it. 



We notice some doubt that it will 

 kill red spider; even Arthur T. Bod- 

 dington writes us to that effect. But 

 we know it will. 



We have a small house, 15x20 feet, 

 with an open side shed eight feet wide 

 at the north end, where we sleep, as 

 we have to tend our fire occasionally. 

 We also have a temporary addition, 

 10x20, that joins on the south by a 

 door. In the addition we have mostly 

 geraniums, large ones for Decoration 

 day, and in the house 15x20 mostly car- 

 nations. Elmer D. Smith, of Adrian, 

 Mich., advised us how to handle the hy- 

 drocyanic acid gas, so we read up on those 

 things until we decided the best was 



none too good for us, and we got our 

 sodium cyanide of A. T. Boddington, 

 as per Smith's advice. We had a 

 druggist weigh out a proper sample ac- 

 cording to Smith; also got some tea- 

 cups and used one large spoonful of 

 sulphuric acid and three of water in 

 each cup, allowing two of them in the 

 house 15x20 and one cup in the house 

 10x20. We wrapped our cyanide in 

 paper and dropped one in the 10x20 

 and closed the door; then dropped one 

 in the farthest cup in the house 15x20, 

 then another in the last cup, and got 

 out, locking the door. Of course we 

 had fixed our fire for three hours. At 

 the end of the three hours we opened 

 the door and, if not too cold, the ven- 

 tilators a little, and judging by the 

 smell, we soon closed up and went to 

 bed. Boddington recommends leaving 

 the house closed, I think, for thirty 

 minutes, and Smith for three hours or 



all night. We have to open our ven- 

 tilators from the inside. We do not 

 breathe while putting the cyanide in 

 the cups. We do the cyaniding about 

 5 p. m., so we get the advantage ad- 

 vised of darkness, also coldness. 



We buy our sulphuric acid from the 

 creamery, because we cannot get any 

 from the drug stores fit for use for 

 any purpose, and we get our pint bottle 

 filled for 5 cents, and know we are get- 

 ting a good article. 



We find, if we do not rinse our cups, 

 that when we put in the next lot of 

 acid and water it makes a strong, 

 disagreeable and perhaps unhealthy 

 gas. We have found by a year's ex- 

 perience that we need a larger quan- 

 tity than Smith advised, and are now 

 nearly doubling it. We do not in- 

 jure any of our various plants, and 

 when we discovered a while ago that 

 some of our plants had a bad dose of 



Enchantress-Perfection Seedling of Begerow Floral Co. 



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