Maech 26, 1014. 



The Florists^ Review 



Truss House of Dobbs & Son, Auburn, N. Y., Built in I9JJ, Part of wliicli CoIIapfied Early tliis Month. 



DOBBS IS TAKING HEART. 



William G. Dobbs, who is the sole 

 owner of the business conducted under 

 the name of Dobbs & Son, at Auburn, 

 N. Y,, is beginning to take courage and 

 push ahead again, after the accident 

 that befell him in the big storm of 

 March 1, when a section of the roof of 

 one of his truss houses, 42x250, gave 

 way under the weight of the snow. 

 Mr. Dobbs had just recovered from a 

 long and expensive illness and the loss 

 of all the stock, in addition to the dam- 

 age to the big greenhouse itself, took 

 the heart out of him. As he said: 

 * ' Coming, as it did, after so many other 

 setbacks and troubles, extending over 

 three years, at first I felt like giving 

 up and quitting, but after so many 

 sincere expressions of sympathy and 

 encouragement as have been received 

 I feel like going at it harder than 

 ever." What has appealed to Mr. 

 Dobbs most of all was the action of 

 some of his neighbors in offering young 

 stock to help him restock the house. 

 He needed the help and appreciated it. 

 As he says: "We have put a wooden 

 roof over the break and are planting 

 the house to vegetables, etc., as fast as 

 we can take out and clear the frozen 

 stock. What we are the heaviest losers 

 on are our cuttings for next season's 

 stock, mums, carnations, vincas, etc. 

 All our carnations, about 13,000, were 

 in this house, besides a bench of stock 

 mum plants with thousands of cuttings 

 just ready to be taken oflf and put in 

 the sand." 



In addition to replacing the part of 

 the house that went down, the entire 

 structure will have to be reinforced, as 

 "it shows weakness in other places," 

 according to Mr. Dobbs, who appar- 

 ently does not think so well of the style 

 of construction as he did when he sent 

 the photograph of his plant to The 

 Review for publication with the follow- 

 ing description, February 29, 1912: 



"This house was built by the Geo. 

 M. Garland Co., of Des Plaines, 111. It 

 is 42x250 and is said to be one of the 

 finest greenhouses in the state. Espe- 

 cially noteworthy is the fact that a 

 house forty-two feet wide can be built 

 without posts or supports of any kind. 

 Truss construction accomplishes this, 

 and Mr. Dobbs says he believes the 

 houses thus built are as strong as those 

 on posts. If this is true, it is certain 

 that much less shade is cast, and with 

 sunlight at a premium, as it is during 

 the winter, the truss method naturally 

 holds great interest for the grower. 

 The sides of the house are built of 

 pressed concrete* blocks, with rock face, 

 and the offices, boiler rooms, stacks, 

 etc., all have the same finish. There 

 are ten beds in the house, each 6x120 



feet and six inches deep, and all of con- 

 crete construction. The posts, sides 

 and bottoms were poured in one con- 

 tinuous mass. The boiler room and 

 coal cellars are all fireproof, being en- 

 tirely of concrete; even the roofs are 

 concrete, with expanded metal rein- 

 forcing. ' ' 



THE TAENISHED PLANT BUG. 



Will you please tell us the best way 

 to fight the tarnished bug? Last fall 

 we grew cucumbers and were greatly 

 troubled with these bugs or flies. They 

 sucked the sap from the buds or grow- 

 ing points, stunted them and sometimes 

 killed them. New shoots came out be- 

 low, but met the same fate, until the 

 plants were badly stunted and hard to 

 train up on the trellises. No fumigat- 

 ing or spraying that we could do 

 seemed to harm this pest, but it grad- 

 ually disappeared through the late fall 

 and now we only find a bug occasion- 

 ally. Did they disappear because of 

 the lateness of the season or because 

 the plants became too old for them to 

 feed on? What is the life history of 

 this pest? Does it breed outside the 

 greenhouse and come in? If it does so, 

 could we find its breeding place and 

 destroy it? Will this pest start multi- 

 plying when the warm days come and 

 infest the spring crop of cucumbers, or 

 is it only a fall pest? Our greenhouses 

 are next to an old garden patch and 

 the benches were filled with soil from 

 this patch last summer. P. T. P. 



The United States Department of 

 Agriculture estimates that the tar- 

 nished plant bug in sixty years has 

 caused a loss considerably in excess of 



$350,000,000 to American farmers. It 

 is more effectively destroyed during 

 the winter months than' later in the 

 season, when it has left its winter quar- 

 ters. The burning of dry grass, leaves 

 and rubbish of all kinds on the mar- 

 gins of the woods and fields is the best 

 way to fight it. Hedgerows should be 

 cleaned out and all rubbish about 

 them burned. Leaving ground quite 

 bare of vegetation over winter exposes 

 the bugs to the elements and kills 

 them. 



Most of the bugs pass the winter in 

 thick bunches of clump-forming grasses 

 and in waste places, pastures and mead- 

 ows, along roadsides, railroads, etc. 

 During late fall and early winter large 

 numbers may be found in corn husks, 

 kafir corn, etc. It is important when 

 burning grass to be sure it is quite dry 

 and yet to burn it slowly, so that the 

 flames will penetrate the densest por- 

 tions and reach the bugs. Winter is 

 the best time to do the burning, as in 

 fall and spring green and wet stems 

 furnish protection to some of the pests. 

 I would advise close cultivation around 

 your greenhouses, and cleanliness will 

 go far toward reducing the numbers of 

 the pests. If you have facilities for 

 sterilizing your soil, you would be sure 

 by that method to get rid of all the 

 bugs of any kind in the soil or in the 

 herbage which might come in with the 

 soil. C. W. 



Merriam, Kan.— C. T. Eeinhardt, who 

 built a greenhouse, 25x75 feet, last 

 summer, is growing carnations, which 

 he wholesales to the Humfeld-Orear 

 Floral Co., at Kansas City. Mr. Eein- 

 hardt plans to build more houses next 

 summer. 



Snow Break in the Truss House of Dobbs & Son, Auburn, N. Y. 



