12 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



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Fbbkdaby 9, 1011. 



little later it is a good idea to paint 

 the pipes with nicotine solutions. This 

 fumigation should be kept up the whole 

 season; also the putting on of a light 

 dose of sulphur on the pipes should be 

 kept up. "An ounce of prevention is 

 worth a pound of cure," and this espe- 

 cially applies to plant pests and 

 diseases. The care of the plants in 

 tying up should commence as soon as 

 possible, as the careful training of the 

 young growth will be a great help to 

 the future production of good stock. 



Boses usually take about four months 

 on own root stock and three months on 

 grafted stock from the time of bench- 

 ing before we can commence to cut 

 any flowers. It should be our idea to 

 get a crop of flowers in September and 

 again the last of October. This will 

 bring our plants in crop for the holi- 

 days. It takes four to six weeks be- 

 tween crops in the fall and almost 

 •e^ght weeks in November and De- 

 cember. 



If Easter lilies are to be grown and 

 some flowers are wanted in January, 

 then for that purpose thfe Formosa lily 

 should be planted, but for Easter itself 

 the giganteum is the best; also the 

 latter is the best lily for cold storage 

 purposes. Our bulb stock should all 

 be potted or planted in flats as soon as 

 received and placed outdoors, covered 

 with a good mulch. 



Handling the Cut. 



The cutting of flowers should be done 

 twice a day. The main cut will be in 

 the morning. The flowers should be 

 carefully sorted and graded and placed 

 in jars of water in a cool cellar. In 

 these days, when ice can be put up so 

 cheaply, it is advisable, where the cut 

 of flowers is quite large, to have an ice 

 house with a flower cellar underneath. 

 Ice can be cut and stacked away in an 

 ice house for from 50 cents to $1 per 

 ton, depending upon the distance it has 

 to be hauled. An ice house holding 100 

 tons of ice, well packed with hay, will 

 carry through the whole season if no); 

 opened. The saving of flowers and im- 

 provement of quality by storing the 

 flowers in an ice-chilled cellar will pay 

 for the ice several times over. 



An increase of glass beyond capacity 

 of taking care of same should be 

 avoided. The increase of boiler capacity 

 should always be first considered; also 

 the care of the new stock, the means 

 of handling the product and various 

 little details connected with the busi- 

 ness should be perfected before new 

 glass is built. A moderate amount of 

 glass will bring better returns in pro- 

 portion than a large amount imperfect- 

 ly cared for. A too rapid increase of 

 glass should be avoided, as it is the 

 rock on which so many florists have 

 stranded. 



CAENATIONS OF TODAY. 



[A paper by W. H. Taplln, read before the 

 Philadelphia Florists' Club February 7, 1911.] 



Those of us whose memories reach 

 back to Pres. Degraw, Crimson King, 

 Peerless, Portia, Astoria and other car- 

 nation names of that period (and vari- 

 eties were quite numerous even then), 

 will readily see that great advances 

 have been made both in flower, that is 

 in form, in colors and in size. 



It is now many years since the late 

 John Thorpe mentioned his ideal in size 

 for the carnation as a diameter of four 

 inches, and such a flower to be pro- 

 duced on a strong, stiflf stem. That 

 ideal has been reached in several vari- 

 eties, though the ideal size has not al- 

 ways been found in combination with 

 the other good features that are de- 

 manded by a discriminating grower. 



The Bequirements. 



A new variety at the present time is 

 exposed to keen criticism, for a very 

 high standard has been reached, and it 

 la not enough for a new seedling to 

 simply show good size and fair color. 

 The trade demands that a large flower 

 of good form and pleasing color shall 

 be produced on a good, strong stem, 

 that the plant shall be of good consti- 

 tution, free in grbwth and flower, and 

 last but not least, the retail man, who 

 after all seems to be the supreme court 

 of the cut flower world, declares that 

 the flower must be a good keeper, and 



of such a shade that he can use it to 

 advantage. 



With such requirements as these con- 

 stantly before him, the carnation 

 hybridizer has much to work for, and 

 much work to do, and that some of 

 them do appreciate the size of their 

 task is evidenced by the care with 

 which they select the candidates for 

 popular favor from among the hun- 

 dreds, or even thousands, of seedlings 

 from which they may make a choice. 



Careful Selection. 



The carnation world has lost much 

 in the passing of the late Frederick 

 Dorner, of Lafayette, Ind., a man who 

 devoted much of his busy and useful 

 life to the improvement of commercial 

 carnations, and one who was so careful 

 in his selections that he could only find 

 two or three varieties each season, out 

 of some thousands of seedlings, that 

 he considered were worthy of intro- 

 duction to the trade. Father Dorner 

 had some ideals, and he worked toward 

 those ideals with painstaking fidelity, 

 but yet it was only occasionally that 

 he produced a Wm. Scott, a White Per- 

 fection or a Pink Delight. 



Cause of Depreciation. 



Then we have to take into considera- 

 tion the fact that varieties are likely 

 to depreciate after having been grown 

 for several years, possibly owing in 

 part to some inherent weakness of the 



stock from which they sprang, and in 

 part to the artificial conditions under 

 which they are grown, for under the 

 present conditions of commercial cut 

 flower growing, our carnations are 

 grown along under comparatively high 

 pressure, having no season of natural 

 rest such as most plants demand. In 

 fact, the seasons are too short to allow 

 of any rest period, so we keep on prop- 

 agating and growing on a variety until 

 its constitution gives out, and then look 

 for something of similar or better color 

 and habit to take the place of the 

 older variety. 



Indoor vs. Outdoor. 



Continued indoor culture of carna- 

 tions seems to bring about the failure 

 of a variety as soon as anything, al- 

 though in making this assertion I am 

 fully aware that there are differences 

 of opinion on this subject. There are 

 arguments in favor of indoor culture, 

 not the least of which is found in the 

 fact that the bench-grown plant is 

 likely to produce a large flower on a 

 long stem at an earlier period in the 

 season than may be had from a field- 

 grown plant, but the total number of 

 flowers from a field-grown plant is like- 

 ly to greatly exceed the result from the 

 bench-grown specimen, and taking the 

 season as a whole, the net returns will 

 probably be in favor of the field-grown 

 plant, without taking into considera- 

 tion the greater vitality that is re- 

 tained in the stock by the outdoor sys- 

 tem. 



Those three months in the open air 

 count for much in the preparation of a 

 plant that is to endure a long season 

 of forced growth under glass. 



Then in the race to produce a given 

 number of plants, some of the new 

 varieties are overpropagated; every pos- 

 sible shoot, and some that we might term 

 impossible, is put in as a cutting, with 

 the imtural consequence that many de- 

 ficient plants are put out each season, 

 and many disgrfhitled customers are 

 made. It is not necessary at this time 

 to specify instances of this practice, 

 but that such is frequently the case 

 will be readily admitted by anyone 

 having much experience in the trial of 

 novelties in the carnation line. 



Need for Standards. 



And while speaking of novelties, it 

 must be admitted that every hybridizer 

 is liable to view his own productions 

 with a somewhat lenient judgment, 

 which makes it the more necessary that 

 these novelties should be passed upon 

 by a qualified committee, and scored in 

 a somewhat similar manner to that in 

 use by the rose and chrysanthemum 

 societies. The more general adoption 

 of such a plan would possibly lessen the 

 number of varieties that may be intro- 

 duced, but it would also save quite a 

 sum to those growers who find it need- 

 ful to try out a batch of novelties each 

 season with a view to keeping up with 

 the procession. 



It is not merely the original outlay 

 for a limited number of plants that 

 counts in these experiments, but there 

 is also the loss of so many feet of 

 bench space that ought to be produc- 

 tive. 



Now in regard to varieties of the 

 present day, it must be taken into con- 

 sideration that all sorts do not grow 

 equally well in the same locality, and 

 it therefore requires the exercise of 

 judgment on the part of the grower as 

 to the proportions of his stock. 



