18 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



Mav 9, 1912. 



sented themselves most readily to my 

 hand. Kroeschell Bros. Co. for many 

 years has been using concrete for the 

 base of boilers, both for exhibition pur- 

 poses and for permanent use. The pic- 

 ture now on the screen shows an exhibit 

 at the convention of the Society of 

 American Florists, Baltimore, in 1911. 

 The boiler weighs 12,000 pounds. It is 

 set on a concrete ashpit base. To the 

 right in the background we have the 

 iron frame greenhouse with which we 

 are all familiar, exhibited by our hon- 

 ored president, Mr. Foley. 



A concrete block 'boiler house and 

 packing shed has been erected by Will- 

 iam Hill, at his vegetable range at 

 Irondequoit, N. Y. The stack is built 

 of concrete blocks and is sixty-five feet 

 high. The inside diameter at the outlet 



Washburn asked the speaker what mix- 

 ture he recommended for benches and 

 walls. One part cement to three parts 

 torpedo sand was advocated for 

 benches and one part cement to two 

 parts sand and four parts gravel or 

 crushed stone was said to be rich 

 enough for retaining walls. A one, two, 

 three mixture was said to be water- 

 tight. A hollow wall was described as 

 offering more resistance to frost than 

 does a solid wall. The speaker said 

 ashes do not give the strength of sand, 

 the ashes having a tendency to disinte- 

 grate. To prevent forms from adhering 

 to the completed work, first brush the 

 forms with gasoline in which common 

 axle grease has been dissolved, a pound 

 to a gallon; then pour the concrete and 

 the forms will not stick. 



Concrete Retainine Walls for Solid Beds in Rose House. 



is twenty-one inches and at the bottom 

 thirty-two inches. It was made larger 

 at the base so as to permit a firebrick 

 lining a few feet above the smoke inlet. 

 The blocks are made in various sizes, 

 six being required for the circle. Forty 

 such stacks are now used by Rochester 

 vegetable growers, a company having 

 been formed by two young men who 

 build these stacks complete with labor 

 and material at $2 per foot. 



Illustrations and Discussion. 



Among the fifty other pictures shown 

 by the stereopticon were the following: 

 Concrete stack of B. Eldredge, Belvi- 

 dere. 111., thirty inches in diameter and 

 sixty feet high; show house of 6. 

 Easier, Buffalo; private conservatories 

 of A. C. Bartlett, Lake Geneva, Wis., 

 built on a hillside with concrete re- 

 taining wall; mushroom cellar under 

 concrete floor of the greenhouses of E. 

 Jacobi, Newark, N. J.; several views 

 of the Riverbank Greenhouses, Batavia, 

 111., where concrete was largely used, 

 even for the sorting table in the pack- 

 ing shed; storage house of the Jewell 

 Nursery Co., Lake City, Minn., built of 

 concrete blocks; concrete lighting posts, 

 flower vases and manure pit at Hum- 

 boldt Park, Chicago; concrete ice house 

 of J. Ogden Armour, Lake Forest, 111., 

 and a rose house of Robert Simpson, 

 Clifton, N. J., where the stock is grown 

 in solid beds between low concrete side 

 walls, the heating pipes being supported 

 'by the edging. 



At the conclusion of the talk C. L. 



MB. EBEL OFFERS SUGGESTIONS. 



An item which recently appeared in 

 a daily newspaper to the effect that one 

 of the strongest charitable organiza- 

 tions in this country is calling on its 

 patrons to donate to it what they would 

 otherwise spend for flowers at the time 

 of a death of a relative or friend, 

 which donation the society agrees to 

 acknowledge to those bereaved in the 

 form of a letter, advising that the 



donor has contributed a sum of money 

 to chanty in memory of the deceased, 

 impels me to ask: How much longer do 

 the florists propose to permit their busi- 

 ness to proceed without the necessary 

 protection to counteract conditions 

 which may arise from time to time 

 detrimental to the interests of the 

 florist? 



Take, for instance, such a movement 

 as the one just referred to; if it ever 

 should be permitted to gain a mo- 

 mentum through having the idea 

 adopted by charitable organizations 

 generally, no one can foresee how far- 

 reaching its effect might be on one of 

 the most important branches of the 

 florists' business. Nor is it unreason- 

 able to believe that such a custom 

 could in time be developed and gain 

 adherents to it if a combined effort 

 was made on the part of some of the 

 strongly organized charities to accom- 

 plish it; especially if no opposition was 

 met from those vitally interested in 

 retarding it. 



On the other hand, at about the 

 same time the unfavorable notice just 

 alluded to appeared, the press agents of 

 "The Greatest Show on Earth" were 

 contributing an article to the New 

 York dailies, setting forth that a con- 

 gress of famous circus performers, 

 gathered to lament on their exclusion 

 from the joys of Easter, had selected 

 the orchid as a symbol of their order, 

 and declared that ' * the bank roll eating 

 orchid, the costliest of flowers, ' ' was in 

 evidence everywhere in the three rings 

 on the Easter eve performances. 



What an opportunity was lost to the 

 florists to build on a good press story 

 simply for the want of a proper pub- 

 licity organization, which today is re- 

 garded as one of the most essential 

 factors in the organization of every 

 well directed industry, and certainly 

 floriculture is entitled to be classed as 

 an industry; in many respects really a 

 scientific one, when it comes to produc- 

 tion, but yet lacking in its distributing 

 force for what it produces. 



There is mucH discussion in the trade 

 papers on the great problems confront- 

 ing growers to find a ready market for 

 their continually increasing supply and 

 the consensus of opinion appears to be 

 that it is all up to the retailer to 

 develop the necessary demand. But 



[ CoDclnded on paxe 60.1 



Wittbold One Piece G)ncrete Bench Pot Up whUe the H^se was Being Built. 



