324 FRITZ BAHR'S COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE 



buds and a temporary frame can be built over the beds to support 

 3 by 6 ft. sash. Even if there be no danger of frost the sash should 

 be placed over the plants for rain and damp nights don't do the 

 opening flowers much good. Close planting will give you longer 

 stems and softer growth, so sufficient headroom should be pro- 

 videdf^when you build the frame. 



Outdoor Sorts 



There may be sorts which flower early and overwinter almost 

 anywhere with little or no protection. But after many years of 

 experience we find our climate in the Middle West too severe even 

 for the most highly recommended ones. There is not, however, 

 much to regret about it, for if your customer pays you twenty-five 

 cents in May for an early outdoor flowering Chrysanthemum, and 

 such a plant in the garden is loaded down with flowers by October 

 when everything else has practically gone, that quarter was well 

 spent. Every retail grower should not only be on the lookout for 

 early sorts for outdoor flowering, but should grow on a good-sized stock 

 and push its sale. For they are a requisite in every garden, and 

 it isn't going to interfere in the least with the sale of flowers you 

 have under glass to handle them. Flowers from plants grown in 

 the open usually have such hard-wooded stems that they make poor 

 keepers when cut, but you cannot beat them — with all their different 

 shades and colorings — when planted in masses. While there are 

 seasons when early severe frosts may affect them, ordinarily when a 

 customer once plants them it means repeat orders every succeeding 

 Spring. 



Carrying Stock Plants Over Winter 



If you want 200 plants of a certain sort for another year's 

 planting, lift about twenty cut-down plants and plant them in a flat 

 not less than 3 in. deep. Label and place in your coolest house 

 until the end of February, when they should be brought into a 

 Carnation-house temperature and planted on a sunny bench. Or 

 you can carry the stock plants in a frame. Quite a few growers 

 plant out in the field each Spring small 2i^-in. plants to be lifted 

 in Fall and carried on as stock to propagate from. To my mind 

 there is nothing better than this method for obtaining healthy 

 cuttings full of hfe. 



Those anxious to make the greatest number of cuttings from 

 a small number of plants, can, by setting out their stock plants during 

 early February on a bench and later on taking the first batch of 

 rooted cuttings and planting them out again, keep on taking cut- 

 tings all through the Spring. With proper care the plants will 

 continue to furnish breaks and a cutting with three or four joints 

 will root as easily in sand as a Geranium. It needs no shade up to 



