-ll= 
21/2 yards of concrete, We buy it ready 
mixed and when it arrives a 10=man gang places 
it in about an hour. The side walls and bote 
toms are 2 inches thick. We strengthen the 
corners with 3/8 inch reinforcing bars. 
On a commercial place like ours the un 
controlled variable factors make it very dif= 
ficult to conduct accurate research such as 
is done at Cornell. We do, however, like to 
find evidence of the benefits from the ap= 
plication of the results of Cornell's research 
in our own establishments, ‘We had an oppor 
tunity to observe the influence of automatis 
watering on some rose plantings. 
In the Spring of 1942, we planted 4 beds 
of Peter's Briarcliff. Beds A and B were 
shallow V Bottom, Beds C and D were our regu 
lar ground beds, We used the subeirrigation 
method on A and B but without tensiometers 
and without the automatic feature, simply giv 
ing them water when we thought they needed 
it. Beds C and D were surface watered in our 
usual manner, The production from these 4 
beds were not significantly different from 
each other nor from other plantings of the 
same sort. In July 1945, we received our 
first tensiometers and automatic equipment and 
set up beds A and B to so operate, The suo 
ceeding 5 months production showed a remark= 
able increase for the automatically watered 
beds. Here are the figures; 
Automatio Surface 
Bed Bed © Bed D 
4goe 4769 3927 3724 
In addition to this numerical inorease, 
the length of stems was very noticably in 
favor of the Beds A and B, 
We have here at the present time, 51 
beds in automatic watering. They vary in 
size from 65 feet to 125 feet in length. 
Thirty-one of these beds are in roses, the 
balance in Sweet Peas, Snapdragons and Stocks. 
Our program calls for building additional 
beds for this method as fast as crop , rota- 
tion and manpower will permit, 
Voull OX ertkcx. 
Pete Heth Tete He He te TEE Ob HE HE HE tt at Ht 
N. H. WRIGHT, INC. 
WHOLESALE GROWERS OF CUT ROSES 

GREENS -« FLORISTS’ SUPPLIES === 
CRANBURY, NEW JERSEY 
We use the standard Lord & Burnham - 
Mike Winandy beds, with 3" V. We buy our 
concrete ready mixed, do the work ourselves 
except for one outside concrete finisher, and 
figure the beds oost us a little under $1.50 
per linear foot, including rental of forms. 
We place the end elbows and nipples on 
the beds so that when the elbow is looking 
up it is at the same level as the top of the 
gravel inside the bed. When water is run ine 
to the bed until the elbows overflow, the 
level of the water just touches the bottom of 
the soil. We find that this keeps the soil 
at a very constant moisture. In olear weather 
we fill the beds every second or third day. 
In cloudy weather, when the water level goes 
down in the bed, we let it stay dow until 
clear weather returns, 
Our production figures on our V-bottom 
beds are not comparable with any other beds 
in the place, on account of differences in 
age and variety. But the foliage on these 
beds has definitely been of better color this 
winter than our grouné beds — no chlorosis 
while ground beds had chlorosis. Several 
visiting growers have remarked on the vigor 
of growth in these beds, 
A few days ago we took out two beds of 
plants that had been put in V beds last year, 
The plants were old and had been transplanted 
without chilling. Growth had been excellent. 
The most interesting feature was the very 
great amount of fine roots these plants had = 
more than.on any other plants we ever dug. 
We washed out the gravel thoroughly then 
found it advisable to add some grits on top. 
There was almost no deposit on the bottom of 
the beds nor in the drain. There was no 
sourness — even the bottom of the beds smelled 
sweet and fresh. From the above you will 
gather that we took out the old soil and put 
in new = did not sterilize, 
We put in 1800 linear ft. of these beds 
last season and we are now putting in 2700 
ee gl 
TE Tit Hee Hb He Hh te HE HE Hb te a He a Ot 
BURTON ODO. SMITH 
SWEET SIRCH FARM 
KENNETT SQUARE, PENNA. 
Steel Benches 
10' = O" long by 33" wide, inside for 
rooting cuttings by the automatic, constant 
water level method. Built in unite of 10! 
so that one bench may be filled at a time and 
after draining down to irrigating level will 
not have to be disturbed when sticking later 
cuttings. 
Automatic watering has been used only in 
ground beds with sub soil bottom, Clay sub 
soil covered with 10" clay loam top soil. 
Two rows of 4" hexagonal tile in 48" bed, 
It was first used to supplement top 
watering in hot weather 10 years ago. Used 
for growing peas without any top watering for 
nine years. We have never used top watering 
to drive the nutrients back down during the 
crop. 
