Title: The American florist : a weekly journal for the trade
Identifier: americanfloristw02amer (find matches)
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors: American Florists Company
Subjects: Floriculture; Florists
Publisher: Chicago : American Florist Company
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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i8S8. The a at eric an Florist. 39
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?UUtR^V QtS\GH OV KNOB'S LNDOtR OR GQVQtV* Si MRS. Funeral Design of Jacob's Ladder or Golden Stairs. The base is a circular bed of white car- nations three and a half feet iu diameter and heavily fringed with ferns. A sickle made of pink roses lay in the foreground. Just back of the center rises the ladder or stairs, composed of Eucharis amazonica, white roses and carnations. There are seven steps or rounds which in this piece are made of purple flowers, but can be formed of gold colored flowers. There is a sheaf of wheat on one side of the base and a cluster of IvOngifloium lilies and callas on the other side. The ladder is five feet high. A dove holding a sprig of grain in its mouth surmounts the ladder. This piece was made by Fred Gordon for the funend of a venerable lady. Cannas. It seems that ijuite a revolution has taken place with regard to the cannas. The large, tall growing varieties that have been the fashion are about to give place to a diff'erent type in the Continen- tal kinds that are being grown in many Knglish nurseries. These are much neater, as rolmsl in their way as those of the other race, andlhouijh, perhaps, not so useful for giving great masses of foliage in the flower garden,,ire of more value forthe house. We want both classes of cauna, in fact. We cciild ill afl'ord to lose such a lovely form as thecrimson-flowered Canna Ehemanni; but varieties of this class take far too much room except where bold vie ws are re quired. The smaller growing cannas can also be used with the best possible taste in sub-tropical gardening. In the nursery of Messrs. Hooper & Co., Maida Vale, there are several varieties of the new Continental cannas. One named Petite Jame, bright red, with an edge of gold, was carrying a spike of flowers, although the plant was only about eighteen inches high. There is also a charming variation in color in the Conti- nental cannas. Some are brilliantly showy, especially those with scarlet flow- ers and edges of gold and spottings of vivid hues.—London Garden. Gas Tar. Is there anything better than gas tar for painting greenhouse gutters? If so, what is it? How should gas tar be ap- plied? "Cold and crude as received from gas works or 1)Diled and put on hot ? I have been told that if gutters are painted with gas tar once or twice a year for a few times they will be entirely water tight and last for years without further atten- tion. Do all agree to this? If not, what is better ? .S.\muei. C. Moon. Morrisville, Pa. New Chrysanthemum Elk's Horn. This new chrj-santhemum is so named on account of its peculiarly shaped flo- rets. It is pearly white in color, full and globular in form, quite distinct and extra fine. The Elevation of Our Business. IIV II. II, IIATTLEH. (Ri'ait bffinf thr Xe:v Yntk convi-ntiou.) John Ruskin h.is defiucdfine art as any occupation in which the head, heart and hand work together. To make a success of our business it is particularly neces- sary that all three of these powers are exerted. How often we see men that work con- stantly, and at the very hardest kind of drudgery, from morning until night, but never seem to make any headway, or get any pleasure from their occupation or life ; they either have not the disciplined mind to direct the hand, or have not their whole heart or interest in the busi- ness; these men are plodders and work only with their hands. Then again we see men who are just the opposite, who have bright minds, and take a very gre.it interest in their occupation, always alive to new ideas and suggestions, know just how things should be done, but never can do it themselves ; their whole life is nude of theory and visions; their head and heart are not balanced bv good hard physical work ; develop the two so that they may be of some practical use, by the third power, the hand. Political economists tell us that labor is the only source of wealth, but the labor of the hand, that is turned into a "fine art," by the other two powers, the head and heart, undoubtedly give the greatest returns: First, the head or mind we all realize and a great many of us to our sorrow, should be cultivated iu childhood, but those of us *Iio did not have the opportunity then can console ourselves by knowing that by gi«ng our attention to our business and studjing ihe principles of it, our case is not hopeless. I feel that every person engaged in growing plants, should know the first principles, at least, in botany. Take the seed, examine how wonderfully it is con- structed, containing as it does uot only a minute plant, but substance on which it can exist and develop when the proper conditions are ofl'ered. Then the stem, leaves, buds and finally the flowers whicl'i produce more seeds. Take a lily or rose, dissect it, and learn the name and use of each part, this will excite a ileeper inter- est in botany ; we shall find that we are more observing, looking for the same organs in different plants ; then not con- tent with our own observation, we may be led to take up a good book on botany and we will have put before us on three or four hundred pages what has taken hundreds of men many years of thought and study to accomplish ; and iu time the ideal grower will become a botanist and be iuspireil with such thoughts as Darvvin expresses in his book on the "Movements and Habits of Plants." Last winter while talking to a grower who had been in business all his life, and his father before him, I asked him a few (jiiestions about hybridizing, thinking I would try to post myself by getting some good practical ideas; he said "he <tid not take much stock in it, and thought it belter to let nature take its course and let them cross themselves.' It occurred to me that an argument like this was on a par with advising faith cure to a dis- abled man when the most skilled and advanced surgical operation was neces- sary. Darwin was haidly of this gentle- man's way of thinking, he made a great many experiments in hybridizing; he speaks of the seventh generation of plants and crossing them when grown under different conditions; also of ilie struggle for existence among them, the

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