44 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



JUNE 7, 1908. 



A TEN YEARS' RETROSPECT. 



[An address by Wm. 1. Stewart, Boston. Mass.. 

 to the Florists' Clubol Philadelpliia. June.".. IWOO.J 



A decade seems a fairly long time 

 when one is looking forward, but it 

 passes rapidly and, looking back, we 

 are astonished at its brevity. The 

 young man lives in the future, but as 

 age comes upon him he is inclined 

 more and more to indulge in medita- 

 tion over bygone days. If oue who has 

 reached or passed the meridian of li'e 

 wishes to retain youthful associates 

 and retard as long as possible the evi- 

 dences of his rapidly accumulating 

 years, let him watch out and avoid get- 

 ting too much into the habit of ever- 

 lastingly telling about what happened 

 ten, twenty or forty years ago. A little 

 of it is all right, but carry it beyond a 

 reasonable limit and one is apt to soon 

 find his listeners reduced to a bum'h of 

 old fogies like himself. Knowing ihis, 

 I have approached the subject as- 

 signed me by your committee with 

 some misgivings, not being disposed as 

 yet to line up In the column of "has 

 beens." Without, however, indulging 

 too freely in tiresome retrospect or ex- 

 ploring too deeply in ancient history, 

 we may, perhaps, spend a brief time 

 profitably in reviewing our achieve- 

 ments for the past decade and thus ac- 

 quire fresh courage and incentive to 

 face the problems which await us in 

 the future. 



Ten years ago the Society of Ameri- 

 can Florists was in its sixth year. The 

 Buffalo convention had passed into 

 history. The Boston fraternity were 

 busily engaged in the work of prepa- 

 ration for the approaching visit of the 

 national society to the Hub. Phe Phil- 

 adelphia Florists' Club was already a 

 prosperous young organization with a 

 proud record and a promising outljiok, 

 while here and there throughout the 

 country the good example set by them 

 was being imitated and florists every- 

 where were awakening, for the first 

 time in their lives, to the grand social 

 and material advantages afforded by 

 these useful local bodies. 



So ready had the national society 

 found the field and so effectively had it 

 started in on the work to which it had 

 pledged itself that, even then, the rec- 

 ord of its services in the cause was one 

 of which it might rightly feel proud. 

 From the convention reports of the i^e- 

 riod we learn what questions were be- 

 ing discussed and what important 

 problems we were endeavoring to 

 solve. The standard flower pot had 

 just been adopted and the trade was 

 in the transition period from the old 

 unsystematic conditions to the im- 

 proved order of things which it now 

 seems hard to believe we could have 

 dispensed with for so long a time. Yet, 

 as with all reforms, the change was 

 not made without opposition, nor was 

 it accepted with unanimity even by 

 those who would benefit most. A pe- 

 rusal ef the records of the trade exhi- 

 bitions at our annual conventions will 

 bring us to realize, as much as any- 

 thing else, the great practical strides 



we have been making and the many 

 devices and improvements that date 

 their introduction from their exhibi- 

 tion on these occasions bear testimony 

 to the ingenuity and genius of our 

 colleagues whom we are thus encour- 

 aging to develop those practical and 

 mechanical industries so closely 

 linked with our own profession. 



The comparative merits of steam 

 and hot water heating for greenhouses 

 furnished a prolific theme for discus- 

 sion in the earlier days, and how hot 

 the supporters of each system were 

 wont to get! Scientific versus practi- 

 cal education for young gardeners — 

 ah! there was a veritable jaw-breaker. 

 While it is true that questions such 

 as these are rarely settled for good 

 and all and that the lapse of time is 

 often the only tribunal that can deter- 

 mine the facts, yet the educational 

 value of their discussion can hardly be 

 overestimated. Jumping over the in- 

 tervening years, who will say that, in 

 our profession today, both practical 

 and scientific knowledge do not exist 

 in much greater degree than ever be- 

 fore, or that we have yet reached that 

 stage where we have a sufficient sup- 

 ply of either of them? Although we 

 scarcely realize how great is the ad- 

 vance until we sit down and compare 

 the olden time with the present, the 

 problem of the higher education is 

 slowly but surely settling itself. The 

 floricultural world "do move" and, 

 whether or not we individually desire 

 it, we have all been advancing stead- 

 ily with it. so that, to set back the av- 

 erage intelligence of the florists' trade 

 as it exists today to the average as it 

 was ten years ago, would be a calam- 

 ity as great as, if not greater, than it 

 would bt to reconstruct every feature 

 of our modern greenhouse according to 

 the standard existing prior to that 

 time. 



McMillan's memorable satire on the 

 prevalent style of formal gardening 

 was the most notable feature of the 

 Buffalo convention. It precipitated a 

 controversy that extended over several 

 years and was the severest blow ever 

 dealt in this country against the arti- 

 ficial and abnormal in gardening. The 

 seed planted at that time has been 

 bearing fruit ever since. 



The reform in the matter of plant 

 nomenclature which has taken place 

 can scarcely be realized exceei by 

 those who knew what were the condi- 

 tions existing up to a dozen years ago 

 and who remember the delight with 

 which the agitation of the subject and 

 the appointment of a committee by 

 the S. A. F. was welcomed by the suf- 

 fering trade all over the country. 

 Thanks to that movement, plants are 

 no longer renamed at will by unscru- 

 pulous or ignorant dealers, and hum- 

 tjug has given way to reliability. Few 

 committees ever accomplished so much 

 with so little effort. There were a few 

 short, sharp tussles at the outset and 

 then publicity and public approval 

 took up the work and helped prepare 

 the way for the systems of registra- 



tion which are proving so serviceable 

 today in protecting the right of the 

 originator and of the buyer. 



Thus we find our entire profession 

 elevated in a practical way through 

 the interchange of experience and in- 

 tercommunion of bright intellectual 

 minds which our trade organizations, 

 together with the invaluable co-opera- 

 tion of an enterprising trade press, 

 have made possible. With aggressive 

 persistence and far-reaching effort the 

 campaign of education goes forward. 

 The fittest are forging to the front as 

 greater intelligence gives a well di- 

 rected impulse to enterprise. The 

 floricultural trade is becoming barren 

 ground for adventurers. Catalogue 

 men and advertisers are more careful 

 in their representation of the goods 

 they offer, not alone because of a high- 

 er integrity but also because they 

 know that they are dealing with a 

 more enlightened clientage. It doesn't 

 pay, nowadays, to misrepresent varie- 

 ties; it doesn't pay to ship stale flow- 

 ers as fresh; it doesn't pay to raise 

 "any old thing" for the plant or flower 

 market; the buyers are too well in- 

 formed to be handled that way any 

 longer. 



On the other hand, the man of doubt- 

 ful responsibility or unsavory record 

 finds it more and more difficult to ob- 

 tain credit, as the old loose habits give 

 way to correct business methods. For 

 the remarkable progress in cultural 

 skill, too, the improvement in varie- 

 ties of florists' flowers, and the ad- 

 vancement in gardening art along ra- 

 tional lines, we are deeply indebted to 

 the influence and work of our socie- 

 ties. It was organization that gave us 

 the chrysanthemum shows and made 

 possible the tremendous wave of popu- 

 larity that flower enjoyed. Organiza- 

 tion has in a few years raised the car- 

 nation to an eminence which it could 

 not otherwise have reached in our life- 

 time. 



Looking back over ten years and 

 comparing men and conditions as they 

 existed then and as we see them to- 

 day, there ire in evidence a much 

 smaller percentage of those who 

 "know it all." Positive opinions are 

 nO' so prevalent and instead of the 

 "knowing shake of the head" is seen a 

 healthy desire to learn and to im- 

 prove. The intolerance that in the 

 past fostered a disposition to mislead 

 the enquirer has given way to a gen- 

 erotis spirit that recognizes our obliga- 

 tions one to another, engenders that 

 good feeling between business rivals 

 whereby each recognizes that he, indi- 

 vidual y. does not hold a patent on all 

 the integrity and that his fellow flor- 

 ist is not necessarily a rascal because 

 he does business on the same street. 

 The incentive in all this is organiza- 

 tion which, by bringing us into per- 

 sonal contact with each other, has en- 

 larged our business capacity, strength- 

 ened our executive ability and devel- 

 oped our common sense so that, in- 

 stead of wasting time and effort in 

 trying to pull one another down, W5 



