1152 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Ariiii. :;i. 1'JII4. 



ANTS ON CARNATIONS. 



Cau you tell me of something that 

 will destroy ants? We ai-e having trou- 

 ble with them in our greenhouses, cs- 

 peeiallj- on carnations. J. A. F. 



I think you ean destroy the ants in 

 the same manner that you destroy sow 

 bugs. They like sugai' and if you add 

 some kind of poison like Paris green to 

 the sugar and lay it around where they 

 travel they will get some of it. I know 

 of no other method, although there may 

 be one better than the above. 



A. F. J. B.VUR. 



A DENVER DISPLAY. 



The accompanying illnslrMtinns arc re- 

 productions from photographs taken in 

 the store of the Scott Floral Co., at Den- 

 ver, just before Easter. This is a youjig 

 firm, but they have done a most flourish- 

 ing business from the start. They handled 

 an immense stock at Faster and cleaned 

 out better than even their own sanguine 

 expectations. One of the pictures shows 

 the interior of the store and the working 

 force, the other shows the window as it 

 appeared from inside the store. The 

 window displays were changed daily dur- 

 ing the wc^k and were a great advertise- 

 ment, attracting much attention from the 

 passers-by. One of their best windows 

 was composed entirely of azaleas, two of 

 the specimens being probably the largest 

 ever shown in Denver. A. E. il. 



EASTER IN NEW YORK. 



tThe foUowiiig is an essay by J. Austin Sliaw. 

 read beforo the Xew York Florists' Club. 

 April 11.] 



The honor of reading a paper on any 

 subject before the New York Fieri sts' 

 CUib is oue tliat carmot fail to win the 

 appieeiatiou of tlie fortunate nieinbc- se- 

 lected. The unliappy juit^sibility of ina- 

 bility to write a paper that will keep the 

 meuibers awake or hold them in iheic 



seats is, however, a serious consideration. 

 If you add to this the fact that oue^s 

 subject is selected for him, and his time 

 is limited, and he writes under the watch- 

 ful dictatorship of your honorable com- 

 mittee, you will realize how T approach 

 the responsibility with fear and trem- 

 bling. If I had been permitted to choose 

 my own text I think I could have given 

 you a more interesting discourse on. say, 

 *' * The experiences of a horticultural 

 drummer within aud beyond the Koeky 

 ■Mountains, " or " The retail nursery 

 business aud the modern method of sell- 

 ing through ageuts, that in the last thirty 

 years has made this country bud and 

 blossom as the rose,*' or, more interest- 

 ing still, *'How a tlorist secured perfect 

 health and a renewal of his youth by 

 fasting and made doctors and sickness 

 unnecessary evils. ' ' 



On these and a few other themes 1 

 could have given you the results of per- 

 sonal experiences that would have pro- 

 vided food for afterthought but the 

 president and his lieuteuauts were unap- 

 l>roachable; they would not even allow 

 me to read from my book of unpublished 

 and unpublishable poems. And so T ac- 

 cepted the inevitable and you will have tn 

 make the best of what I have learned, 

 and experienced, and think of ' ' Easter 

 Business in New York." Y'ou will ob- 

 serve I am not handicapped by the men- 

 tion of any year, though I imagine your 

 committee intended to confine me to 1904. 

 Fortunately for me this omission widened 

 my legitimate scope and gave me a field 

 thirty or forty years wide in which to 

 roam. 



A word or two concerning Easter itself 

 mav not prove uninteresting here. As you all 

 r. -member, the (X)ntroversy as to the prop<-r 

 time to relebrnte the festival began souio 

 1.70i> Tears ago. The eastern and western 

 ehurrhes disagreeil. It took centuries to set- 

 tle the matter. If the New^ York Club had 

 been umpire we would have bad it every Sun- 

 day for about nine months and rested the other 

 three, or else have cut it out altogether. 

 However, it's too late to butt in now. The 

 eastern Christians celebrated oh the fourteenth 

 day of the first Jewish month and the western 



Azalea Window of Scott Floral Co., Denver, Colo., at Easter. 



i-hurches on the Sunday after the fourteenth 

 day. Religious controversy was just as live- 

 ly in those days as now, though on a smaller 

 scale. It was just 322 years ago that a def- 

 inite conclusion waa arrived at, a moveable 

 Easter decided upon, and always a Sunday 

 after March 21. Never cau it arrive after 

 April 25. but it will be celebrated at that 

 late date in 1943 and there is no good reason 

 why some of us here should not live to par- 

 ticipate in its wonderful development. If time 

 permitted I would love to tell you of Easter, 

 1943. Perhaps the club may request me to 

 read a paper on that occasion. Who can 

 tell? Some of us will be here aul all of us 

 will be somewhere. 



It is not the astronomical moon, but an 

 imaginary oue that regulates the time of Eas- 

 ter's advent. The calendar new moon follows 

 the real one sometimes two or three days. 

 Easter is always the first Sunday after the 

 paschal full moon which happens on or nest 

 after March 21. If the full moon happens 

 on a Sunday, then Easter is the Sunday after. 

 If these data overwhelm you, the commis- 

 sary department will gladly see that you are 

 in the same condition as the moon. The ar- 

 rangement as to the calendar moon waa made 

 so that the Jewish Passover and* Easter might 

 fall on different days. Occasionally they of 

 necessity get togettier. This was the case 

 In 1903 and will again be in 1923. But that 

 ueedn't worry us. What interest.s you is tn 

 know that Easter will never be as early as 

 March 22 in this century and that nest year 

 it arrives on a very late train. April 23. 



Easter is, after all, the celebration of the 

 reawakening of nature, the season of the 

 world's rejoicing. Long before the Christian 

 era the old world had set aside a day to cele- 

 brate the beginning of the year's productive- 

 ness. Easter is the original name, a name 

 giveu In honor of the pagan goddess, called 

 by the Teutons Ostara and by the Anglo 

 Saxons Eastre, a personification of returning 

 life and light. The adoption of the egg. thu 

 symbol of new life, also antedates the Chrls- 

 t'iau era. So through all the ages Easter has 

 marked the annual resurrection of nature. To 

 those of the Christian faith it is especially 

 significant. To all of us this year it has been 

 particularly welcome. From our standpoint, long 

 juay it continue a great church festival, en- 

 hanced in its celebration and its beauty more 

 and more by the products of our profession. 



Some of you remember Easter in New York 

 nearly forty years ago. Then Wednesday was 

 the all-important day of the week in prepara- 

 tion for Holy Thursday, the great day of 

 the Catholic church, which at that time was 

 the principal if not the only celebrant, especial- 

 ly in the use of plants, the Episcopal churrh 

 using none and no floral celebration of any 

 kind being used by any of the other religioiia 

 denominations. 



The plants in those days were stock gillys. 

 Deutzta gracilis. Spiraea japonica, pyrethrnni 

 I white feather), the hardy Azalea Fielder's 

 White, Azalea alba and Narcissiflora, the lat- 

 ter still occasionally seen. Those were tin- 

 days when the calla lily reigned supreme, 

 their value 30 cents to 40 cents a flower, and 

 $1 to $3 a plant. For Easter Sunday th«' 

 flat bouquets were made on frames In the old 

 style, as some of you can recall, and with 

 these the altars were decorated. There were 

 few roses In those days. The only largt- 

 flower was the camellia. Lycopodlum was the 

 background for the bouquets. There were few- 

 palms. Caryota urens. the fishtail; the chani- 

 aerops and a few latanias. Large crosses, an- 

 chors, harps and similar designs aided in the 

 church decorations. In those days Henry 

 Siebrecht began his Easter experiences In New 

 Y'ork and Alex McConnell grew Neapolitan 

 violets, double pink camellias. Safrano and 

 Isabella Sprunt roses. To these gentlemen 1 

 am indebted for many reliable reminiscences 

 of the long ago. Leach, of Astoria, was thi- 

 king grower of that time, his list Includin;: 

 smilax. stock gillys, callas, deutzias and swett 

 alyssum. 



■ It was not until the early 'SOs that the long- 

 stemmed flowers arrived; then appeared LlUuin 

 Harrisii. Imported azaleas were next in evi- 

 dence, followed by rhododendrons, metrosideros 

 etc. Cut flowers became a factor about ISTn. 

 the red carnation. La Purite; the white, Dv- 

 graw; the variegated, Astoria, and the large 

 white. Louise Zeller. Then came violets. Wie- 

 gaiul Rros.. of W'est Hoboken, and Leuly. be- 

 ing the first Growers of the popular flower. 

 In 1875 the man whose Easter business 

 nnionnted to Jl.uxt was the talk of the town. 

 Only during the last fifteen years has thf 

 plant trade been an Important part of tin- 

 Kaster busine.ss. The Increase has been grad- 

 ual, enrh year being better than the last, ur- 

 til now it is high tide, a condition which 

 abundant spare and perfect system will per- 

 petuate. As one prominent retailer expresses 

 it: "There are endless p<xssibilitles for those 

 who are alert, energetic and enterprising.*' 



The wholesale Easter business in cut flower* 

 began in 1ST2. .Tohu J. Perkins was one of 

 the Pioneers and not until 1SS5. he tells me. 

 did Easter amount to much in this now im- 

 portant department of the florlcultural busi- 

 ness. Awe V back twenty-two years ago. In 

 1SS2. R<ui Silene brought 20 cents at wholesale 

 and Catherine Alermet G5 cents. New Yenr'-^ 

 then was the "jrreat day of the feast.*' La- 

 ma rtpie and Jacq. were worth a dollar each 

 and Cornelia Cixik the same. Callas werrt 

 sometimes pickled sixty days to meet the d. - 

 maud and were tlien "the only pebble on the 



