43 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



June 4, 1903. 



At the last club meeting a committee 

 was appointed with full power to ar- 

 range for hospitalities for visitors at 

 the time of the S. A. F. convention at 

 Milwaukee. A meeting of all those in 

 the trade will shortly be called to de- 

 vise ways and means. 



A. B.'Everett is putting out his usual 

 big field of asters. 



The rose growers are well along witn 

 the work of replanting. Some of them 

 will cut from the first houses before 

 the end of this month. 



Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Thompson were 

 at Fox Lake for the holiday. 



"Billy" Graff has opened stores at 

 Columbus. Youngstown and Dayton, but 

 spends his own time buying in this 

 market. . . , 



Wietor Brothers have finished plant- 

 ing their new range of houses. 



"Larrv" Kelly has opened a flower 

 store at 521 West Taylor street. 



John Hoeft. formerly of Park Ridge. 

 will open a retail cut flower store with 

 the Elo-in Seed Company. Elgin, 111. 



W. Freeman, with P. A. Freeman, 

 Aurora, 111., was a visitor June 2. 



At Peter Reinbergs they say Chatenay 

 has been their most profitable rose this 



Bassett & Washburn have demon- 

 strated that grafted roses are best in 

 the second year, and are therefore car- 

 rvin« over a large part of their stock. 

 * Sam Pearce has the contract for fur- 

 nishing bedding plants for the small 

 Chicago city parks. 



Ludwig Mosbaek says this was by 

 far his best season. He sold very many 

 thousands of bedding plants and was 

 cleaned up on everything that had a 

 flower at Decoration day. For one 

 item, he sold 180,000 blooming pansy 

 plants this spring. 



Sinner Brothers are planning to put 

 up three houses 30x200. They will dis- 

 card Meteor this vear and have planted 

 a house of Libertv and two of Beauty. 



A. L. Vaughan's little daughter is ill 

 with the measles. 



Bowling. 



Following is the score made on the 

 alleys June 2: 



Decoration Day. 

 New England has established a new 

 floral record. Never in its history of 

 blossomdom has May 30, 1903, been sur- 

 passed or even approached for amount 

 of material handled, and I am not sure 

 but that all former records of amounts 

 in cash values are broken. Presume 

 they are. There seemed only a fair 

 amount in for Thursday of that week, 

 and prices ran high without the ma- 

 terial to fill demands. Friday, how- 

 ever, was a wonder. A tornado of blos- 

 soms struck town. Prices quivered a 

 bit. but the generous demand gulped 

 about everything down and all hands 

 were happv. Saturday morning there 

 still was use for all the growers could 

 produce, and all were pleased to see the 

 roll by in the afternoon, and 



now we want a good, thorough drench- 

 ing, as things are getting decidedly dry. 



A peculiarity of the time is that 

 growers claim 'that they brought in all 

 their goods on Thursday last and that 

 the immense output of Friday was the 

 result of one day's cutting. If so, it 

 looks much like a miracle to this end 

 of the business: but if goods were kept 

 back, or "salted," as the expression is, 

 there was method in it. because of the 

 fearfully low prices offered just previous 

 to the cyclone. 



There seems to be absolutely no news 

 worth chronicling just at present, but 

 then- is a fine thought in one of E. 

 N. Pierce's storiettes of the little girl 

 who was told not to pick any more 

 flowers in the park near his green- 

 houses. She asked to be directed to 

 the nearest place where some of "God's 

 flowers" grew, because she could always 

 gather all she wanted of those. 



J. S. Master. 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Decoration Day. 



The general impression among the 

 wholesalers is that the volume of busi- 

 ness was very large — larger with many 

 of them than ever before. Carnations 

 were used in enormous quantities. The 

 sales of this flower far exceeded those 

 of any other. Prices were fair, advanc- 

 ing slightly on good stock, but much of 

 the stock is far from what it was be- 

 fore the hot weather of last month. 

 The demand was for medium grade 

 flowers, choice Beauties and valley not 

 being as eagerly sought as is usual on 

 floral holidays. ' Peonies were great sell- 

 ers at good prices; so were daisies. 

 Other flowers sold moderately well, but 

 all were eclipsed by the -carnation. 

 Some idea of the enormous quantities 

 of this flower that were sold can be 

 formed from the fact that one dealer 

 alone, Edward Reid, shipped over 82,- 

 000 out of town in two days. 



The plant business was very heavy, 

 probably ahead of past years. It was 

 limited by the ability of the plants 

 themselves to bear flowers for the occa- 

 sion. The late Easter, the constant 

 picking over and possibly a little 

 neglect in the rush of work, are causes 

 that have combined to leave rather an 

 undersized lot of plants in most places. 

 Scarlet geraniums are particularly 

 scarce. The wholesale growers do not 

 find small plants, usually flowered in 

 2-inch and 3-inch pots, such as thun- 

 bergias, lobelias, phlox, single petunias 

 and many others, profitable at prevail- 

 ing prices. During the past few years 

 a good many have dropped them. There 

 is now a good demand for sucB stuff 

 at fair prices for those who retail their 

 product. 



The Market. 

 There is much activity in business 

 circles this week. The weddings and 

 commencements are here, bringing with 

 them a lively demand for fine flowers 

 that keeps us all on the alert. S. S. 

 Pennock sold over 1.000 fancy Beauties 

 on Monday. Leo Niessen had some fine 

 shipping orders for Beauties and lilies 

 of the valley on Tuesday and Wednes- 

 day. Carnations were quite scarce at 

 the beginning of the week. Sweet peas 

 are in brisk demand. The outdoor 

 blooms are more plentiful. They have 

 brighter colors and more substance than 

 those grown under glass. 



A Holiday. 



Samuel C. Moon, of Morrisville, Bucks 

 i. unity, has invited the Florists' Club 

 to visit his nurseries on Wednesday. 

 June 1". The club has accepted the 

 invitation and proposes to leave Chest- 

 nut street wharf on the steamer River- 

 side at 8 o'clock on the day mentioned. 

 Tickets for members cost $1; for ladies 

 and children, 50 cents, and each mem- 

 ber has the privilege of obtaining tick- 

 ets for friends at the same prices. It is 

 earnestly hoped that a large number of 

 the members and their friends will avail 

 themselves of Mr. Moon's invitation. 

 Notes. 



Walter Whetstone addressed the 

 Florists' Club on the subject of 

 "Greenhouse Pipe and Air Valves" on 

 Tuesday evening. 



Samuel S. Pennock states that Dec- 

 oration day business with him was 

 larger than ever before. 



Henry F. Michell is preparing a paper 

 on the increase in the bulb business, to 

 be read before the convention of the 

 seedsmen at the end of June. 



Leo Niessen handled a large number 

 of peonies last week. He found that 

 Decoration day business gave him all 

 he could do to fill his orders. 



Edward Reid is handling some superb 

 Crocker, Hill and Joost. 



Last month was unusually free from 

 rose troubles. The dry. warm weather 

 was unfavorable for mildew and spot. 



Eugene Bernheimer has made a spe- 

 cialty of hardy ferns, which he handles 

 in quantity. 



The exhibition of outdoor roses held 

 by the Pennsylvania Horticultural 

 Society this week* came curiously enough 

 at the fag end of the blooming season, 

 very many of the plants having pro- 

 duced the'ir best blooms before June, 

 which could not have been foreseen by 

 the schedule makers. 



Fred J. Michell, in speaking of the 

 growth of the bulb planting in this 

 country, said that when he entered his 

 firm over ten years ago they imported 

 130.000 bulbs annually all told. Now 

 they import 1,500,000 tulips alone and 

 considerably over 100,000 Dutch hya- 

 cinths. One private customer in New 

 York plants 100.000 varieties of daf- 

 fodils alone. Another, J. W. Paul, Jr., 

 plants 60,000 daffodils on his place at 

 Radnor. Phil. 



ST. LOUIS. 



The Market. 



Decoration day found the market Sur- 

 prisingly short ' of choice stock. There 

 was plenty of common outdoor stuff 

 handled by the marKet gardeners, and 

 considerable of this cheap stock was dis- 

 posed of. The demand for bouquets, de- 

 signs and cut flowers was good — much 

 better than ever before on this day. 

 The trade was much surprised to find 

 stock scarce and prices up on almost 

 everything, supplies having been secured 

 at the buyer's own price for the last 

 month. About the only cheap flower 

 was the cape jasmine, which was plenti- 

 ful. Shipping orders were also much 

 greater than ever before. Friday found 

 everybody busy packing, both whole- 

 saler and retailer alike. 



We have had very cool nights of late 

 and -Mine of the roses, especially Brides 

 and Maids, are full of mildew. In many 

 cases vou find fine blooms with mil- 



