644 



The Weekly Florists* Review* 



MARCH 17. 1898. 



tion of any society or charity orga- 

 nization was left to a committee to de- 

 cide. The president, L. A. Anderson, 

 insisted on declining a re-election and 

 the members insisted on electing Wm. 

 Scott to that high office. The rest of 

 the officers hold over. With the view 

 of a show in the fall and recuperation 

 that a long rest should give, many 

 rosy words of hope were expressed and 

 it is needless to say that the president 

 promised his level best to revive new 

 interest, and work for general pros- 

 perity. 



Then they adjourned to a spacious 

 loom where the first speaker was blue 

 points on the half-shell and the last 

 course was "Auld Lang Syne." also on 

 the half-shell for the beautiful tenor 

 who led the solo part had forgotten the 

 words. There were several other 

 things between the bivalves and bas- 

 sos which appeared and disappeared 

 without a struggle after the fashion of 

 the well trained florists. There was a 

 goodly number of our friends from ad- 

 joining towns, including Mr. Henry 

 Niemeyer of Erie. Pa.; Messrs. Stroh 

 of Attica; Thomas and William Mans- 

 field of Lockport; F. B. and F. W. 

 Lewis also of the lock city; Henry 

 Wise of East Auroia; Mr. Burr of 

 Harmon & Burr, Darien; Mr. Smiley 

 of Attica; Mr. Morgan of Auburn; Mr. 

 Larder of Fredonia; Mr. Sage of Red 

 Rock, Pa.; Mr. Beatus of paper-box 

 fame, and if there were other visitors, 

 I trust they will forgive the omission 

 of their names for it is entirely unin- 

 tentional. Upwards of forty of us sat 

 down to what turned out to be one of 

 the most pleasant social gatherings 

 in the history of our club. Decora- 

 tions were lavish as they usually a e 

 when florists are interested, chief 

 among which were several vases of 

 magnificent roses sent by Mr. Peter 

 Crowe of Utica. Large and grandly 

 stemmed as these roses were, they 

 were hardly appreciated as would 

 have been the massive and 

 finely colored proportions of Peter 

 himself. Between the responses to 

 the toasts songs were sung by Mr. 

 Noonan. a tenor of rare purity, and 

 Mr. Steve Rebstock, whose rich bass 

 voice adapts itself to the comic as well 

 as sentimental. 



Your columns would not hold any 

 comme"nt on all the responses. W. S. 

 was early installed as toastmaster and 

 before adjournment had every one on 

 their feet. The toasts were of a varied 

 nature and one was not supposed to 

 stick over close to the text. Mr. 

 Anderson reviewed the late work of the 

 club. Mr. Long spoke sensibly and 

 earnestly on the club and its mission. 

 Mr, Sage responded to "Natural Gas." 

 Mr. T. Mansfield told how water flowed 

 up hill and his son had the easier task 

 of explaining why it went down hill. 

 W. A. Adams supported the ladies in 

 fine style, and L. H. Newbeck re- 

 sponded to "Diseases" particularly af- 

 fecting lilies. He covered the ground 

 well and thought too much water in 

 the early stages of growth was partly 

 the cause of our losing many lilies. 



Mr. Legg. our worthy secretary, an- 

 swered to our Faithful Members most 

 earnestly and ably. And then Mr. Max 

 "Beatus" answered the toast Dreams 

 of the Dreadful Drummer, followed 

 immediately by Fred B. Lewis on Con- 

 nivers in the Business. Mr. Niemeyer 

 spoke eloquently of our New Prosper- 

 ity. Mr. Kasting had. of course, to de- 

 fend the Commission Man, which he 

 did in his usual bright and witty way; 

 and there were short talks from eveiy 

 one, including a very witty speech 

 from Mr. C. Keitsch. His toast was 

 the New American Beauty. He told 

 us all about it and concluded a most 

 amusing talk by telling us that it was 

 a girl and she was almost 5 weeks old. 

 Mr. Long had gathered together a 

 good array of most of the carnations 

 offered this year and the visitors were 

 much impressed with the fine appear- 

 ance of Genesee. The absentees were 

 few and insignificant, still they should 

 have been there. Walter Mott and Dan 

 McRory only missed it by 24 hours. 

 Dan looks very rugged and very stout, 

 evidently fattening on the rich oiders 

 he has taken on his western trip. To 

 our great regret Prof. Cowell had to 

 take an early train and left before the 

 fun began. 



A Remarkable Coincidence. 



The past ten days will long be re- 

 membered as the most pleasant, even 

 balmy, spell of weather ever known in 

 the first days of March, and to that 

 partially must be attributed the co- 

 incidence of which I beg a small space 

 to relate. Tuesday, March 8th, 

 beamed on us as a day in June. At 

 about 10 a. m. were seen "poor Lo" 

 with his basket of sassafras, a robin 

 and a blue bird and the first Dutch 

 bulb drummer of the season. This is 

 about three weeks in advance of any 

 season on record, particularly for the 

 last mentioned. Our feathered favor- 

 ites stayed but a few moments, just 

 alighting on the highest twig of an 

 apple tree and piping out in their 

 lately acquired southern accent "Mor- 

 nin', Bill," and then winged their tire- 

 less flight across Ontario's waters to • 

 the fields and orchards of the northern 

 shores. Not so with the new arrival 

 from Holland. He stopped to pick up 

 a few incautious worms, whet his beak 

 and tell a stcry. All readers of the 

 newspapers will remember that a lit- 

 tle more than a month ago the news 

 flashed over the wires, or at least be- 

 fore our eyes, that the good ship Veen- 

 dam of the Rotterdam line was lost m 

 mid ocean and every soul saved by the 

 American liner St. Louis. Mr. G. 

 Krowell was one of the rescued. Mr. 

 K is a very young man with plenty of 

 animal spirits and aggressiveness, but 

 when relating his experience, and it 

 may be called impressions, for that's 

 the sort of thing that does impress, 

 you can see he is still thinking of his 

 mother or perhaps a fair Holland lass, 

 and perhaps his sins. On Tuesday 

 evening. Feb. 6. a hole was knocked in 

 the bottom of the Veendam (.no suspi- 



cion that it was a Spanish mine or tor- 

 pedo); at midnight her rescue by the 

 St. Louis began, and in nine hours the 

 three or four himdred of the Veendam 

 were safely aboard the big ship, and 

 each passenger had what he or she was 

 enveloped in and no more. There is 

 not a comfortable gang plank put from 

 one ship to another. Oh. no, in a 

 heavy sea it is an ordeal that only 

 stout hearts will volunteer to face, and 

 weak ones must or perish; flrst the 

 women, then the other passengers and 

 last the crew, and last man of all in 

 this case the captain. "What," said he, 

 "have you got there?" as Kaiser Kroon 

 Von Kronwell placed himself in posi- 

 tion to have the rope adjusted beneath 

 his arms, preparatory to be let down 

 into the tiny boat. "My papers, my 

 catalogues that I do business with 

 when I get to America." It was not 

 an over large grip, but the captain 

 sternly said, "If you value them highly 

 you had better stay with them or get 

 into the boat without them." I can 

 swear that Mr. K did not stay with 

 his baggage, but it perished in flames, 

 as did the whole ship, that it may not 

 bring disaster to another as some sub- 

 merged wreck had so cruelly fouled 

 the good Dutch ship. There is no 

 moral to this tale only we infer from 

 the quantity of Dutchmen who get here 

 that few lives are lost on this line. 

 Their literature we can dispense with 

 and even if it is getting much colder. 



W. S. 



CLEVELAND. 



Trade Fair. 



Business on the whole has fallen off 

 slightly from previous reports, but, 

 considering the fact that we are now 

 fairly into Lent, is not very bad. The 

 quality of stock in all lines is very 

 good and prices are somewhat off from 

 former quotations in most lines al- 

 though up to the time of this writing 

 there has been no glut to utterly de- 

 moralize prices. Whether, with the 

 steadily increasing supply, not only lo- 

 cally, but also in outside cities that 

 ship here, this condition of affairs can 

 be long maintained, is somewhat prob- 

 lematical. Let us, however, hope for 

 the best. 



Outlook for Easter. 



In going througli many establish- 

 ments lately, a few observations re- 

 garding the outlook for Easter stock 

 were made. There does not appear to 

 be much stuff coming in for that oc- 

 casion, that will be different from 

 other seasons. Novelties of merit do 

 not often appear nowadays and the 

 trade here at least is very shy of expe- 

 riments, a few valuable lessons hav- 

 ing been taken to heart apparently 

 from earlier disastrous experiments. 



In pot plants azaleas appear to hold 

 the highest place in everybody's esti- 

 mation and the likelihood is that there 

 will be an ample stock for all demand. 



