922 



The Weekly Florists^ Review, 



llAV 12. is;w. 



lied with business, I seeli comfort by 

 a walk round among the water lilies." 

 Great expanses of brilliant flower gar- 

 dens we have seen, and are to be seen 

 in many places, both here and in Eu- 

 rope, but such a water garden as this 

 exists nowhere else on earth. 



Presiding over this great collection 

 of aquatics you would expect to see a 

 sraceful nymph or mermaid, clad in a 

 leaf of Victoria Regia, with a rod of 

 papyrus in her hand. Don't have any 

 such vision. You will see 20i> pounds 

 of solid meat, with black beard and 

 lolly red face, lighted up with a genial 

 imile. and if that smile is mixed with 

 honest pride over his pets, no won- 

 der. The man is Mr. Tricker, and this 

 wonderful collection is the result o.f 

 his love and enthusiasm for these 

 uems of the tloral kingdom. 



P'rom Kiverton to Chestnut Hill is 

 (|uite a step, but we were on the jump 

 and only stopped when fi'iend Chris- 

 tensen got dust in his throat. We 

 found the genial Edwin at home, but 

 John had gone away to inilulge in the 

 pleasure of breaking up Peoria black- 

 birds. Well, if I were cutting as many 

 fine Beauties as he, I would shoot at 

 l>lack!)irds at least twice a week. The 

 roses, particularly Beauties, both at 

 Mr. I>onsdale's and Mr. Burton's, sim- 

 lily could not be surpassed. They are 

 masters of their business, live in fine 

 houses, and are jolly good men, and 

 fi'iend Lonsdale is to be only censured 

 for one thing. He has absorbed 

 enough good nature to bless half a 

 dozen men, and so others go short. 



The Lafayette hotel is a good place 

 to stop and near many of your friends. 

 Mr. Pennock's busy commission house 

 was visited: so was Pennock Bros.' 

 fine store, but Mr. Cartledge we un- 

 fortunately, for us, missed. We nailed 

 Mr. Robert Kift all right, and then an 

 hour's ride landed us in Baltimore. 



At Baltimore. 



We were no strangers there, but it 

 never struck me so forcibly before 

 that Baltimore is a very large and im- 

 portant commercial city, but for all 

 that very old fashioned and in our 

 small line very much behind the day. 

 The streets cannot be very dirty, be- 

 cause there is such a descent or as- 

 cent to them that they get washed 

 clean at every shower. The vulgar, 

 obtrusive soliciting of the hackmen 

 and touts at the union station would 

 disgrace a mushroom town. The 

 street cars are rickety, dirty, bumpy 

 affairs that will produce congestion of 

 the liver, preceded by seasickness. 



The florists are all huddled together 

 in two or three blocks, and the first 

 one that starts a real modern store in 

 the residence district (and Baltimore 

 has some beautiful resident districts 

 of the kind) will make a strike. Mr. 

 Halliday and that most pleasant lady, 

 Mrs. Thomas, we met, but Mr. Seide- 

 witz. Mr. Pentland and Mr. Feast 

 were not in to receive our brief visit. 

 At breakfast in the old Eutaw house 



we had a call from a most gentleman- 

 ly man, a Mr. Sands, who has lately 

 joined the noble army of florists. We 

 wish him great success, and greatly 

 appreciate his kind words, and only 

 would wish that he had embarked in 

 business in a better market. 



The Capital City. 



It is only a good cigar smoke from 

 Baltimore to Washington. We did a 

 lot in six hours. There was the Bo- 

 tanic Garden to see, but the principal 

 thing about that is W, R. Smith. More 

 time was spent looking at a genuine 

 Kilmarnock edition of Burns than all 

 the plants. -Then Mr. Smith brought 

 in something that he said was 1(1 years 

 old. It also came from Scotland, and 

 Mr, Christensen said: "My dear boy, 

 this is too good to drink — it should be 

 sipped with a spoon." 



Three little speeches by three big 

 congressmen were listened to. The 

 republicans had their innings and the 

 aist of their talk was that this was no 

 time to bring up the income tax prop- 

 osition. The few republicans that 

 were not asleep feebly applauded at 

 the end of each little oration, while 

 the democrats read the papers, 

 chinned away in groups or mostly 

 went out to see a man, all as indiffer- 

 ent as to what the members were 

 1 saying as a IT-year-old girl in church. 



We just caught sight of the presi- 

 dent as he jumped from his carriage 

 into the White House, but what was 

 of more consequence, we quite caught 

 Mr. Pfltzer. who so ably presides over 

 the garden and conservatory of the 

 White House, and it was very enjoya- 

 ble for a short while to talk to a man 

 of his build. 



Then a call on Mr. Small, whose 

 store is a grand one, and to wind up 

 we found our hearty, jolly friend, ,Ioe 

 Freeman, who has a fine place. Mr. 

 Freeman speaks and writes straight 

 from the shoulder, and is to be highly 

 commended for it: honesty and can- 

 dor first : consequences after. 



Now all this pleasant four days' 

 jaunt, and it was pleasant throughout, 

 even to the dinner in the dining car 

 on our return, when we were Irun- 

 dreds of feet above the city of Wilkes- 

 barre, but took an hour to descend the 

 mountain, all this pleasantness is 

 marred by the many calls we could 

 not make and many friends we could 

 not possibly see. Whether they are 

 just as well pleased or not, I can't say. 

 I regret that opportunity forbade the 

 pleasure to us. W. S. 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Review of Trade Situation. 



The rain came down upon us every 

 day last week: that makes twelve out 

 of fourteen days rainy. Business was 

 auiet last week. If the cold, wet spell 

 ends this week, bedding plant busi- 

 ness will begin in earnest. So far only 

 hardy roses and ])ansies have fallen to 

 the florist's share, unless he deals in 



nursery stock. There are many or- 

 ders for cannas and geraniums wail- 

 ing to be sent out. The parks aiid 

 some of the large suburban hotels 

 have very handsome beds filled each 

 season. Some of the largo private 

 places have greenhouses of their own, 

 but most of them depend on the grow- 

 ers of bedding stock, who are now ex- 

 pecting their busiest time of the year. 

 Cut flower prices ruled about the 

 same as for the past two weeks. The 

 supply is not so heavy as usual for the 

 first week in May, with demand fair. 



Club Meeting. 



The vice president, Mr. Westcott. 

 presided at Tuesday evening's meet- 

 ing of the Florists' Club. The arrange- 

 ments for the theater benefit and May 

 party were discussed. 



Mr. Heacock was to have opened a 

 debate on paeonies. but Mr. Heacock 

 didn't come, neither did the paeonies. 

 We hope for both next time. 



1 was greatly interested at this 

 meeting in learning ttie views of some 

 of those who believe it impracticable 

 to secure a guaranty of freedom from 

 disease with our lily bulbs. It seems 

 the seedsmen and importers very nat- 

 urally fear they won't get their stock 

 if they attempt to get a guaranty. To 

 my surprise, many of the growers 

 share that feeling. This is one of the 

 cases pointed out by Julius Roehrs, of 

 Carlton Hills, where growers could 

 benefit themselves by working togeth- 

 er. ■\\'hal. folly to go on buying Indbs 

 that you know are unhealthy, in the 

 hope thai may be luck will be with 

 you and you won't have much disease. 

 Insist on a guaranty. Ten to one you 

 will get it. and if you don't you will 

 be richer next Easter growing some- 

 thing else: for that disease will get 

 worse unless those Bermuda growers 

 waive up. 



Notes. 



A. Fahrenwald now intends Iniild- 

 ing one more house, four in all. 



John W. Pepper is to build one 

 greenhouse shortly. Mr. Pepper is one 

 of our wealthy citizens. Last season 

 he spent a large sum of money on his 

 sunken gardens near Jenkintown. 



It is also said that Peter A. B. Wid- 

 ener intends tearing down his fancy 

 greenhouses and erecting two houses 

 in commercial style on his handsome 

 place near Cheltenham. 



Henry Diehl, of Germantown, has 

 some exceedingly fine pansies, large 

 flowers, good color and stems so long 

 as to suggest a commercial future for 

 such stock. Mr. Diehl imported the 

 seed from Germany five years ago and 

 has improved the stock a little each 

 year since then by careful selection of 

 seed, using only the first flowers for 

 that purpose. 



Chester Davis, the well-known gar- 

 dener and fruit expert, has joined the 

 i ranks of the benedicts. 



Immediately after The Review's last 

 report, a secret meeting of the bowl- 



