Janiauv 1. ]003. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



219 



Bench of the New White Carnation Her Majesty at the Establishment of the Chicago Carnation Co., Joliet, 111. Photographed Dec. 19. 



of beino; seated comfortably in a surrey 

 tlie ride would have reminded us very 

 much of the one which made John Gil- 

 I>in famous. If you have never been to 

 ilurphysville, you have missed a treat. 

 Six families of !Murphys in the carna- 

 tion business. We called on Will, Christ 

 and Ed., all growing the "blooming" 

 ilurphy's White. For a strictly market 

 variety it is a fine thing. Ed. has it in 

 tip-top shape, standing two feet high on 

 the benches, strong stems and as free 

 as you would want it; but I've got ahead 

 of my story. 



To find Ed.'s place, on leaving Christ's 

 you take three turns to the left, and you 

 will come to a house on the brow of a 

 hill, from which you can see his green- 

 hou.ses. There are two roads you can go 

 to get to them, both equally good. You 

 cannot decide for yourself which one to 

 take, therefore you will inquire at the 

 house mentioned. You w'ill be told to 

 take the one to the left; keep travel- 

 ing until you come to a tree on the 

 rigiit with a wooden shoe tacked on for 

 a mail box. That's where 5d. gets his 

 mail. Genevieve Lord, grown here, looks 

 like a different plant entirely to what 

 we have seen it before, showing a much 

 freer and a more wiry habit. The crop, 

 which will be enormous, is coming just 

 right for midwinter, and as high as 

 coal is, we are counting that the coal 

 bill will be paid and a good margin left 

 to ]nit by for a rainy day. 



Getting back to town we found time 

 to call on our friends Ed. Gillett and 

 Will Murphy, both chuckling at the fact 

 of being cleaned out of stock at good 

 prices. We niis.sed some of the boys, ow- 

 ing to the independent spirit shown by 



the B. & O. Railroad Company in not 

 granting our request to hold the train 

 for Oakland an hour later. We also re- 

 gret another little incident that oc- 

 curred here. It seems that one of our 

 ])arty had during the day called up Mr. 

 Gillett, asking him to secure a berth for 

 him on the same train, which, of course, 

 Ed. was glad to do, and giving the 

 ticket to said party, received a polite 

 "thank you,"' but not the dough. Ed., 

 of course, was only too glad of the chance 

 to get one on this fellow, so kept mum 

 and gave us the wink to say nothing, 

 but our conscience smote us on arriving 

 at the depot, therefore we jogged the fel- 

 low's memory. He pretended to have 

 forgotten all about it, but whethei' he 

 had or not will always be a doubt in our 

 minds. 



The next important event that hap- 

 pened was the voice of the Pullman por- 

 ter: "Wake up. gentlemen; wake up, 

 kamaul! yuh onia got foah minutes to 

 Oakland. Train nuis' be hed ah time 

 dis morning.'' After a few hot words 

 for the ])orter for not giving us more 

 time to dress, we were diunped into a 

 foot of snow, which caused a few more 

 epithets for the porter, who made us 

 feel a little lietter by saying: "'Dafs noth- 

 in', gen"lemen. to what I done to white 

 lady few mornings back. She done have 

 to get off half dressed. An' wasn't she 

 mad. She swo'; didn't she swea'. I 

 was mighty glad when the train pulled 

 out. Well, goo<l-by. gentlemen: train's 

 otl'." '"O say, porter! throw off my 

 night-shirt." '"He cannot hear you," said 

 I. Neither did he, so our friend slept 

 in a pair of borrowed pajamas the next 

 night. This all happened at 5:3d a. m.. 



but still light enough to find the hotel, 

 at which we stopped until we could be 

 assured Will Weber was out of bed, and 

 that he might be informed that the 

 party he had expected yesterday hao 

 arrived. It was not long before a pair 

 of big blacks hitched to a sleigh was 

 sent down to snatch us up to the pinnacle 

 of the mountains, an angelic country, 

 truly, but too cold for the presence of 

 angels to be dangling their bare feet 

 over our heads. 



On our way up to Weber's establish- 

 ment it probably was the proverbial bird 

 that whispered in our ear that 

 the handsome house and grounds 

 on our left had just recently been 

 purchased by William Weber, into 

 which he had no doubt intended to 

 plant his "fiancee" should she keep up 

 to his present expectations. We were 

 all in a few moments discussing the 

 merits and demerits of this seedling here 

 and that one there, but one seedling in 

 particular attracted our attention, named 

 Gov, Lowndes. It's a bird, or rather a 

 swan would be more appropriate, as it 

 is a very large white on exceedingly 

 strong stems, and it will go to Brooklyn 

 to bid for the title "Queen of the 

 \\liites.' They are now booking orders 

 for this. We say now, because we saw 

 them do it. Estelle, Nelson, Norway, 

 Genevieve Lord, are better than we ever 

 saw them before anywhere. The latter 

 was particularly well done, and they 

 claim they had no trouble whatever in 

 getting S cents apiece for these flowers 

 in New Y^ork and Washington during 

 the winter and spring months. A few 

 straggling mums were still being cut and 

 we noticed a fine batch of chi'ysanthe- 



