April 30, 1910 



HORTICULTURE 



657 



held there. The hall was handsomely 

 decorated. Red and green lights with 

 evergreen, shrubs and palms gave the 

 galleries and entrance a very hand- 

 some appearance. About 150 couples 

 formed for the grand march which 

 was led by William Miller and Miss 

 Vester Stubbs and Mr. and Mrs. 

 Charles Shand. John H. Stalford was 

 floor director, his aids being Bernard 

 Morris, ClifTord Came and William 

 Siever. 



The Dayton Florist Club of Dayton, 

 Ohio, held their second annual banquet 

 at the Phillips House the evening of 

 April 15th. H. H. Ritter, president, sat 

 at the head of the table and a very 

 excellent menu was enjoyed. Quite a 

 number of informal talks were deliv- 

 ered after the banquet. The following 

 were among those present: Mr. and Mrs. 

 George Bartholomew, Mr. and Mrs. J. 

 F. Young, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Frank, 

 Mr. and Mrs. F. Mittman, Mr. and Mrs. 

 F. Hasche, Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Schmidt, 

 Miss Bertha Hendricks, Miss Ruby Bar- 

 tholomew, Miss Catherine Young, A. 

 Bartholomew, Fred Noon, Jos. Furst, 

 C. M. Schaeter and the president, H. H. 

 Ritter. 



President Alost of the New Orleans 

 Horticultural Society tendered his 

 friends and colleagues a sumptuous 

 dinner at Rose Villa, Gentilly avenue 

 recently. Mr. Alost was much sur- 

 prised at the presentation of a hand- 

 some traveling bag and tea set, and as 

 he expects to leave for Europe in June 

 he will be able to make use of the 

 traveling outfit. The presentation 

 speech was made by C. R. Panter, 

 secretary of the Society and during 

 the evening the following gentlemen 

 made addresses: P. A. Chopin, Uriah 

 J. Virgin, C. W. Eichling, Solomon 

 Marx, Ed. Baker, E. C. Killere, F. J. 

 Mitenberger, E. J. Thread, Harry Dres- 

 sel, Harry Papworth and others. 



President Alost is one of the oldest 

 and most enthusiastic members of the 

 Society. Many of the foremost men 

 in horticulture in New Orleans are 

 among the members and it has gained 

 much in strength and prominence 

 during the past ten years; it is now 

 twenty-six years old. Officers are: A. 

 Alost, president; Herman Doesche, 

 vice-president; C. R. Panter, secre- 

 tary; John Eblen, treasurer. 



CARNATIONS. 



Re.id before the Florists' Club of Philadel- 

 phia, March 1st, 1910, by A. M. Herr. 



The trade papers have been full of 

 carnations and carnation society mat- 

 ters for the past month, but they seem 

 to be an inexhaustible subject and I 

 will try and not repeat too much of 

 what has been said. 



There seems to be no diminishment 

 In the number of promising novelties 

 year after year; in fact, they seem to 

 be increasing in number and wonder- 

 fully increasing in quality. Those of 

 us who were in Pittsburg could not 

 help but remark on this feature of the 

 novelties exhibited there. Just what 

 to expect from these novelties from a 

 commercial point of view is a question 

 for the future. No doubt many of 

 them will prove a disappointment to 

 either the originator or the buyer or 

 both, but what a monotonous world 

 this would bo with no disappointments 



to make us properly appreciate our 

 success. 



In my address at Pittsburg I recom- 

 mended that a report be secured from 

 a number of growers giving their ex- 

 perience with the introductions of the 

 previous year, these reports to be sent 

 to the secretary of the Carnation so- 

 ciety and published in pamphlet form 

 each year. The Society, or rather the 

 committee whom I appointed to take 

 up the recommendations made in this 

 address, did not see fit to even bring 

 this up for discussion. We can hardly 

 ask the trade papers to take It up, 

 but the various florists' clubs might 

 have an experience meeting each Jan- 

 uary and discuss this matter of the 

 preceding year's novelties pro and con. 

 The opinions of the commission man 

 and the store man are quite as valu- 

 able as those of the grower. We can- 

 not expect to get as good results as 

 the National Society could, but with a 

 free interchange of opinion we can 

 buy the second year novelties with 

 some assurance of success, and quite 

 a number of the $50.00 per 1000 vari- 

 eties would be hunting buyers at 50 

 cents per 1000. Publicity of failures 

 is needed, and badly needed. Elbert 

 Hubbard says "let each individual 

 work toward the betterment of as 

 many other individuals as he possibly 

 can, and his financial reward will be 

 money flowing into his pockets as 

 naturally as water flows into a river." 

 How many successes have you had 

 among the novelties bought last sea- 

 son? Don't keep them to yourself. 

 How many failures have you had 

 among the novelties you bought last 

 season? Tell us about them. Some 

 one among us may be able to put you 

 on the track of making this failure 

 a success; if not, then neither you 

 nor I want to plant it another season. 



Another point I tried to bring out, 

 and which was ignored by my com- 

 mittee, was to have a tag attached to 

 each bunch of flowers giving the date 

 they were cut and the grower's name 

 on it. This in the course of time 

 would be looked for and demanded by 

 the final consumer as a guarantee of 

 good faith. I would like to see a fresh- 

 flower law enacted on similar lines to 

 the pure-food law, and believe that 

 such a law properly enforced would 

 treble the use of our flowers. Not 

 long ago I was in a store where a 

 good-looking vase of Enchantress was 

 in the window; the clerk told me 

 about half the blooms in this vase 

 were flowers from Chicago, and that 

 they were three days old, the balance 

 of the vase being fresh flowers from a 

 local grower. Enchantress is not the 

 best of keepers and we all know that 

 the final consumer getting flowers 

 from this vase was foreordained to 

 disappointment. Let our carnations 

 be sold under a guarantee by the re- 

 tail man that they have been cut on 

 a certain date and add a little advice 

 as to the best method of keeping and 

 many an occasional buyer will be 

 turned into a regular customer. It is 

 not so much the price of flowers that 

 interferes with their sale as the fact 

 that in many cases the buyer receives 

 so little value for the money spent. 



Let the growers try to grow such 

 varieties as are known good keepers, 

 making this one of his first demands 

 in buying a novelty, then let him 

 grow them properly and tag them, as 

 previously suggested, and in the course 



of time the man who does this will 

 find himself on the high road to suc- 

 cess, and the man who does not will 

 be traveling an oppisite direction. 



Enchantress and all of its sports 

 can, if well grown, be turned out mod- 

 erate keepers but the careless grower 

 wants to leave them alone. Pink De- 

 light, Victory, White Perfection, all of 

 the Lawson type, Winona and O. P. 

 Bassett are all good keepers under 

 ordinary culture and it is this class of 

 varieties that should be planted in 

 quantity and some of the softer but 

 perhaps more beautiful sorts be ex- 

 perimented with until you learn to 

 handle them and turn out flowers that 

 will give good satisfaction. 



Another point I tried to bring be- 

 fore the Carnation Society was our 

 lack of business methods and ideas. 

 The retailer in our business is pep- 

 haps the nearest to 1910 business 

 methods, but he has much to learn; 

 the commission man follows along 

 about 1900 style and the grower is 

 lagging back somewhere about 1850 

 style. Not that I know much about 

 1850 business methods but it will do 

 for a simile and I believe is a correct 

 one. We do not need cultural meth- 

 ods, we have them once a week in 

 four trade papers, but we do sadly 

 need business methods and we need 

 some oue to come into our societies 

 who has made a study of modem busi- 

 ness and tell us something about this 

 end of our work. 



There is some money in carnation 

 growing; in witness thereof just note 

 the modern eight and ten-thousand- 

 dollar houses going up exclusively for 

 carnations. The man who has the 

 cash to pay for these structures Is all 

 right; the man who builds on credit 

 will have many a weary year before 

 his houses are paid for. I maintaia 

 that the modern carnation establish- 

 ment can not produce carnations at a 

 proflt for less than a two-cent average 

 from Sept. 1st to June 1st. Keep 

 your own records, charging up every 

 item of expense, interest, taxes, wear 

 and tear and every item that goes Into 

 the production of your carnation 

 blooms and see if I am wrong. 



When you see retailers paying $16,- 



000 a year rental for their store, and 

 wholesale establishments without 

 number in all of the larger cities and 

 the grower adding house after house 

 you naturally conclude each and every 

 one is making money "a la Rockef^- 

 ler," analyze the situation carefully 

 and you will find a triumverate com- 

 peting hades. 



I am not up In business methods 

 well enough to suggest a remedy but 



1 want to give this as an opinion and 

 that is "there are entirely too many 

 commission houses in the larger cen- 

 ters and the competition among them 

 is getting to be a bit hard on the grow- 

 er. The grower, the retail man, the 

 commission man and the final con- 

 sumer are all component parts of what 

 is and ought to be an immense busi- 

 ness. The healthy increase and life 

 of that business needs the encourage- 

 ment of each of these sections. Get 

 together. 



In our last issue the name of Mr. P. 

 Pearson, grower of fine Primula ob- 

 conica, was incorrectly given as P. Pet- 

 erson. However, the primulas will 

 grow just as well, notwithstanding. 



