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HORTICULTURE 



November 4, 1905 



with old friends. Every year in Janu- 

 ary a banquet is held to celebrate the 

 foundation of the society, when Eng- 

 lish, French and other friends meet to- 

 gether in pleasant reunion. Last Jan- 

 uary the society was honored by M. 

 Philippe de Vilmorin taking the chair, 

 and a very enjoyable evening was 

 spent at the Cafe Royal, Regent street, 

 to meet so distinguished a chairman, 

 who came over specially from Paris for 

 the occasion. 



The society possesses a useful and 

 interesting library. It has over 600 

 members, many of them being eminent 

 horticulturists on both sides of the 

 Channel. The present issue of the Bul- 

 letin contains a capital portrait of M. 

 Philippe de Vilmorin with a biographi- 

 cal sketch, rules, list of members, bal- 

 ance sheet records of monthly meetings 

 and best of papers read by the mem- 

 bers. A few titles will illustrate the 

 scope of these papers, viz.: "Culture 

 of Azalea Indica," "The Best Climbing 

 Plants," "A Journey in Ireland," "A 

 Flower Show in Nice," "Notes in the 

 Nurseries of Mr. Charles Turner, 

 Messrs. Thomas Rochford and Roth- 

 berg." 



AMERICAN INSTITUTE SHOW. 



New York City was treated to an 

 exhibition the past week, creditable 

 alike in size and quality. The Amer- 

 ican Institute shows have shown a 

 substantial increase each year and on 

 this occasion the two acre floor space 

 in Herald Square Hall was well filled. 

 The centre area was reserved for the 

 floral displays and these were flanked 

 with enoitnous groups of ornamented 

 foliage plants, conifers and bays be- 

 yond which were the vegetable, fruit, 

 seed and miscellaneous entries. 



For the flrst time in the history 

 of New York chrysanthemum shows 

 there was an adequate representation 

 of trained specimen plants. The lead- 

 ing contributors in this section were 

 Peter Duff, gardener to J. Crosby 

 Brown; C. D. Schaeffer, gardener to 

 Richard Mortimer and G. C. Rand. 

 At time of writing it was announced, 

 unofficially, that the cup offered by 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle of America 

 had been awarded to Mr. Schaeffer. 

 His exhibit included standards and 

 low trained specimens of enormous 

 size and displaying great cultural skill. 

 Mr. Duff's reputation as a plant grower 

 was long ago established and in this 

 case he was fully up to it. His speci- 

 mens of Lady Lydia, white, and R. 

 Hooper Pearson, yellow, were superb. 

 The classes for single-stem-and-flower 

 plants were well filled by D. E. Oppen- 

 heimer, Joseph L. Haworth gardener, 

 S. Untermeyer, J. Featherstone garden- 

 er, and the F. R. Pierson Company. 



The cut flower department was char- 

 acterized by liberal contributions of 

 flowers of enormous size. In many 

 cases size was the most notable at- 

 tribute of the blooms foliage and 

 finish scaling low. There were, how- 

 ever, many beautiful, perfectly built 

 flowers of old and new varieties. Such 

 sorts as Col. Appleton and Merza held 

 their own and did not suffer in the 

 least by comparison with the newer 

 varieties, but it was noticeable that 

 these old favorites did not overshadow 

 everything else by their abundance as 

 in past years and the exhibits were of 

 an unusually diversified character, the 

 number of new varieties being very 

 great. Win. Dnckham was fully up to 



its reputation of last year. Mrs. Wm. 

 Duckham was also excellent wherever 

 seen and Mrs. D. V. West dominated 

 the whites, her only rival being 

 Beatrice May, which, as shown by Mr. 

 Totty, was certainly unapproachable 

 for elegance of form and finish. 

 Thomas W. Head, gardener for the M. 

 F. Plant estate, was the largest ex- 

 hibitor in the cut specimen classes, 

 staging no less than 370 long stemmed 

 flowers. A. Herrington, C. H. Totty, 

 Wm. Duckham and the P. R. Pierson 

 Company were also extensive contribu- 

 tors. 



Pompons were shown in larger quan- 

 tities than ever before and attracted 

 the attention of visitors to a degree 

 sufiicient to convince of the coming 

 popularity of the hardy classes. The 

 chief exhibitors were Chas. H. Rice, 

 who showed a collection of bright 

 colored seedlings, mostly single; 

 Thomas M>ehan & Sous, .John N. May 

 and R. Vincent, Jr., & Son. Chas. S. 

 Smith showed a new hardy double 

 white pompon named Prosperity. 



The display of orchids was undoubt- 

 edly the most extensive and complete 

 ever staged in this country. Lager & 

 Hurrell's group comprised 359 plants 

 in 103 varieties, all profusely flowered 

 and arranged with consummate taste. 

 In Julius Roehrs & Sons' collection 

 were gems, such as Cypripedium 

 insigne Sauderae and Harefield Hall, 

 and that beautiful hybrid, C. Maudiae. 

 H. A. Siebrccht & Sons displayed phe- 

 nomenal cattleyas in great profusion, 

 not for competition, and Seth A. Bor- 

 den, Fred Varden gardener, was rep- 

 resented by a lot of blooms of Cattleya 

 labiata. 



The groups of decorative stove and 

 greenhouse plants were very exten- 

 sive and with the conifers, bays, etc., 

 furnished a fitting setting for the mass 

 of color that filled the centre of the 

 hall. As with the orchids, the main 

 contributors in this section were well- 

 known commercial firms. They were 

 Julius Roehrs & Son, Siebrecht & Son. 

 John Lewis Childs, Bobbink & Atkins 

 and J. H. Troy. Among the most 

 noticeable were seedling Begonia Rex 

 plants of great beauty from Siebrecht. 

 Lorraine and Rex begonias, dracaenas 

 and crotons from Roehrs, cyclamens 

 and Lorraine and Turnford Hall be- 

 gonias from Lehnig & Winnifield and 

 some new flowering begonias from S. 

 Untermeyer. In the later was Ideala, 

 a very promising bright-vermilion 

 flowered gem. P. Weinberg showed a 

 large collection of succulents. The or- 

 namental nursery element was very 

 active and each of the following- 

 named houses put up veritable forests 

 of choice conifers and allied special- 

 ties : F. R. Pierson Company, Cottage 

 Gardens. Julius Roehrs & Son, Bob- 

 bink & Atkins and Seibrecht & Sons. 

 It was unofficially stated that the 

 Pierson Company won the coveted 

 first prize. 



In the cut flower section a most sen- 

 sational exhibit was that of hybrids of 

 Nicotiana Sanderae by Sander & Sons. 

 The remarkable range of color running 

 from white through blush and pink up 

 to crimson and through lavender to 

 purplish blue and the size and abund- 

 ance of the individual blooms were the 

 subject of much comment, and it was 

 evident to wise judges that there are 

 some surprises yet to come in the de- 

 velopment of this prolific genus. 



Carnations and roses were shown in 

 fair quantity and excellent quality. 

 Among the carnations staged by Cot- 

 tage Gardens Lieut. Peary, Octoroon 

 and Robert Craig showed up most 

 effectively. My Maryland and Jessica 

 from H. Weber & Son were all that 

 could be desired. Fiancee, as shown 

 by R. D. Foote, was an eye-opener to 

 some of the doubters. Rudolph 

 Fischer's Abundance looked as though 

 it had a bright future ahead of it. 

 Among the roses Pierson's American 

 Beauties were without a rival. Thor- 

 burn & Co., A. T. Boddington Co. and 

 others made fine exhibits of bulbs and 

 seedsmen's sundries. 



We cannot close this account with- 

 out adding a word of appreciation for 

 the kind courtesy so lavishly extended 

 by Dr. Hexamer, the chairman of the 

 committee in charge. He was ever- 

 present, ever-patient and was essen- 

 tially the right gentleman in the right 

 place. The attendance was not what 

 it should have been. The affair had 

 not been adequately advertised and, 

 besides. New York is at present too 

 deeply engrossed in local politics to 

 think of anything else. 



THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW AT 



PROPAGATING GARDENS, 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Commencing with Wednesday, Nov. 

 1, the annual Chrysanthemum Show- 

 given by the U. S. Propagating Gar- 

 dens, under the general supervision of 

 Mr. (5eorge Brown, will be thrown 

 open to the public. Through the cour- 

 tesy of W. A. Furmage, the grower of 

 this fine collection, our correspondent 

 was shown through the exhibit the 

 day previous. Mrs. Roosevelt, who al- 

 ways does the honor to view the ex- 

 hibit each year, had just paid her visit. 

 The flowers had been carefully timed 

 in the blooming, and in the seventy- 

 nine varieties grown not more than 

 six were either too early or late to 

 show to best advantage. From a com- 

 mercial standpoint, the following are 

 entitled to special mention: 



In white, Mrs. Nathan Smith meas- 

 ured IG inches over, and Ben Wells IT 

 inches; Silver Wedding and Yousell 

 were also very fine. The latter is one 

 of the earliest, and on this account 

 would be a good one for the commer- 

 cial grower. Among the very finest 

 yellows, which seemed to be the pre- 

 vailing color, were O. P. Bassett, Gold- 

 en Gate, Cheltonii, Mrs. William Duck- 

 ham, Henry Sinclair, Donald McLeod 

 and Mildred, a sport which originated 

 there, and Robert Halliday. 



Leila Filkins, Amorita, F. A. Cob- 

 bold, Brutus. Lou Dillon, Ziletto. Lord 

 Alveston, Lord Hopeton, Dazzler and 

 many others are worthy of mention, 

 but want of time forbids. 



SUFFOLK COUNTY (N. Y.) HORTI- 

 CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



The fourth annua! exhibition of this 

 society was held at Bay Shore, October 

 24, 25, 26, and was a decided success. 

 William C. McColIom, gardener to S. 

 T. Peters, secured twenty-four first and 

 nine second prizes. He was closely fol- 

 lowed by President William Wincott, 

 Donald Sim and Charles Dumper. 

 Certificates of merit were granted 

 Guttman & Weber for Carnation Vic- 

 tory; Lager & Hurrell for orchids; and 

 Charles H. Totty for chrysanthemums. 



