HORTICULTURE 



November 11, 1905 



HORTICULTURE 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 

 DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. 



T.lephon.. Oxford 292, 



WU. J. STEWART. Editor and Manager. 



The heiglit of the exhibition season is now 



Attend on. Every horticulturist who would be 



the show well-informed in his business should 



visit at least one good exhibition, and 



more than one if possible. It takes a little time and 



effort, but it is time well used. 



The Chrysanthemum Society of America is 

 A useful doing a useful work through its excellent 

 society system of local committees. Thanks to it 

 the purchaser of new varieties is protected 

 and the community each year escapes an avalanche of 

 worthless material. A certificate of the Chrysanthe- 

 mum Society of America is \nv\\ worth striving for. 



The large number of widely sep- 

 Modern arated exhibitions, all of them 



publicity methods noteworthy in a greater or less 

 degree, are certainly a heavy drain 

 at this season upon those commercial growers who, 

 having novelties or other things, wish to make use of 

 this excellent means of publicity, for business advan- 

 tage. Nothing can demonstrate more convincingly 

 than do these recurring displays the unprecedented push 

 and enterprise of modern business methods. Timorous- 

 ness and frugality have but little part in the policies 

 that succeed today. 



Cannot some violet lover intro- 



The violet in j^ice a way of exhibiting the 



the exhibition hall violet which will better display 



the charms of this popular little 

 flower? A row or two of tumblers or small vases each 

 holding the stereotyped "bunch" of closely-packed 

 blooms with a fringe of leaves, in some spare corner of 

 the exhibition table, is the usual disposition of the 

 modest violet. Visitors spend but little time on it, 

 stopping only to try its fragrance and often finding it 

 anything but sweet. The violet is worthy of more con- 



sideration as to its arrangement and as soon as its 

 \ii>li'ty fragrance has gone the flower should also be 

 ■ •Jri ted. for it is no longer fit. 



The preliminary schedule of 

 The American Rose premiums to be competed for at 

 Society exhibition the exhibition of the American 

 Rose Society in Boston next 

 ^larch affords a forecast of what promises to be the 

 greatest rose exhibition ever made in this country. 

 Local growers can be depended upon for a compre- 

 hensive display of pot-grown roses and the cut-flower 

 contributions from every section of the country should 

 be very extensive. To the rose more than any other 

 flower or race of flowers the florist trade owes its mag- 

 nitude and prosperity. Here is an opportunity for the 

 growers to do something in return for what the rose has 

 bestowed and it will not be a profitless gift but an 

 investment, rather, which cannot fail to benefit event- 

 ually all who participate in this notable event. The 

 special premiums for mantel and table decorations open 

 the way for a feature heretofore absent from the rose 

 shows which cannot fail to interest and attract many 

 visitors. 



We hear some talk of an elfort about 



A gardeners' to be made to raise funds for the 



home the establishment of a "Gardeners' 



Home," where superannuated garden- 

 ers who through disability or misfortune may be com- 

 pelled in old age to rely upon the generosity of their 

 fellow man, may find honorable shelter. Just what are 

 the plans of the promoters of this scheme we do not 

 know but the idea strikes us favorably. In few profes- 

 sions is the reward for honest toil so meagre as in that 

 of the gardener, yet among no class is the element of 

 brotherly sympathy more strongly developed. An 

 appeal made in the right way would undoubtedly elicit 

 a substantial and hearty response from the craft all 

 over the country and the same would undoubtedly be 

 true of that class of our citizens who are employers of 

 gardeners and know their faithfulness and can always 

 be depended upon to take a generous interest in a 

 worthy cause. The proposition is by no means an 

 impracticable one. 



At some of the exhibitions, notably those 

 Taste in where private gardeners rather than 

 displaying truck-growers lead in the vegetable 

 vegetables classes, the vegetable display rivals that 

 of the flowers and plants in its attractive- 

 ness for visitors. This is because of the excellent taste 

 in arrangement which is possible with the bright colors 

 and varied forms of the different vegetables which the 

 clever exhibitor knows so well how to group to advan- 

 tage. The greens of parsley, and herbs, the scarlets of 

 peppers and tomatoes, the purples of egg plants, the 

 orange of carrots and Indian corn and pumpkins, the 

 shining yellows and fantastic forms of gourds make 

 effective contrasts with the sober tints of other vege- 

 tables and furnish plenty of scope for tasteful arrange- 

 ment. This is the way to show vegetables but we know 

 one society which disburses large sums of money every 

 year for vegetable exhibits where, for many years, every _ 

 effort to introduce this class in the schedule has been 

 fought to a finish by the market-garden interests despite 

 the fact that the public practically turns its back on the 

 vegetable department in consequence. 



