August 19, 1905 



HORTI CULTURE 



the past twenty years has been phe- 

 nomenal. The trade has now as- 

 sumed colossal proportions in Ameri- 

 ca. The efforts of our members have 

 brought floriculture today to be a 

 leading industry of the country. 



How true then, and how true today. 

 We have made wonderlul progress in 

 caring for the advance of floriculture 

 on cut flower lines. The production of 

 flowers to meet the public demand has 

 been far beyond the expectations of 

 the most sanguine. With tew excep- 

 tions, in all states of the Union, our 

 members seem to be keeping pace with 

 this growth. But there has grown up 

 within the past three or four years, 

 and more especially within the last 

 year or two an unusual and general 

 interest in plants. Not that the use 

 of cut flowers has lessened, but the 

 public has decided to have horticul- 

 tural homes, to live among plants, 

 shrubs and trees. This is the demand 

 we must care for today or we will 

 not come into our own. The public 

 rightfully expects this of us and will 

 reward us with a liberal patronage. I 

 am not sure that we appreciate this 

 as fully as we should. 



Vice-President Theodore Wirth. su- 

 perintendent of Hartford. Conn., parks, 

 gives us earnest advice in his state 

 report of 1904: 



The cultivation of the taste for 

 flowers and decorations has become 

 universal. It most decidedly has, 

 and 1 am not only bold enough to 

 state that the tendency of the public 

 in that direction is greatly due to 

 the influence exercised on same 

 through the floral displays, decora- 

 tions and cultivation in up-to-date 

 public parks and private grounds, 

 but claim that but a small percent- 

 age of the commercial florists of to- 

 day, both growers and (Jealers. are 

 ready and prepared to take advan- 

 tage of the demand stimulated and 

 created through same to their bene- 

 fit. Hundreds of visitors to our 

 parks want to know where they can 

 procure that or the other plant, all 

 easily grown and adapted to our 

 climate, and when they are given 

 the addresses of our florists they 

 ■come back and say that those florists 

 don't grow them and don't know 

 them. 



If the local florists would aim to 

 keep step with the times by growing 

 such novelties as are proven to be 

 meritorious introductions and which 

 the public want, they would to their 

 own advantage secure a home trade 

 in place of forcing same into the 

 hands of unscrupulous, swindling, 

 fake drummers, that go around the 

 country collecting good money for 

 false, worthless goods. 

 Our Art in Public Improvements. 

 A large section of civic improvement 

 ■work now depends upon the use of our 

 products. Our art is most applicable 

 and available for this purpose. It is 

 used in streets, parks, vacant hits, chil- 

 dren's play-grounds, etc. Th.- awak- 

 ■ened public interest in hoiriculture 

 has increased the demand for our aid 

 broadly in this direction. This is our 

 great good fortune and is our oppor- 

 tunity. This favor shown to our pro- 

 fession by our best citizen.-^ should be 

 our inspiration. It should cause every 

 florist to join or lead all movements 

 for civic improvement work which 

 have in their scope the use of horticul- 



tural products, not for pecuniary ad- 

 vantages that may come directly or in- 

 directly, but for the better reasons that 

 horticulturists can handle such mal- 

 ters intelligently and efliciently, and 

 because they cannot afford to allow 

 any other class of their fellow-citizens 

 to precede them in applying their art 

 to the betterment of mankind. If they 

 have noble opportunities in their 

 chosen pursuit let them be foremost 

 in putting them into practice. 



Begin Improvements at Home. 

 J. Horace McFarland, president of 

 the American Civic Association, 

 writes; 



The Society of American Florists 

 at the Washington convention should 

 co-operate with our association by 

 asking its members to clean up and 

 develop their own places as exam- 

 ples to the communities in which 

 they live. Calling to mind the vari- 

 ous floral establishments you have 

 seen, you will remember that many 

 are dirty and unkempt. Sometimes 

 there is a little ornamental front 

 gate and show greenhouse, back of 

 which is an ill-looking potting shed 

 banked up with rubbish of various 

 kinds. Thus have the florists them- 

 selves by dirt and disorder often be- 

 lied their own profession as beauti- 

 fiers and decorators. The platform 

 of the American Civic Association is 

 "a more beautiful America," and 

 there should be no people in all the 

 country who are so much in line 

 from a business standpoint as those 

 connected with the horticultural 

 trade. 



Many of us can confirm with regret 

 Mr. McFarland's words. There is 

 much for us to do in this direction. 

 We must not only clean up, repair, 

 and paint, but we must burn or bury 

 the rubbish, and we must do more. 

 We must have room for perennials and 

 shrubbery as well as bedding plants 

 in and around our establishments; we 

 must have varied and beautiful win- 

 dow boxes and plants in tubs. These 

 groups of shrubbery, these boxes and 

 potted plants not only decorate our 

 surroundings and make them exam- 

 ples, but from all of these, sales may 

 be continually made and the stock 

 continually replaced. Thus instead of 

 making our betterments an expense, 

 we make them a source of added in- 

 come. 



President Lonsdale in 189-5 on this 

 line said to you: 



The florists' business is something 

 more than the cut flower trade. 

 There is the beautifying of gardens 

 and grounds, much of which comes 

 under the care and suggestion of 

 florists and gardeners. But the first 

 thing every wide-awake florist will 

 do is to beautify his own home and 

 surroundings. It is positively nec- 

 essary for us to have examples of 

 everything that is good and grown 

 in the most attractive and best pos- 

 sible manner if we would have the 

 desired effect on our surrounding 

 neighborhood. 



The Press a Great Aid. 

 You have all seen the increasing 

 space given to horticulture in the pub- 

 lic press. The ablest editions of our 

 metropolitan Sunday papers are alive 

 to the public interest in gardening, 

 and not only buy syndicate sheets of 

 horticultural news, but employ able 

 writers on special subjects. They are 



more than ready to receive reliable in- 

 formation of this class. They will 

 gladly print free of charge all garden- 

 ing news and cultural information we 

 will supply them, and such articles 

 could be made of great general good 

 to our trade everywhere. 



I find that President Lonsdale in 

 18y3 recommended a press bureau to 

 be attached to the local societies to 

 supply monthly, weekly and daily 

 journal.s with reliable news and cul- 

 tural notes. A bureau once estab- 

 lished would immediately become au- 

 thoritative on these questions and 

 would rid us of the exaggerated state- 

 ments now freely circulated in irre- 

 sponsible journals, often of such a na- 

 ture as to make our best people skep- 

 tical regarding all horticultural news. 



National Council of Horticulture. 



This society is asked to be one of 

 six or eight societies to contribute to- 

 ward carrying forward the work of 

 floriculture in a National Council of 

 Horticulture, whose objects are stated 

 as follows: 



To fraternize and concrete the 

 horticultural interests of North 

 America. 



To consider the questions of pub- 

 lic policy and demonstration which 

 are common to these organizations. 



To act as a bureau of publicity in' 

 the interests of reliable information 

 pertaining to horticulture in its 

 broadest sense. 



It is expected that the nurserymen, 

 seedsmen, pomologists and other socie- 

 ties will co-operate. 



I suggest the appointment of a com- 

 mittee to confer with the council, with 

 power to co-operate if in their judg- 

 ment the plan is practical and ad- 

 visable. 



Exhibitions the Great Uplifters. 

 President John N. Mav said August 

 20, 1SS9, at Buffalo: 



We should do all we can to ad- 

 vance and extend public exhibitions. 

 They are not only educators of flor- 

 ists, but of the whole public at large. 

 As workmen we must keep abreast 

 of the times, and the best possible 

 opportunity for us to do so is to meet 

 and freely discuss all matters of in- 

 terest. 



President Robert Craig said at Chi- 

 cago in 1887: 



When an exhibition is attempted, 

 every gardener and florist in the 

 neighborhood should, as a matter of 

 personal pride and duty, do his part 

 in the work. It is often complained 

 that the public does not sufficiently 

 appreciate the floral shows. Is it 

 not because they are so frequently 

 unworthy? If we open to the people 

 a good show, we can depend upon 

 moral and financial support. 

 With the recent great awakening of 

 public interest in floriculture we have 

 all seen the tendency of the promoters 

 of various charitable and other enter- 

 prises to make prominent the floral 

 sections of their bazaars, or even to 

 institute, on behalf of some worthv 

 society or charity, a so-called flower 

 show. This tendency is particularly 

 noticeable in California, and there i.s 

 need of emphasizing President Craig's 

 counsel of 1887. Should it not be the 

 duty of every local florist or gardener 

 wherever an exhibition is attempted 

 under the banner of a flower show, to 



