522 



HORTICULTDRB 



April 17, 1915 



HORTICULTURE 



VOL XXI APRIL 17. 1915 NO. 14 



ri III.INIIKI) \VKKKI.\ IIV 



HORTICULTURE. PUBLISHING CO. 

 1^7 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. 



Trirliliuop. Oifuril iu:. 

 \\M. J. STEWART, Kdltor anil Mmnsirr. 



Etii> ln»s matter December 8, liMH, at the i'ont uUicc 

 at iiader tbe Act of CoDKreas of March 3, 1879. 



CONTENTS Page 



fOVEK ILLl'STKATKi.N .\. Fmiiial tJ;u.Uii 



NOTKS ON CILTIKK OK FUJIUSTS' STOCK— Chr.v- 

 santheiniiins — Kricas — Nephrolepis — KHiublers for 

 Next Kaster — Time to Propagate—Stock in Frames — 

 John J. M. Fiiinll 521 



OBITI AKY— .Mrs. G. W. Starrett— Kdward Kisenberg— 

 John Niqtict — Simon Kodh — Grace Worn — .lames J. 

 .Maloncy — .Alexander Haig — Mrs. John B. Nugent, por- 

 trait — \V. S. Sisson 523 



CLUBS AND SOCIKTIES— New Yorlf Florists' Club- 

 Field .Meeting at the Arnold Arboretum — Gardeners' 

 and Florists' Club of Boston — Chrysanthemum Soci- 

 ety of .\merica — North Shore Horticultural Society — 

 National .Association of Gardeners^Westchester and 

 Fairfield Horticultural Society — For a National Dah- 

 lia Society — St. Louis Florists' Petition — The S. A. 

 F. as a Business Help — Portland Florists to Organ- 

 ize—Notes 524-528 



DURING RECESS— New Bedford Horticultural Society 

 — New York Florists' Bowling Club 528 



SEED TR.ADE — Don't Miss San Francisco— The Itiner- 

 ary — Cautious Contracting — Seed Potatoes and Onion 

 Sets— Chicago Seed Notes 530 



OF INTEREST TO RETAIL FLORISTS: 



Gluts — New Flower Stores — Flowers by Telegraph — 

 One Way to Advertise, Henry Penn 532-533 



NE-W'S ITEMS FRO.M EVERYWHERE: 



Boston, San Francisco, Chicago 534 



Washington, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New York 535 



FLOWER MARKET REPORTS: 



Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York 537 



Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Washington 539 



MISCELLANEOUS:— Cleveland Flower Show 523 



A Formal Garden at South Braintree, Mass 523 



A Pleasing Flower Basket — Illustrated 525 



Window Boxes — Illustrated 526 



License to Peddle 529 



Visitors' Register 539 



Credit Protection, Ernest Borowski — Personal 539 



Catalogues Received — Publications Received 544 



A New Pastime — New Corporations 544 



Whitewashing Trees 545 



Destructive Insects Intercepted 545 



Greenhouses Building or Contemplated 546 



Patents Granted •'■4i; 



The storm of Easter Saturday, which 



The storm's broke in so ferociously on tlie prosperity 



aftermath of the florist trade of the eastern section 



of the country and shattered the hopes 

 for a record breaking Easter, left behind it a trail of 

 trouble for the entire week following the disaster. All 

 classes of flower dealers suffered to a greater or less 

 extend but those that were hit the hardest were the 

 itinerant dealers who had ensconced themselves in every 

 available empty store or vacant space and stocked up 

 heavily from the abundant supply of bulbous material, 

 azaleas, etc., which existed on all sides. These people 

 got an awful blow wherever they had paid for the goods. 

 Where they had not jjaid the grower has to take most 

 of the punishment in all probability. But the greatest 

 handicap to the general business of the week following 

 Easter was the enormous stock of plants and flowers 

 left on the hands of the retailers and the wholesalers, 

 which blocked the way for the fresh product, a condition 

 which has reacted disastrously on the growers and 

 slaughtered market prices for everj'thing. Special sac- 



A s.ite 

 business 



rifice sales of left-over Easter plants have been held 

 in many phu-cs during the week. 



While there are yet remaining a few of the 

 licjit liiisiness weeks of the season, so called, 

 (he lime Iv&fi so far progresso<l tliat most 

 of us can now make a fairly good estimate 

 of the 1914-1. "J season as to whether we have found 

 it a profitable one, as 1« how it compares with 

 previous years, and what new outlay or investment 

 its results would .seem to justify for the im- 

 mediate future. While there are undoul)te<ily some of 

 our readers who have enjoyed an increase in the amount 

 of their business over that of last year and who are 

 well satisfied with conditions as they have met them, 

 yet in the case of many others the reverse is true. The 

 question is an all-important one, especially for those 

 who have made large investments in greenhouse 

 property in the anticipation of immediate returns, 

 equal to those of previous seasons on a similar 

 outlay, and it will be answered variously as to 

 how much of future enlargement the results in 

 each case now seem to warrant. Yet every one must 

 agree that the floricultural industries have suffered much 

 less than might reasonably liave been feared in a year 

 so tempest-tossed commercially as the one we have 

 been passing through. Again, we believe it will be 

 further admitted that these industries, when carried on 

 progressively and in accordance with modem business 

 thoroughness, have yet a long way to go before they 

 have reached the danger line of risky investment. Few 

 avocations, indeed, hold out more reasonable assurance 

 of a fair return for capital and industry than tliose 

 concerned with the cultivation of plants and flowers. 

 W]\en one attempts to count up 

 The advancement tile list of new forcing roses which 

 of the rose are to be found in greater or less 



quantities in the wholesale cut 

 flower markets at the present time the number proves 

 to be astonishingly large and brings home forcibly and 

 impressively the remarkable progress now being made 

 in this branch of commercial floriculture. There were 

 many years during wliich tlio same roses^about half 

 a dozen all told — held the floor invariably year in and 

 year out, while in the meantime the carnationists were 

 industriously focusing public attention on a constant 

 succession of new carnation varieties. Interest in the 

 rose was at a low ebb and there was very meagre en- 

 couragement to anyone to make the effort to work up 

 something better than the old staples in the rose line. 

 Now we have in the running in addition to a lengthy 

 list of well established favorit-es, .such sterling new sorts 

 as Mrs. Russell, Prince d' Arenberg, Hadley, Francis 

 Scott Key, Mrs. Storey, Ophelia, Jonckeer Mock, Lady 

 Stanley, Radiance, as well as others of local repute in 

 various places, while in the way of wide variation we 

 have the little sparklers of the Mignon. Elgar and Fire 

 Flame type opening up a new and promising field for 

 enterprise. At the April meeting of the Horticultural 

 Club of Boston, E. H. Wilson entertained and instructed 

 the members and guests with the stor}' of the rose as it 

 was in its beginnings — the originals from which, 

 through various evolutions from remote antiquity, the 

 rose as we know it to day had its development. It 

 was one of the most remarkalile discourses on the sub- 

 ject of the rose ever delivered in this country. It 

 .served not only to excite wonder over the past but some 

 faint realization of the possibilities of the future, es- 

 pecially when attention was called to the fact that of 

 the many beautiful native American roses, but one had 

 yet been made use of by the hybridist. 



