242 



HORTICULTURE 



September 1, 1906- 



a position to know their desires and 

 ambitions, and sbould use every ef- 

 fort for their upbuilding into ideal 

 men and gardeners. Short hours of 

 labor, liberal wages, libraries, oppor- 

 tunities to attend lectures and ex- 

 hibitions, encouragement to form or 

 join clubs, and above all, a kindly 

 personal interest in their welfare, 

 easily lie within his power to promote. 



In providing the various garden 

 products, he should study the trend 

 of fashionable taste and try to fore- 

 stall the demand in this respect, it 

 being always extremely pleasing to 

 the proprietor to find himself the pos- 

 sessor of the newest things in flow- 

 ers, fruits and vegetables. On the 

 other hand, it is bad taste on the 

 gardener's part, to persis'tently at- 

 tempt to force his own particular 

 hobby on an unwilling employer; 

 this is undoubtedly a rock on which 

 many a .good man splits. It is the 

 duty, and should be the pleasure, of 

 the gardener to treat friends of the 

 proprietor with courtesy and respect; 

 this admonition is' particularly ap- 

 plicable in cases when married chil- 

 dren, or other relatives, locate per- 

 manently on the home estate and 

 whose presence there is often con- 

 sidered by the gardener as an in- 

 trusion. Generally this involves 

 merely the production of more garden 

 stuff of every kind, which means 

 more labor, a matter which the ideal 

 gardener can easily adjust by frank- 

 ly explaining it to his employer. 



A thousand other duties might be 

 enumerated which attach to the ideaJ 

 gardener of to-day, which in years 

 gone ')y were supposed to be outside 

 of his province. Far from consider- 

 ing these added burdens, however, he 

 should welcome them as indications 

 of increased opportunities and trib- 

 utes to his advanced intelligence. 



To successfully meet these require- 

 ments, what kind of a man is needed? 

 Certainly one with a most complete 

 education in the knowledge and culti- 

 vation of plants that can be con- 

 ceived. This should have begun in 

 the lowest grades of the grammar 

 school, and continued through every 

 step of school life, not as a theory 

 or dry recital of facts, but out In 

 the garden and field. Happily this 

 important feature in the education of 

 every child, whether destined for the 

 horticultural profession or not. is be- 

 ginning to be recognized by our pub- 

 lic educators. In the case of the ideal 

 gardener, of course, this study should 

 never cease: it should include a 

 knowledge of the lower organisms, 

 both vegetable and animal, which we 

 call diseases, also that of the insect 

 and animal world in general, in so far 

 as it affects plant life for good or ill. 



A knowledge of physics, especially 

 that branch pertaining to mechanics; 

 of chemistry to the extent that he may 

 appreciate the relative values of dif- 

 ferent elements in soil, air and water. 

 To know the effects of various chem- 

 icals on insect life, and the poisons 

 that are contained in many plants 

 with their antidotes, would be ex- 

 tremely useful. The fundamental 

 laws of art wherein it is shown that 

 harmony of colors and forms follow 

 as fixed and well defined rules as 

 those that exist in the phenomena of 

 sound, should be understood. This 

 would naturally include a study of 

 the principles of landscape gardening. 



of elementary land surveying and the 

 use of the instruments connected there- 

 with. 



All these and a hundred other 

 *hings may be enumerated as con- 

 tributing to the mental equipment of 

 a modern first-rate gardener. It is a 

 pretty formidable curriculum, especi- 

 ally to the man whose lines of per- 

 spective have not carried him much 

 beyond the potting bench, whose chief 

 ambition is to drop into an easy job 

 where the boss is away most of the 

 time, and where no embarrassing 

 questions are asked. Let it not be 

 supposed for a moment, however, that 

 the mere acquisition of all this knowl- 

 edge in itself constitutes an ideal man. 

 These things are simply tools to be 

 used as means to an end, which is 

 wisdom, and this finds its highest ex- 

 pression in the ability and desire to 

 serve. If in the course of all these 

 years of study and application, he 

 has not discovered that his own meas- 

 ure of happiness is commensurate 

 with the service which he renders 

 others, then his time and labor have 

 been largely wasted. Unselfish serv- 

 ice is the philosopher's stone. He 

 who possesses it scatters happiness 

 where e'er he goes, to his employer, 

 his fellow laborers, in fact, to all with 

 whom he Comes in contact. He pos- 

 sesses a pleasing personality, is inter- 

 esting in conversation, and tactful in 

 manner. Of him. his employer makes 

 a friend and companion. He is not 

 only an ideal gardener, but an ideal 

 man. 



RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN RE- 

 TAILERS' METHODS OF OF- 

 FERING FLOWERS. 



Paper re.Td liy Irwin nertermann, In- 

 dianapolis, before the Society of American 

 Florists, at Dayton, Ohio. 



In the time of the great Roman, 

 Nero, the metho.-'.s of arranging and 

 presenting flowers were in keeping 

 with that wonderful period. The Ro- 

 mans understood how to combine 

 flowers with statuary, make wreaths 

 and designs for classic pieces, to fur- 

 nish sparkling fountains with plants, 

 to use artistic vases, to blend colors 

 and to decorate in a manner the lead- 

 ing florists of this great country are 

 earnestly striving after. To be sure 

 they did not watch or have the details 

 of the present times — paper boxes of 

 various hues, green, pink and white 

 wax paper, pins to match the various 

 flowers, cords, tassels, gauze, mattings 

 and many other accessories were un- 

 known to them, but the beauty and 

 detail of their flower arrangements are 

 a standard which all of us may look to. 



INTERIOR FITTINGS. 



A compartment the size of a small 

 room refrigerated by the establish- 

 ment's plant, with glass shelving on 

 either side and backed by mirrors, is 

 the "proper caper" these days. This 

 enables the store m;m to take his cus- 

 tomers into the box without disturb- 

 ing the flowers or causing them to 

 suffer from different temperatures. 



THE WINDOW DISPLAY. 

 The florist's window is now also an 

 all important point. It has long been 

 recognized as his most efficient adver- 

 tising medium, but it has only been 

 of late years that expert trimmers 

 were employed and the minutest de- 

 tails carefully observed. The flowers 

 in the window must be arranged so 

 that the colors blend or separate parts 



of the arrangement must contain a 

 massing of one variety. The florist's 

 window must attract the eye of those 

 passing, and surpass in beauty and ar- 

 tistic value all the windows in the 

 city, for in arrangement and neatnesS' 

 it must be equal to them and the 

 beauty of the contents naturally sur- 

 pass all others. 



COMMERCIAL VS IDEALISTIC, 

 The subject of the writer does not 

 permit of a sermon, but this is a most 

 opportune time to impress upon my 

 listeners that so much is sacrificed for 

 commercialism in the present day. 

 Everything Is made and arranged ac- 

 cording to the ledger account. In this 

 we find our German and French 

 brother far superior. Not only is the 

 commercial side of the fiorist's business 

 taken into consideration in Europe, 

 but the idealistic side is also well at- 

 tended to. It is not only necessary to 

 arrange a wreath or basket hurriedly, 

 but it is also necessary to arrange it 

 in an idealistic and artistic manner. I 

 would refer every American retailer 

 to the Bindekunst, a German trade 

 paper. The illustrations therein will 

 easily coBvince the reader that we are 

 far behind in detail and symbolical 

 work. The Berlin and Parisian florists 

 not only put forth work which earns 

 the dollar, but arrange pieces which 

 signify much more than is found in 

 our ordinary run of baskets, wreaths, 

 pillows, etc. 



ARRANGEMENT OF STORES. 

 Great improvement has been noticed 

 in late years in the arrangement of 

 the flower stores. It is essential that 

 the arran.gement of the up-to-date 

 flower store be such that it is just a 

 trifle beyond the finest customer who 

 enters, if it is to elicit, particularly 

 from the feminine flower expert, the 

 admiration, respect and last but not 

 least, the patronage. Hampers and 

 baskets, also vases and boxes of flow- 

 ers are at all times in plain view and 

 furnish suggestions and ideas to any 

 one entering. Often times many of 

 these arrangements go to waste, but 

 they give prestige to the retailer who 

 has energy enough to gain ideas and 

 present them to his customers in a 

 practical manner. 



NO Al'OLOGV THESE DAYS. 

 An apology- is no longer a necessity 

 in the flower business as it was years 

 ago. Suitable stock can be had at all 

 times, though of course this varies 

 with the season. The store man who 

 takes it for gi-anted that a customer 

 sbould know without being shov,-n, 

 how to use the flowers, is lost. It 

 takes constant arrangement and a lot 

 of new ideas to please the better class 

 of customers. It was but a few years 

 back that all customers looked alike 

 to the clerk as they entered the store 

 room. It is now necessary to grasp 

 the idea of catering to different classes 

 of people. The rich, the poor, the ar- 

 tistic, those of poor taste, those who 

 want a lot for their money, those who 

 want only the best, arranged in the 

 most artistic manner, those who want 

 certain color combinations, these qual- 

 ities must all be grasped at a glance 

 by the clerk, or he will lose many a 

 customer who would have been well 

 satisfied had the clerk been a better 

 judge of human nature. The clerk no 

 longer presents his wares in the timid 

 way of years gone by; he knows the 

 value of his stock and is not to be 



