282 



HOETICULTUEE 



August 28, 1915 



Kerr, concerning the selection of 

 Houston for the 1916 convention. He 

 says, in part: 



"We appreciate this great honor, and 

 I assure you that we are going to try 

 hard to make this the greatest Con- 

 vention the S. A. P. has ever held. We 

 propose to give it a great deal of pub- 

 licity and pull hard for a large attend- 

 ance, as our future work will show. 

 We have the support of the Chamber 

 of Commerce, the City of Houston and 

 the Rotary Club, as well as the other 

 Civic organizations. 



"We want to call attention to the fact 

 that we have one of the largest audi- 

 toriums in the South for convention 

 and exhibition purposes. We have a 

 cUizenship which has left nothing un- 

 turned to make our visitors enjoy their 

 stay here. We have many side attrac- 

 tions which makes it worth while for 

 conventions in Houston. These mat- 

 ters will be taken up from time to 

 time. I want to express for Texas and 

 the florists of the South our grateful- 

 ness for this convention. 



"The convention came as a complete 

 surprise. We really did not figure on 

 getting it for next year. We did not 

 have a single Texas representative on 

 the ground, to my knowledge, although 

 I have not received the details of the 

 nomination. However, I will learn all 

 this later." 



CLUBS AND SOCIETIES 



LADIES' S. A. F. 



The annual business meeting of the 

 L.adies' S. A. F. was held at San Fran- 

 cisco on August 18, forenoon, the 

 president, Mrs. W. F. Gude, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, in the chair. The meet- 

 ing opened with an address of wel- 

 come by Mrs. P. H, Howard, of Los 

 Angeles, who spoke as follows: 



Dear Ladies: — On behalf of the 

 members of our organization I extend 

 to you all our happiest and most heart- 

 felt greetings in this the 31st annual 

 convention of the S. A. F. held in the 

 city of San Francisco. 



It is the first time in its history that 

 a meeting has been held in California, 

 and I am sure it is the first time many 

 of the ladies present have set foot on 

 the golden shores of the Pacific. We 

 trust that you will enjoy the trip with 

 an ever increasing pleasure as the 

 scenes of our state's beauty so infuse 

 themselves to you, that the recollec- 

 tions will be pleasant ones and linger 

 long in your memory. 



Our members in the state are but 

 few, but our liearts are big and we ex- 

 tend to you all a truly western wel- 

 come, always looking forward to the 

 time when the pleasure of meeting you 

 again in some other state shall be 

 ours. I thank you. 



An appreciative response was voice.i 

 by Mrs. K. Vincent, Jr., of White 

 Marsh, Md. The address of Mrs. Gude, 

 which was published in Horticulture 

 last week, followed. 



The following officers were elected: 

 President, Mrs. John Vallance, Oak- 

 land, Cal.; vice-president, Mrs. W. W. 

 Coles, Kokomo, Ind.; second vice-presi- 

 dent, Mrs. Robert C. Kerr, Houston, 

 Texas; treasurer, Mrs. A. M. Herr, 

 Lajicaster, Pa.; secretary, Mrs. George 

 W. Smith, Cleveland, Ohio; special 

 committee, Mrs. J. G. Hancock, Chi- 

 cago, chairman. 



RAILWAY GARDENING ASSOCIA- 

 TION. 



At the meeting of this Association 

 held in Detroit, Michigan, Aug. 17-20, 

 officers for the ensuing year were 

 chosen as follows: President, J. A. 

 Byrne, B. & O., Relay, Md.; vice-presi- 

 dents, C. W. Eichling, Q. & C, New Or- 

 leans, La., and R. J. Rice, M. C, Niles, 

 Mich.; secretary, Chas. E. Lowe, P. R. 

 R., Sewickley, Pa.; treas., J. K. Win- 

 gert, C. v., Chambersburg, Pa. New 

 Orleans was chosen for the next meet- 

 ing. The address of Pres. Paul Hueb- 

 ner follows: 



President's Address, 



It certainly gives me great pleasure 

 to greet you on this auspicious occa- 

 sion, the ninth annual meeting of our 

 association, and to see so many of my 

 fellow members gracing the occasion 

 from far and near. It certainly shows 

 a keen interest in our chosen profes- 

 sion and I congratulate you. I also 

 wish to congratulate you on the splen- 

 did work you have accomplished dur- 

 ing the past nine years. The progress 

 has been marked in all sections of the 

 country and we have come to be a 

 power for progress such as we hardly 

 dared to hope for in our modest be- 

 ginning. This is true not only of the 

 Atlantic Coast, but all over the coun- 

 try to the far Pacific. Those of you 

 who have visited the western roads not 

 only in this country, but in Canada, 

 can testify to the vast improvement 

 in railroad gardening in recent years. 

 I feel proud of the honor you have 

 done me in electing me your president 

 and it goes without saying that I have 

 keen anxious to do everything in my 

 power to further the interests of our 

 profession and place it on a still high- 

 er standard. 



In the way of practical suggestions 

 for appropriate action at this Conven- 

 tion I would call your attention to the 

 following features of organization: 



First, the permanent committees 

 upon the several subjects under which 

 all of our work may be grouped. It 

 is intended that the membership in 

 these committees be slightly changed 

 each year, but that a broad scheme for 

 the systematic development of each 

 topic be followed continuously, work- 

 ing from the most general aspects of 

 the subject gradually into the details 

 and collecting all available information 

 upon each phase of the subject as we 

 progress, as was stated in my recent 

 letters to chairmen of committees. In 

 this way we should ultimately accumu- 

 late a large and orderly mass of facts 

 of everyday value to railway garden- 

 ers, especially, but also to gardening 

 people in general, and such results 

 should warrant a distinctive recogni- 

 tion of our association for practical 

 achievements. 



That indeed should be the sphere or 

 slogan of our association, achieve- 

 ments along lines of practical, horti- 

 cultural work under a great variety of 

 natural conditions. In order to ac- 



complish a respected standing for our 

 association in horticultural circles the 

 conscientious effort of every member 

 to produce the best possible report 

 upon each topic that is assigned to 

 them is absolutely necessary. Each 

 problem should receive thorough in- 

 vestigation in libraries as well as In 

 the ground and among fellow garden- 

 ers, and the report should be a com- 

 plete and concise statement of the 

 facts of practical value thus obtained. 



Second, the suggestion has been 

 made that for our future meetings we 

 follow the points of the compass in 

 successive years; this is our northern 

 meeting, let next year be our southern 

 meeting, then an eastern and then a 

 western meeting. Further, that the 

 date of meeting be determined largely 

 by the climate of the place where we 

 will meet, later for northern situations 

 and vice versa. Consideration should 

 also be given, in this regard, to tim- 

 ing the meetings so that we shall see 

 some feature of horticultural interest, 

 during the meeting, that meetings 

 shall not be fixed closer than six 

 months from the previous meeting and 

 that, so far as possible, the meetings 

 shall be held during our least busy 

 season. I should like to have a full 

 discussion of this matter with a pos- 

 sible determination of our meeting 

 places and dates for the remaining 

 three years of this cycle. 



In conclusion, gentlemen, I wish to 

 thank you in advance for your kind 

 co-operation in the sessions to follow 

 this, and for your careful and consci- 

 entious work on the various commit- 

 tees. May wisdom and harmony pre- 

 vail in all our doings and may you all 

 enjoy yourselves not only from the pro- 

 fessional standpoint but in every other 

 way, so that when we return to our 

 homes we may all feel the wiser and 

 the happier for our experiences at De- 

 troit. 



AMERICAN GLADIOLUS SOCIETY. 



The sixth annual exhibition of the 

 American Gladiolus Society which was 

 held at Newport, R. I., in the Casino 

 Theatre, was the grandest show of 

 gladioli that has ever taken place in 

 America. The wonderful collections of 

 the best standard varieties, and the 

 great number of the newer sorts was 

 a revelation to all, both amateur and 

 professional admirers of these beauti- 

 ful flowers, and the quality of the 

 blooms has never been equalled at any 

 of our former exhibitions. 



The stage was filled entirely with a 

 magnificently arranged exhibit by 

 Charles Francis Fairbanks of Boston, 

 which was not for competition, and 

 the Newport Horticultural Society be- 

 stowed on him a silver medal. Other 

 splendid exhibits were staged by B. 

 Hammond Tracy, Wenham, Mass.; 

 William Sim, Cliftondale, Mass.; 

 Knight & Struck, New York City; Ar- 

 thur Cowee, Berlin, N. Y., and John 

 Lewis Childs, Flowerfield, L. I. Mrs. 

 B. Hammond Tracy exhibited a su- 

 perb basket in competition for the sil- 

 ver cup, but it was disqualified because 

 it contained one more spike of flowers 

 than specified in the schedule. The 

 judges were James Wheeler, Natlck, 

 Mass.; J. Leestraten, Saxonville, 



