November 8, 1919 



HORTICULTURE 



405 



BILLBOARDS AND RAILROADS. 



Wayne Junction, Philadelphia, Pa. 

 October 30, 1919. 



Dear Sir:— When I first took hold of 

 the Landscape Department of the 

 Philadelphia and Reading Railroad 

 System, about 30 years ago, the idea 

 among the railroad men and the gen- 

 eral public was then in its infancy. 

 All we could do at first was to brighten 

 up the station surroundings a bit, and 

 then, as the years rolled by, we be- 

 gan to tone up or tone down the ugly 

 spots along the line. By and by we 

 discovered what an excellent thing it 

 was to plant the ed^es, as wind-breaks, 

 to prevent snow blockades and flood- 

 ing. This not only beautified the 

 landscape but it saved the company 

 lots of money for labor cleaning the 

 ditches. Other railroads both East 

 and West soon began to see the ad- 

 vantages and began to imitate our 

 good example until today it is the es- 

 tablished custom of every first class 

 line to have a properly organized 

 Landscape Department. 



I am now nearly seventy and have 

 had experience from boyhood in prac- 

 tical gardening, floriculture and fores- 

 try, first in Europe and later in Amer- 

 ica, and I am proud to have been one 

 of the first to found the new order of 

 things among the railroads and to live 

 to see it grow and blossom until we 

 now may hold up our heads and show 

 the old world that we aspire to a love 

 of the beautiful in the new world as 

 much as they do in the old, although 

 there is a great deal for the rising gen- 

 eration to labor at, as they follow us 

 older men on in the paths we have 

 laid out for them. 



This preamble is necessary so that 

 you may understand my attitude on 

 the billboard nuisance. I have been 

 fighting these unsightly billboards of 

 the "dollar hunters," as I have other 

 defacements of natural beauty, all 

 these years and none of them have 

 ever been allowed anywhere near the 

 tracks if I could stop them by "hook" 

 or by "crook" — by word or by pen. 

 Now you can imagine how it grieves 

 me to learn that the florists, my own 

 people, of all the people in the world, 

 are starting in to spend money on this 

 atrocity. 



I earnestly urge upon them not to do 

 it, but instead to turn in with all their 

 might help me in my life work of edu- 

 cating the public to enjoying the beau- 

 ties of nature. Away with all the bill- 

 boards — beautify do not deface. I 

 have been brought up in the com- 



J. A. BUDLONG 



184 North Wabash Avanua, CHICAGO 



Wholesale Growers of Cut Flowers 



ROSES, CARNATIONS 



AND ALL OTHER SEASONABLE STOCK 



Shipping order* have mnt careful attention always 



B. A. SNYDER CO. K ,e 



Hardy Cut Evergreens, Cut Flowers and Florists Supplies 



21-25 Otis Street, BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephone Fort Hill 1083-1084-1085 



William F. Kasting Co. 



WhoSoosale Florists 

 568-570 WASHINGTON STREET • BUFFALO, N. Y. 



New England Florist Supply Co. 



276 Devonshire Street, 



BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephones, Fort Hill, 3469 and 3135 



MICHIGAN CUT FLOWER 

 EXCHANGE, Inc. 



WHOLESALE COMMISSION FLORISTS 



ConalffBxnent* solicited 

 Hardy Fancy Fern Our Specialty 



264 RANDOLPH ST., DETROIT. MUCH. 



The House for Quality and Service 



ZECII & MANN 



K^-We are Wholesale Florists Doing 

 a Strictly Wholesale Business 



30 East Randolph Street, CHICAGO 



mercial end of the business and have 

 always been as keen for the dollar as 

 the next one, but am thankful and 

 proud that I have never earned one 

 dollar in doing dirty or ugly work. 

 Those who advocate this thing are 

 doing great harm to the profession in- 

 stead of educating the public up to the 

 ideal of "Saying It With Flowers." 

 Stop, while the stopping is good. 

 Yours very truly, 



I'u I. Hikhxi'.r. 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM. 

 The Sassafras in Autumn. 

 In good years and bad years the Sas- 

 safras never fails to become a con- 

 spicuous object of beauty in October 

 when its dark green leaves turn yellow 

 and orange color more or less tinged 

 with red. This statement gives little 

 idea of the warmth of color which the 



Sassafras produces when it grows, as it 

 often does, on the border of a forest of 

 oak trees on which the leaves are still 

 green. The Sassafras is a handsome 

 tree at other seasons of the year. In 

 winter it is conspicuous by its deeply 

 furrowed dark cinnamon-gray bark 

 and bright green branchlets which in 

 early spring are covered before the 

 leaves appear with innumerable clus- 

 ters of small bright yellow flowers. 

 The leaves, which are sometimes deep- 

 ly three-lobed and sometimes entire 

 on the same branch, are not attacked 

 by insects. The fruit is a bright blue 

 berry surrounded at the base by the 

 much enlarged and thickened calyx of 

 the flower raised on a long bright-red 

 stalk. Among northern trees only 

 Magnolias produce such bright-colored 

 fruits. There is little time, however, 

 to enjoy the fruit of the Sassafras for 

 birds eagerly seek it as it ripens. 



