440 



HOETICULTUBE 



September 30, 1916 



horticulture: 



B'l; J .1 I -', " ■ ' ' - 



VOL. XXrV SEPTEMBER 30, 1916 NO. 14 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BT 



BOR.XICVLTVRX: PUBLISHING CO. 

 1^7 Svanmer Street, Bostoiv, Ma«s. 



Telephone, Oxford 292. 

 WM. J. 8TEWABT, Editor and Manager. 



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Per inch, 30 inches to page Jl.OO 



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Bntered as second-class matter December 8, 1904, at the Post Office 

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CONTENTS Page 



COVER ILLUSTRATION— Hydrangea OtaksaAt Its Best. 



NOTES ON CULTURE OF FLORISTS' STOCK— Cy- 

 clamens — Care of Carnations — Lorraine Begonias — 

 Orchids — Peonies — Reminders — John J. M. TarreU.. 439 



ROSE GROWING UNDER GLASS— The Night Tem- 

 perature — Repairs — Watering — Keep the Soil Rough 

 — Asparagus and Smilax — Arthur C. Ruzicka 441 



AMERICAN DAHLIA SOCIETY 442 



CLUBS AND SOCIETIES— Meetings Next Week 443 



American Association of Park Superintendents 444 



New York State Federation — Connecticut Horticul- 

 tural Society 445 



Vegetable Growers' Association of America, Portraits 446 

 Lancaster County Florists' Association — Coming 

 Exhibitions — Chrysanthemum Society of America... 451 

 Horticultural Society of New York — Club and So- 

 ciety Notes 460 



SEED TRADE— One Week's Imports— Notes 446 



OF INTEREST TO RETAIL FLORISTS: 



New Flower Stores 448 



Flowers by Telegraph 449 



NEWS ITEMS FROM EVERYWHERE: 



Chicago, Washington. New York, Boston 450 



FLOWER MARKET REPORTS: 

 Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, 

 Washington 453 



OBITUARY— David Philip— George H. Sullivan— George 

 W. Seavey— A. H. Murdock 455 



DURING RECESS— Lenox Horticultural Society— The 

 Farquhar Outing, Illustration 46] 



MISCELLANEOUS: 



News Notes 448 



Michell's Flower Show 450 



Visitors' Register 455 



Hydrangea Otaksa at its Best 455 



Catalogues Received 455 



Publication Received 460 



New Corporations 460 



Greenhouses Building or Contemplated 461 



That is very cheering news which comes 



Very from Chicago of the appearance in that 



encouraging market of azaleas commercially grown 



in our own country. It is, of course, too 



early to go to the extent of declaring the enterprise to be 



an unquestioned success. We do not yet know how well 



the American grown stock will respond to the usual forc- 



ing methods or how the prices of the plants laid down 

 at the florists'" door will compare with the cost of the 

 European material which has been our sole reliance 

 hitherto. But we confidently expect to see the stock 

 from California give a good account of itself and should 

 it so turn out we shall regard it as one of the best things 

 that has happened in the horticultural world for a long 

 time. The intolerable conditions which the trade has 

 liad to face this fall in connection with the importation 

 of Belgian plants make this new proposition all the 

 more timely and welcome. With all our heart we. hope 

 it may turn out to be an unqualified success. 



Criticism of trade paper flower price 

 Dahlias <iuotations is a common occurrence. They 

 and dahlias arc quoted "too high" or "too low" ac- 

 cording to the critic's view point, but 

 usually "tliere's a reason" and the reporter has excep- 

 tional opportunity to get the facts. In our saunter about 

 the wholesale mai-kets in ISTew York this week we saw 

 dahlias sold foi- fifty cents a hundred and we saw dahlias 

 sold for seventy-five cents a dozen — a slight difference of 

 twelve hundred per cent in market value ! In each in- 

 stance too, the stock brought its full value. Tlie man 

 who sent in the fifty-cents-a-hundred kind especially got 

 all the stuff was worth. Slipshod culture and rough 

 handling will make fifty cent quality out of four or six 

 dollar quality in double quick time. Wlien will growers 

 learn to handle and pack their product, as though each 

 fiower was the only one of its kind? If you find your 

 shipments are relegated to the rubbish class, you will not 

 have to go far in the wholesale market, if you are an 

 observant man, to learn "the why and wherefore" of 

 some things. 



The "sky line", so to speak, of a flower 



The flower show is a much stronger factor than 



show; rts use pxliibltion managers seem to realize, in 



and its abuse fixing its impression as a whole upon 



Die visitor. We were much pleased and 

 duly impressed, on entering the show room where the 

 American Dahlia Society staged its annual exhibition, 

 in New York this week, by the general arrangement and 

 the evident purpose to break away from the monotonous 

 flatness of the tyjjical dahlia show. Tlie central object 

 was a slender vase design some nine feet tall deftly 

 fashioned by the one New York retail florist who chose 

 to represent his department of the floral industry l)y an 

 exhibition of his liandivvork. It was a very creditable 

 piece of designing and as such worthy of commendation 

 but the particular point we here wish to emphasize was 

 its value as giving grace and character to the show as a 

 whole, in conjunction with the several vases of long- 

 stenuned blooms which hel]ied to cany the eye above the 

 common level of tlie ranks of single blooms. Dahlia 

 shows, generally, have been largely monopolized by deal- 

 ers who are there to take orders for named varieties 

 for garden planting in the coining season and have not 

 the slightest personal interest in the exploitation of the 

 dahlia as a florists' cut flower or in the show itself 

 beyond its use lo them as a convenient and profitable 

 means of displaying their samples as a sort of supple- 

 ment to their catalogue lists. While this may be all 

 right in its way, yet we must not lose sight of the fact 

 that a public flower exhibition has other functions than 

 to serve merely as a sample room for the dealers in 

 dahlia roots. 



