$96 



HOBTICULTUBB 



April 18, 1914 



horticulture: 



TOL XIX 



APRIL 18, 1914 



NO. 16 



FCBLISHKD WKEKIjY BT 



hor.ticulti;r.e publishing co. 



11 Hamilton Place. Boston, Mass. 



Telephone, Oxford tK. 

 WM. 3. STBWAJIT, Editor and Uaa»cer. 



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CONTENTS Page 



COVER ILLUSTRATION— Specimen Primula mala- 

 coides _ _ 



NOTES ON CULTURE OF FLORISTS' STOCK— Care 

 of Allamandas — Ferns — Ramblers for Easter 1915— 

 Planting Gladioli — Sowing Campanulas — Ripening 

 up Preesias — John J. M. Farrell 597 



THE GARDENERS' PROBLEM— ,Jf. C. Ehel 599 



CLUBS AND SOCIETIES— New York Florists' Club— 

 Westchester and Fairfield Horticultural Society — 

 Newport Horticultural Society — National Association 



' of Gardeners 600 



Pittsburgh Florists' and Gardeners' Club — Proposed 



Texas State Organization 601 



Club and Society Notes. 602 



■ OBITUARY— Mrs. Charles E. Keith— William E. Wise- 

 Charles Koelker — Theodore L. Ewoldt 602 



SEED TRADE— New Ideas in Seed Advertising — Notes 606 

 ■OF INTEREST TO RETAIL FLORISTS; 



New Flower Stores — Steamer Departures 608 



Flowers by Telegraph 609 



The Surplus Devil — George C. Watson 610 



In Vermont — Window Display Advertising for Tele- 

 graph Delivery Business — Illustrated 611 



; FLOWER MARKET REPORTS: 



Boston, Buffalo, Chicago 613 



■Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis 615 



Washington, Columbus 620 



MISCELLANEOUS: 



Easter Chapel Decoration — Illustrated 599 



Two Sterling Tulips— Illustrated , 601 



Botanical Gardens for University of Chicago 602 



Massachusetts Agricultural College 602 



Arboretum Field Class 602 



Business Troubles 602 



Sweet Pea Yarrawa 604 



Primula malacoides 604 



•Catalogues Received — Publications Received 606 



Incorporated ' 60S 



News Notes 608-611 



Visitors' Register — Chicago Notes 610 



Nursery Stock Cannot be Mailed to Canada 620 



Plant Food 620 



Greenhouses Building or Contemplated 622 



The New York Flower Show promoters, 

 To the individually and as organizations, are en- 

 credit of titled to sincere congratulations on their 

 New York success in at last demonstrating that New 

 York can pull off a big exhibition and 

 make it a financial as well as artistic and instructive 

 success. The project- to attempt this, without outside 

 help other than exhibits, was undertaken with consider- 



able misgiving and the full realization that failure would 

 sound the death-knell of popular floral exhibitions in the 

 metropolis for years to come and a deplorable loss to 

 the cause of horticulture. The result was better than its 

 sponsors dared to hope, knowing well the many dis- 

 comfitures of the past. Undoubtedly the dominant ele- 

 ment in the success achieved was the wide, personal in- 

 terest displayed, the harmony and accord which pre- 

 vailed between the many contributing factors — amateur, 

 professional, and every commercial element. The po- 

 tency of co-operation and the invincible strength of 

 united determination was given a splendid practical 

 demonstration in this well-conducted enterjirise. 



Valuable lessons may be learned from 

 A gain a careful perusal and study of the vari- 



for the Easter ous Easter reports from leading trade 

 cut flower centres as presented in this issue. It 

 will be noticed that while the stories 

 of the demand in different localities are widely variant 

 in many respects yet in a broad aspect they have much 

 in common. In the newer communities we have invari- 

 ably found 'the experiences to parallel those which the 

 more advanced places have gone through a number of 

 years previous. The most sigiiificant feature of the 

 Easter business of the past few years in those centres 

 which, in a measure, set the pace in floral fashions for 

 the rest, has been the drift of preference for pot plant 

 material over cut flowers, which in each succeeding year 

 seemed to grow apace, the cut flower becoming less and 

 less of a factor. But now it would appear that the 

 current has at last been arrested and in some important 

 places the cut flower demand has apjjarently given the 

 plant trade advance a serious check. We noticed this 

 tendency last year not only at Easter but at Christmas 

 and it certainly has made emphatic headway in the in- 

 terim. In those sections where the turn in the tide is 

 not yet felt the cut flower people should be able, in our 

 humble opinion, to extract considerable comfort from 

 a study of the returns and what they probably indicate. 



The Easter cut flower industry has 

 Vicissitudes l]af] to go through some tough ex- 



of the Easter lily ]ieriences in recent years. The les- 

 sons thus learned should prove val- 

 uable and must be heeded if the revival now evidently 

 started is to be really permanent and the holiday flower 

 business to enjoy its fair proportion of the popular favor. 

 There is no need to discuss further now the suicidal pol- 

 icies of the past. They are well known. Eeturning to 

 our consideration of the developments of this year's 

 Easter we must say that when we expressed the opinion 

 a few -weeks ago tliat the lily crop in the leading eastern 

 markets would be fully adequate for all requirements, 

 we had no idea of the enormous excess of adequateness 

 in the supply of this great Easter specialty which was in 

 prospect. Naturally there are varying explanations for 

 this unprecedented and very unwelcome redundance of 

 lilies but it may reasonably be assumed that the abun- 

 dance of these flowers continuously all the year round, as 

 has come to be the case, has had more or less effect in 

 depreciating their standing as a distinctively Easter 

 specialty. With the rivalry of new and beautiful roses, 

 hydrangeas and other bright and irresistible claimants 

 for public favor, a full restoration of the longiflorum 

 lily to its former Easter glory and pre-eminence would 

 seem a far-off proposition, although its symbolic char- 

 acter will always bring it a certain prestige. Its value at 

 Easter or any other time is likely to depend more on 

 quality hereafter than was the case in the past when, 

 too often, any lily was a lily. 



