May 8, 1920 



HORTICULTUKK 



371 



Orchids in Canada 



Mr. Peacock Writes Entertainingly About the Industry's 



Development 



I have just returned from the sale 

 of the lurniture and effects of my old 

 friend Geo. Hansen who leaves next 



week to spend the rest of his days — 

 leisurely and happily I trust — in the 

 Eldorado of most Canadians, the State 

 of California. 



Hansen it was who came to Canada 

 seventeen years ago, after having add- 

 ed to his early experience gained in 

 Denmark, the land of his birth, by 

 seven or eight years hard work in an 

 establishment in the north of England 

 where valley pips and orchids were 

 grown in small quantities. 



Bringing his wife and family of six 

 young daughters with him, he settled 

 down m Brampton, and in less than a 

 week began forcing valley pips at Che 

 Dale Estate greenhouses here at a 

 time when 12y^ cents per hour was 

 considered a high wage. 



Nearly two million pips a year were 

 planted in the sand by the hardy Dane, 

 who stuck pluckily to the job for a 

 couple of years before he complained 

 of its monotony. 



WHiat are you dissatisfied with?" 

 the manager enquired of him one day. 



"I'm not growling", he replied, 

 "but I miss my orchids. They were 

 like friends to me. I'm fretting for 

 them." 



"Do you think you could grow or- 

 chids in this country?" he was asked. 



"I know something about them Han- 

 sen replied, and I think they ought to 

 flourish well in Canada. I like to see 

 them about me". 



Nothing but the promise to procure 

 fifty plants for a trial prevented Han- 

 sen from quitting his job, and in due 

 time the assortment arrived and was 

 potted and hung up by wires swinginij 

 from the rafters above the valley 

 benches. 



Naturally the shrivelled up looking 

 plants did not bloom for many months, 

 and nearly all the rest of the local 

 flower growers on the Estate showed 

 little fondness for what they regarded 

 as a foreigner's foible, until one day 

 an Odontoglossum Grande was born — 

 twins in fact — and the growers passing 

 through the valley section stopped to 

 ask "WTiat the devil's that thing you've 

 got there?" 



The name befogged their interest 

 and frightened them away, but the 

 manager came out to share with Han- 

 sen the delight of studying the 

 firstborn. A month elasped and then 



a few of the Cattleyas appeared E.nd 

 managed to evoke sufficient enthusi- 

 asm to warrant the purcha.se of oOO 

 or more plants of different va-ieties. 



The demand from the retail flor- 

 ists in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal 

 at that time was so slight that, al- 

 though right from the beginning the 

 plants bloomed vigorously, the conser- 

 vative Canadian flower loving public 

 fought shy of the "funny looking 

 things" and at fifteen cents each the 

 flowers were a drug in the market. 



Then gradually one or two really 

 daring (?) florists in those progressive 

 cities made up their minds to order 

 half a dozen blooms occasionally, and 

 began to use them in their window 

 decorations. Meanwhile it remained 

 for the New York wholesalers to dis- 

 cover that orchids were being grown 

 at the Dale Estate, and that the clear 

 atmosphere and bright weather fos- 

 tered the cultivation of the most desir- 

 able exotic known in their trade. 

 Packed very carefully and covered 

 with cotton batting and tissue, the per- 

 fect blooms arrived in the Metropolis 

 the following morning after they were 

 despatched without a speck or blemish 

 upon them. 



Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Chi- 

 cago are only a few of the cities in the 

 U S. A. that now receive daily ship- 

 ments of orchids from the Brampton 

 greenhouses, where they are packed 

 and shipped every morning with the 

 most scrupulous care. Whether the 

 temperature stands at 30 degrees be- 

 low zero or 95 in the shade, the atten- 

 tion given both by the growers and 

 the packers is a warranty that stands 



for the perfect delivery of the delicate 

 blooms in ninely nine cases out of 

 every hundred. 



From fifty plants the number in five 

 years grew to five thousand, and today 

 the collection amounts to over forty- 

 four thousand plants, is regarded by 

 connoisseur^ as the most attractive in 

 North America, comprising as it does 

 several hundred varieties of fifty-one 

 different species. 



Many of the plants were well estab- 

 lished when Hansen left the green- 

 houses nearly twelve years ago to take 

 up out door work, since which time 

 nearly all the credit due for having 

 developed such a healthy lot of 

 stock has fallen to the lot of Wm. 

 Jones, an English specialist from 

 Southampton, who with an able staff 

 of old countrymen working under him 

 became positively obsessed by his job. 



For some years Jones was greatly 

 discouraged because the Canadian pub- 

 lic failed to appreciate the aristocrat 

 among flowers as he himself did, and 

 indeed there does seem something 

 paradoxical in the fact that not until 

 after the armistice was signed did 

 Canadians begin to take kindly to the 

 choice blooms and the elegant sprays 

 that now cost them four times as 

 much as in the good old days before 

 the war. 



W. G. Peacock. 

 Brampton, Ont. 



The railroad situation which has 

 caused much trouble to growers in the 

 East has been felt almost equally as 

 bad in the West. In California the 

 strike interfered greatly with the ship- 

 pin.? of flowers, especially violets in- 

 tended for the East. It is said that 

 many orders could not be filled, not for 

 lack of flowers but because of trans- 

 portation difficulties. 



THE ST. MARTIN AGAIN 



A CHALLENGE 



Will anyone make the foliowmg claims for any Strawberry and prove 

 the claims: 



A strawberry that has been awarded a Silver Medal and 9 Cash prizes 

 for 6 consecutive years. St. Martin has done this. 



A strawberry of equal size and quality that will carry more than 400 

 miles in good condition. St. Martin has done this. 



A strawberry of equal size, color, and quality, that produces as large 

 berries at the last picking as at the first. St. Martin does this year after 

 year. 



As to quality of plants, and care in packing, I receive daily commenda- 

 tions. 



For free Circular and Reduced Prices write to 



LOUIS GRATON, Whitman, Mass 



