THE PROGRESS OF COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE. 197 



and what will be the result? I think the cause is principally that 

 the commercial florists find that the horticultural and agricultural 

 societies and similar organizations, from their very composition 

 and nature, cannot adequately represent or serve the best interests 

 of so large and progressive an element. The gentleman of leisure 

 with his few dozen of pet raspberry bushes will carefully pick off 

 a couple of quarts of fruit and hie him to the cit}' ; occupying his 

 whole Saturday forenoon with arranging them in a dish on a table 

 and watching with jealous eyes the dish of his neighbor alongside. 

 Another will buy a couple of baskets of verbenas in the spring, 

 take them home, and plant them in his little front garden, and 

 when they come into flower he too will start for the city with his 

 verbena flowers, which he will stick into a row of bottles, and 

 then hang around to see whether the committee will not recognize 

 his self-denial by placing upon his exhibit a considerate one dollar 

 gratuity. But commercial florists have no time or inclination for 

 such trifling. It is too far behind the times. Regarding essays 

 and discussions, there are so many questions that are all-important 

 to the commercial florist of the year 1887 that he cannot afford to 

 divide the time with the market gardener, the farmer, and the 

 fruit growe '. 



When this Horticultural Society was organized floriculture was 

 but a babe in this country. There was nothing to be made from 

 it pecuniarily. Its members had but little in the way of precedent 

 or example to encourage them and it mattered not whether they 

 were carpenters, farmers, or dry goods dealers ; they were wel- 

 come so long as they thought enough of horticulture to use 

 their money and their efforts for the good cause . All honor to 

 them. They builded better than they knew ; and what more can 

 be wished for the new organizations than that at the close of an 

 equal period of time they may be able to point to a record of use- 

 fulness equal to that which is the pride of the Massachusetts Hor- 

 ticultural Society. If it had not been for this and kindred 

 societies commercial floriculture would not have been what it is 

 today. But, as the child when grown to robust stature leaves his 

 father's home and strikes out to make his mark in the world — as 

 the thriving offshoot from the potted plant, finding its quarters 

 cramped, mUst be taken away and put in a place where its ambi- 

 tious vigor can find room to work, so the commercial florists, as 

 they feel their strength and as they begin to know their needs. 



