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The Florists^ Review 



Apbil 8, 1920 



Roses made no special advance. 

 Short-stemmed stock sold at $4 to $8 

 per hundred, with other grades running 

 up to $25 and $30 per hundred; a few 

 Hadleys brought $50 to $75 per hun- 

 dred, being of especially fine quality. 

 Carnations averaged about $8 per hun- 

 dred, with some fancies higher and 

 whites a little lower. Both roses and 

 carnations cleaned up completely. Vio- 

 lets were scarce; good singles readily 

 brought $2.50 to $3 per hundred. Some 

 Hudson river doubles were seen and 

 sold at lower prices. 



Sweet peas met with a tremendous 

 sale; good flowers made $4 to $5 per 

 hundred, with other grades soiling down 

 to $2 per hundred. Snapdragons were 

 rather overdone and their sales 

 dragged; superb stalks made $3 per 

 dozen, with other grades one-half or 

 one-third of this price. Marguerites 

 were in large supply and fancy, long- 

 stemmed flowers sold as high as $8 to 

 $10 per hundred, with small, short- 

 stemmed culls as low as $2; yellows were 

 in large demand and some excellent 

 Mrs. Sander sold at $4 to $5 per hun- 

 dred. 



Both tulips and daffodils sold out 

 clean. Victoria narcissi made $8 to 

 $10 and Golden Spur and other varie- 

 ties a little less. Cut hyacinths moved 

 more slowly. Callas sold at $2 to $4 

 per dozen and cut Easter lilies at $10 

 to $15 per hundred. Some nice Spanish 

 irises realized $6 per dozen and fine 

 long-stemmed ranunculuses $2 per 

 dozen. Freesias continued to appear at 

 $4 to $5 per hundred. Mignonette 

 brought all the way from $6 to $15 per 

 hundred. Calendulas and bachelor's 

 buttons made little advance. A fair 

 number of gardenias and only a small 

 number of cattleyas were offered. 



In pot plants, lilies were in much 

 more abundant supply than had been 

 expected, since the warm, spring-like 

 weather of the last ten days in March 

 had hurried along many laggards. The 

 best stock reached $25, with poorer 

 grades selling at $15 to $20. There were 

 enough for all requirements and some 

 surplus. Roses were abundant and of 

 excellent quality; they came next to 

 lilies in favor. Dorothy Perkins, 

 Tausendschoen and Excelsa were the 

 leaders among ramblers. Some excel- 

 lent hybrid perpetuals and baby ram- 

 blers were also offered. French hy- 

 drangeas were of excellent quality and 

 met with a big sale. 



Dutch bulbous stock in ])ots and i)ans, 

 as usual, had a large sale. Genistas 

 went moderately well and ericas and 

 acacias sold well; the last two were un- 

 usually well flowered. A fair number of 

 bougainvilleas were seen, but few 

 azaleas or rhododendrons. There were 

 some excellent lilacs, but not many other 

 deciduous shrubs. Marguerites were 

 generally of not particularly high qual- 

 ity. Some cinerarias, primulas, poly- 

 anthus, metrosideros, pelargoniums, 

 ageratums, schizanthus and geraniums 

 were among the other varieties offered. 

 Growers sold out about every salable 

 plant, but some of the retailers had 

 considerable stock left on hand. The 

 call for ferns and foliage plants was 

 comparatively small, everyone appar- 

 ently wanting flowering plants. 



Business Since Easter. 



The usual decline in prices has fol- 

 lowed Easter. There are many cut 

 lilies offered and little call for them. 



Roses sell from $2 per hundred upwards, 

 select stock reaching $16 to $20, with 

 supplies greater than the demand. Car- 

 nations are holding up fairly well and 

 vary in value from $4 to $6 per hundred. 

 Violets are about over, but there is an 

 abundance of good sweet peas at 50 

 cents to $2. Snapdragons move with 

 difficulty. Supplies of daffodils and 

 tulips are not large. Miscellaneous 

 flowers move rather slowly. 



Various Notes. 



Gordon Fisher, of Woburn, who has 

 hitherto grown carnations and sweet 

 peas principally, will plant all of his 

 four large houses with roses this coming 

 season. The varieties will be Premier, 

 Columbia, Double White Killarney and 

 Ophelia. About 27,000 plants will be 

 used. 



The William H. Elliott Co. had some 

 especially handsome Hadleys for Easter, 

 jinioiig the finest seen locally. His 

 Ophelia, Double White Killarney and 

 Columbia were also fine. 



VnVERY now and then a weU-^ 

 bS pleased reader speaks the word 

 which is the means of bringing a 

 new advertiser to 



Such friendly assistance is thorooghly 

 appreciated. 



Give us the name of anyone from 

 whom you are buying, not an adver- 

 tiser. We especially wish to interest 

 those selling articles of florist's use 

 not at present advertised. 



FLORISTS* PUBLISHING 00. 

 ^30-60 Caxton Bldg. Chicago 



John J. O'Brien, of Beacon street, 

 did a heavy business in high-grade pot 

 plants and cut flowers. In his store 

 were to be seen especially fine ericas, 

 acacias, bougainvilleas and standard 

 Tausendschoen roses. White cym- 

 bidiums and other orchids, gardenias 

 and irises were noteworthy among the 

 cut flowers. 



Wax Bros., in their new store on 

 Temple Place, did a business equal to 

 the best done on Tremont street. They 

 had a fine display of plants and cut 

 flowers. Their store is deep and a rear 

 door opening on an alleyway to Winter 

 street is a great advantage. Business 

 begins later at their new stand and 

 there is less evening trade, but cus- 

 tomers come with a rush from 11 a. m. 

 to 6 p. m. 



March, while it brought the largest 

 accumulation of snow on record, proved 

 to be a comparatively mild month, with 

 an average of 39 degrees, or 4 degrees 

 above the normal. The precipitation 

 was three and seventy-two hundredths 

 inches. There were fourteen clear days, 

 fight partly cloudy and nine cloudy. 

 The maximum temperature was 72 de- 

 grees and the minimum 5 degrees. 



At Galvin's two stores an immense 

 business was done. They had especially 

 handsome specimen rambler roses, 



acacias, ericas, lilacs and genistas, also 

 some nice boronias. 



Thomas Roland cleaned out the whole 

 of his big stock of roses, hydrangeas 

 and other flowering plants. He had 

 some handsome acacias. Erica melan- 

 thera and E. cupressina. At Revere he 

 I'.ad a particularly heavy cut of roses. 



The W. W. Edgar Co. had the only 

 Lilium candidum noted. This company 

 cleaned out all of its 10,000 pots of 

 giganteum lilies, while hydrangeas, 

 genistas and bulbous stock sold well. 

 It had also some well flowered metrosi- 

 deros. 



The closing lecture in the winter 

 course of the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society was given at Horticul- 

 tural hall April 3 by Professor Oster- 

 hout, of Harvard University. The 

 weather proved favorable for once and 

 the attendance was good. 



Among novelties noted in the cut 

 flower line, the irises from J. K. Ohand* 

 ler & Sons, of Tewksbury, and the hand- 

 some Persian ranunculuses from H. F. 

 Calder, of Norwood, were particularly 

 distinctive. 



The next meeting of the Gardeners' 

 and Florists' Club comes April 20. W. 

 N. Craig will speak on the subject, 

 "Some Seasonable Thoughts and Sug- 

 gestions." There will be exhibits of 

 early spring flowers and considerable 

 business of importance will be trans- 

 acted. 



The R. & J. Farquhar Co. did a large 

 business in Easter plants at both the 

 store and the nursery. In addition to 

 the more ordinary line of plants offered 

 by other growers, this company had 

 some fine Lilium regale, Azalea Kaemp- 

 feri and other novelties. Business is 

 now brisk at both store and nursery. 



James Wheeler has had remarkable 

 success with Godfrey callas grown in 

 solid beds. The flowers are abundantly 

 produced and are of enormous size. He 

 had a heavy cut for Easter. A large 

 vase of these callas of extraordinary 

 size was awarded a cultural certificate 

 at the recent spring show of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society. 



With the passing of winter, it is found 

 that winter-killing is much less serious 

 than was expected. The heavy blanket 

 of snow made a fine protection, though 

 it broke many branches on shrubs. 

 Field mice have done a serious amount 

 of damage by girdling fruit and other 

 trees, rose bushes and climbers. Bridge 

 grafting is being used to save many 

 trees. 



Henry Penn had a handsome display 

 of cymbidiums and other orchids for 

 Easter. He did the largest Easter busi- 

 ness on record. Lilies, roses and hy- 

 drangeas were plant leaders and roses, 

 sweet peas, daffodils, violets and carna- 

 tions were chief among flowers. Great 

 numbers of F. T. D. orders were re- 

 ceived and sent out. 



The retailers advertised freely for 

 Easter business. Henry Penn had the 

 largest and in some ways the most 

 striking advertisements, but Galvin's, 

 Wax Bros., the Houghton-Gorney Co., 

 Hoffmann's and others used printers' 

 ink freely and artistically. 



Another corn borer hearing was held 

 at the state house April 5. A number 

 of florists, nurserymen and bulb grow- 

 ers attended. It is planned to endeavor 

 to stop shipments of such cut fliowers 

 as gladioli, mums, herbaceous perennials, 

 etc., from infested areas and this opens 

 up a serious situation for many com- 



