10 



The Florists^ Review 



July 19, 1917. 



the florist who was exhibiting it as a 

 part of his window display. 



As business grew Mrs. Gill enlarged 

 her greenhouse establishment until she 

 had four houses, none of which was so 

 large as is now commonly built. Besides 

 the calls for stock for Boston trade, 

 the people of Medford began to depend 

 upon Mrs. Gill for their flower wants. 

 She had a natural instinct for flower ar- 

 rangement and for many years made up 

 funeral designs, wedding bouquets and 

 decorations and baskets for other oc- 

 casions. 



Freesias proved to be one of Mrs. 

 Gill's most profitable crops. Before this 

 stock was generally known to the Bos- 

 ton market, a friend gave Mrs. Gill 

 some of the bulbs. She was successful 

 as a grower of freesias and sold the 

 first blooms in Boston. She also did a 

 considerable business in the bulbs. 



Enjoyed Her Garden. 



Marechal Niel was the first hybrid 

 rose Mrs. Gill grc^y indoors, but other 

 varieties later were added. But it was 

 her outdoor stock, which might be 

 termed her first loves, that Mrs. Gill 

 usually spoke of with the greatest inter- 

 est. In describing her place she said: 



"My garden has given great pleas- 

 ure to me and others also, being, as you 

 might say, an old-fashioned one, planted 

 in no formal style — just a profusion of 

 bloom, a mingling of color. 



"I have many peonies, some of the 

 famous Richardson seedlings, 300 or 

 more hybrid rose bushes, phloxes, del- 

 phiniums, irises, poppies, lilies of the 

 valley and such annuals as asters, sal- 

 vias, mignonette, cosmos, salpiglossis, 

 centaureas and a collection of holly- 

 hocks and dahlias, besides. I would ad- 

 vise anyone who has a garden to culti- 

 vate the yellow Scotch rose. The one 

 in my garden was on the place when I 

 went there fifty-five years ago. ' ' 



Besides cut flowers, Mrs. Gill grew 

 pot plants for the spring trade. Much 

 of her stock was sold in Medford, but 

 considerable found its way into the 

 Boston market. For many years the 

 men emploj'ed by Mrs. Gill would make 



two or three trips a week to Boston 

 with a wagon-load of plants, which 

 were sold in the market near Faneuil 

 hall. Cut flowers Mrs. Gill usually 

 handled personally and during several 

 years she was a well known figure at her 

 stall in the Boston market, besides sup- 

 plying several retail stores. 



Greenhouses Invaded by Deer. 



Growers who have lost glass by either 

 hail or wind will appreciate an odd 

 experience of Mrs. Gill's many years 

 ago. A wild doe ran through two of 

 her greenhouses, doing considerable 

 damage to a bed of violets and breaking 

 so much glass that the $50 paid her by 

 the Great and General Court of Massa- 

 chusetts came far from recompensing 

 her for the damage done. 



Of the florists' business, Mrs. Gill 



said: "The pleasure of raising flowers 

 is not alone for one's self. No moie 

 acceptable gift for the sick, the sorrow- 

 ing or the poor can be sent than a bunc u 

 of posies." 



So long as she was able to attend to it 

 herself, Mrs. Gill twice each week coii- 

 tributed flowers to the Flower Missicu 

 of Boston, which distributed then 

 among the hospitals and unfortunati ^ 

 in that city. Her daughter continue s 

 the work. 



Mrs. Gill was active in the busine . 

 until fourteen months ago, when h< :• 

 health forced her to give up the wor! . 

 Since that time she has been under th > 

 care of a nurse and has passed the care ; 

 of her business to others. She sti ' 

 enjoys flowers in her room and h;. 

 gracefully yielded to the idea that sh 

 is old and must be taken care of. 



g ^#?s.' 



$ 



.<#?j.<#^<<^<<^^^^<^<»^<^^^fe»>'fe^-fef»>-fef»>-'yf»^' 



scsaASAS^S^ 



THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



^^^'j^^'^^^^s^'^'^'^^^^s^^^^^^^'idciK^fm'iic^'id^^-^ ^ 



^S 



QUINN'S BIG WEDDING OBDEB. 



One of the largest wedding decora- 

 tion orders of the season in the neigh- 

 borhood of Boston was filled during the 

 first week of July by Stephen J. Quinn, 

 of Chestnut street, Brookline, for the 

 wedding of Miss Martha E. Rueter and 

 John G. Hepburne, at the First Uni- 

 tarian church. 



The church, which is massive in 

 architecture and was built in revolu- 

 tionary times, was completely trans- 

 formed into a bower of flowers and 

 foliage. The chandeliers were covered 

 with flowers and foliage arranged in 

 ball shapes. The walls, aisles and 

 chancel were decorated with peonies, 

 hydrangeas, rhododendrons, spirseas. 



palms, bay trees and laurel roping. 

 The rear of the church, as is shown by 

 the illustration on page 11, received 

 the same treatment. More than 1,000 

 peonies and 1,000 yards of laurel rop- 

 ing were used. 



The floral decoration at the bride's 

 home in Jamaica Plain was even more 

 elaborate. There the flowers used 

 were roses with asparagus and Lygo- 

 dium scandens. A large tent on the 

 lawn was festooned with laurel, while 

 tastefully arranged on the grass were 

 bay trees, laurels and aucubas, making 

 a veritable forest. 



Mr. Quinn 's artistic work received 

 much commendation from both his cus- 

 tomers and their guests. 



LICENSES FOE FLORISTS. 



I would like to ask through the col- 

 umns of The Review whether any of 

 the florists of the state of Missouri are 

 paying a license fee for the privilege 

 of doing business in their respective 

 cities; also, what such license is. I 

 always was under the impression that 

 florists who grow their own stock in thi? 

 state could not be made to pay a city 

 license. I would like to know more 

 about this license business before I pay 

 the city license demanded from thf 

 florists here. What do the florists who 

 buy and sell flowers, who operate cut 

 flower stores in the cities in this state, 

 have to pay in the wav of a citv li- 

 cense? C. H. G.— Mo. 



Mrs. Ellen M. Gill, of Medford, Mass., First and Oldest Woman Florist. 



A city's authority to impose license 

 restriction is given by its charter, 

 but in a general way it may be said 

 a city may institute any reasonable 

 restrictions and fees upon the favorable 

 vote of a designated percentage of the 

 city council. There are certain lines of 

 business which long have been recog- 

 nized as subject to special regulation l»y 

 license, but the florists' business is not 

 among them and it is not customary, in 

 Missouri or in any other state, to re- 

 quire florists to procure a special license 



