-■■JT_'"» 1 ' s :-."-* F^T' •.' 



56 



ztzz 



The Florists' Review 



June 24, 1920 



Carl Gloeckner, of the Henrj' F. 

 Michell Co., Philadelphia, was in Chi- 

 cago June 21 on his way to California. 



Prospects for the French bulb harvest 

 are, it is stated, encouraging. The 

 weather conditions have favored good 

 growth, and if the ripening period is as 

 favorable, there should be no cause for 

 complaint in regard to quality. 



By a deal closed June 21, the Everette 

 R. Peacock Co., Chicago, took over the 

 Oshkosh Seed Co., a $200,000 corpora- 

 tion, of Oshkosh, Wis. At the re- 

 organization meeting the following offi- 

 cers were elected: President, Everette R. 

 Peacock; vice-president, Carl Eowe- 

 kanip; secretary, E. R. Ward; treasurer, 

 F. G. Dovidat; general manager, A. Set- 

 terberg. The company does a general 

 mail order trade and a packet box busi- 

 ness, Itesides manufacturing "Insect 

 Checker. ' ' 



SMAIiL MAKES ASSIGNMENT. 



W. H. Small & Co., Evansville, Ind., 

 one of the largest grass seed dealers in 

 the middle v^'est, made an assignment 

 June 14, to the Mercantile Commercial 

 Bank of Evansville." The assets are 

 estimated at approximately $1,000,000, 

 while the liabilities, including both con- 

 tingent and direct, are about $1,520,000. 

 It is believed, however, that credito'rs 

 will be paid dollar for dollar. Lewis E. 

 Steffee is trustee. 



GRASS SEED DEALERS ELECT. 



At an interesting and well attended 

 meeting held at the Hotel Pfister, Mil- 

 waukee, Wis., June 21 and continued 

 the following morning, the Wholesale 

 Grass Seed Dealers' Association elected 

 the following officers: 



President— Wm. 0. Scarlett, Balti- 

 more, Md. 



Vice-president — J. Chas. McCullough, 

 Cincinnati, O. 



Secretary - treasurer — Clarence A. 

 Jones, Baltimore, reelected. 



The following firms were elected to 

 membership in the association: The 

 Barteldcs Seed Co., Lawrence, Kan.; the 

 Courteen Seed Co., Milwaukee; the 

 Crawfordsville Seed Co., Crawfords- 

 ville, Ind., and J. J. Buffington & Co., 

 Baltimore, Md. 



THE MILWAUKEE CONVENTION. 



The Kind That Faces the Front. 



Last Tuesday evening, about 6:30, 

 a man was sweeping up varied debris 

 in the nearly deserted lobby of the 

 Hotel Pfistor, wlierc the American Seed 

 Trade Association has been holding its 

 thirty-eighth convention. There had 

 been no fight. Nothing of value was 

 broken. But, to one who had seen that 

 same lobby crowded with business men 

 at 10 o'clock that morning, its different 

 aspect — and the man sweeping — sug- 

 gested reminiscently the spirit of this 

 speedy and rather determined conven- 

 tion, a spirit which it has continued 



-" "- 



to show during its two following days 

 of existence. 



While, lightly speaking, there had 

 been no fight, the members of the asso- 

 ciation seemed to be in a mood to get 

 what they wanted, however hard the 

 work required. They were there with 

 no thoughtlessly light-hearted optimism, 

 but realized that the trade must face 

 serious and pressing peace , problems 

 with quite as much energy and coopera- 

 tive effort as it faced the war-time 

 problems. That the association was 

 thoroughly alive to the situation was 

 shown by the morning's buzz of dis- 

 cussion in the lobby — much of it the 

 nervous little group discussions, when 

 men drop things that have to be swept 

 up — as well as by the more official de- 

 liberations in the Red room on the sev- 

 enth floor, a room comfortably filled by 

 the 250 or more in attendance. 



Wit and Wisdom. 



The good spirits which the members 

 showed later more than once must have 

 come in some degree from the address 

 of welcome given by Philip A. Grau, 

 business manager of the Milwaukee As- 

 sociation of Commerce, after President 

 Dungan had called the convention to 

 order about lOr.'iO Tuesday morning. 

 The heartiness of his welcome and the 

 quality, if not the number, of his funny 

 stories were, however, equaled by the 

 remarks of A. B. Clark in response. 



The president's annual address, de- 

 livered by E. C. Dungan, touched sug- 

 gestively upon several matters, includ- 

 ing seed legislation, the compilation of 

 seed laws, the congressional free seed 

 distribution, contracts with foreign 

 shippers, increase of dues and initiation 

 fee and the admission to membership of 

 regional and local seed trade organiza- 

 tions. These questions received fur- 

 ther consideration, some later that 

 morning and others as a result of the 

 report later presented by the commit- 

 tee on the president's address, consist- 

 ing of Fred B. King, S. A. Wilson and 

 •T. M. Lu])ton. 



Growing Steadily. 



C. E. Kendcl, socretary-trcasurer, re- 

 ported that the present moniliership of 

 242, including two hononirv members, 

 represented a gain of eight since a year 

 ago. 



The financial ]>art of Mr. Kendel 's 

 report was sumniarizcd as follows: 



r.alnnro on liniul lust year .«1 .inf!.."?,") 



Kcceipts 0,402.50 



Total $7.598.a5 



Disbursoiiicnts C. 440. 98 



I'.alnnco on lian<l tliis your !?1.1.")1.S7 



Mr. Kendel added that tlie ])ill for the 

 convention badges, amounting to about 

 $70, had come so recently that he had 

 not had time to pay it and include that 

 voucher with the others. The financial 

 part of the secretary-treasurer's report 

 was referred to an auditing committee 

 consisting of H. N. Twines, Francis C. 

 Stokes and H. L. Holmes, Jr. 



The report of 11. G. Hastings for the 

 membership committee, of which he is 



chairman, was necessarily incomplete, 

 since more applications for membership 

 were certain to be added in the next 

 twenty-four hours to the eleven which 

 he then had. President Dungan ap- 

 pointed Robert W. Pommer to succeed 

 Ben P. Cornell, who had resigned from 

 the committee. 



Dues Not Increased. 



The temper and tone of the conven- 

 tion came out most clearly during the 

 opening session in the discussion of 

 three proposed amendments to the by- 

 laws. 



The first proposal was that the annual 

 dues should be increased from $25 to 

 $40 and that the initiation fee, instead 

 of being, as at present, $50 inclusive 

 of the first year's dues, should be $50 

 exclusive of those dues. Though there 

 was some difference of opinion, the ma- 

 jority seemed to agree with Watson S. 

 Woodruff, who said that, particularly 

 because of the smaller distant firms 

 who as members paid in their support, 

 but could seldom attend the conventions, 

 the dues should^not be increased unless 

 a distinct additional benefit would re- 

 sult for all members of the association; 

 he believed that if the need arose suffi- 

 cient funds to meet the demands of any 

 crisis could easily be raised by assess- 

 ment. The proposal, put as a motion, 

 was voted down. But there seemed still 

 to be a feeling that an emergency fund 

 should be raised; discussion led to com- 

 promise and to a vote that the executive 

 committee should have power to levy 

 such an assessment in case of need. 



The second proposed amendment to 

 the by-laws was practically the same as 

 that brought forward by Ex-president 

 E. L. Page in the 1919 convention ; name- 

 ly, that no expenditure should be made 

 from the association's treasury at the 

 annual convention — this last was a 

 modification introduced by Secretary 

 Kendel — unless it had first been re- 

 ferred to the executive committee for 

 consideration and recommendation. In 

 reply to the objection that the conven- 

 tion, as creator, was superior to any 

 committee it created, IL G. Hastings 

 cited a previous instance when the elo- 

 (|Ucnfe of a member had made the con- 

 vention momentarily reckless finan- 

 cially and explained that this proposed 

 amendment was designed simjily to pre- 

 vent a recurrence of such a happening. 

 But the motion for this amendment was 

 also lost. 



Local Societies to Be Admitted. 



The third proposal fared better with 

 the convomtion, which unanimously 

 voted that the membership committee 

 should arrange to admit regional and 

 local seed trade organizations to mem- 

 bership in the A. S. T. A. As suggested 

 both in President Dungan 's address and 

 in the discussion on the motion, this 

 will greatly strengthen the trade as a 

 whole and it is indeed the duty of the 

 national organization to provide for 

 the smaller associations some such pos- 

 sibility of cooperation. 



