Febrcabt 24, 1921 



The Florists^ Review 



27 



WASHINGTON, D. C, 



The Market. 



American Beauties here are still 

 scarce and high, the best bringing from 

 $15 to $20 a dozen. Other roses are 

 still scarce, the supply being taken up 

 during the first few hours of the day. 

 Fine Easter lilies can be had at $12 per 

 hundred. 



The market is at present flooded with 

 shipments of heather from California. 

 The quality is excellent and the price 

 reasonable, but owing to the quantity 

 of the other stock, the heather finds 

 but few buyers. 



Various Notes. 



W. R. Gray, of Oakton, Va., has a fine 

 lot of narcissi and several houses of 

 excellent 2-year-old rone bushes for 

 catalogue trade. He is also forcing 

 75,000 valley for Easter. 



A. J. Van der Vies & Co. have some 

 fine lilac. For the l.nst ten years A. J. 

 Van der Vies & Co. have been sending 

 this wonderful lilac to the Washington 

 market. •■. 



Dauphin Bros, have a wonderful new 

 seedling carnation, a little darker than 

 Ward. It has the same habits as 

 Dorothy Gordon or Winsor, but is more 

 prolific. 



George A. Comley has a number of 

 fine evergreens. 



George A. Leissler recently added fifty 

 acres to his place. In one of his houses 

 he has half a dozen Marechal Neil roses 

 sixty to seventy feet long, which will 

 soon be in bloom. G. A. E. 



BOSTON, MASS. 



The Market. 



The warm weather last week greatly 

 increased the supplies of cut flowers, and 

 declines in values were general, with 

 considerable surplus to be carried over 

 each day. The most severe snow storm 

 of the winter hit Boston February 20 

 and greatly hurt business, as well as 

 seriously delaying long-distance ship- 

 ments. The colder weather following 

 the storm will, however, decrease pro- 

 duction and no additional slump in val- 

 ues is probable. 



Roses have held their own better than 

 any other flowers in a weakening mar- 

 ket. Whites are difficult to clean up an<l 

 prices on these have dropped. There is 

 little call for American Beauty, al- 

 though a good number sold, February 22, 

 for Governor Cox's reception at the 

 State House. Carnations were arriving 

 in rather unwieldy numbers and weak- 

 ened somewhat. Pansies and violets 

 were both low in price. Sweet peas 

 were abundant. Golden Spur was the 

 principal daffodil. Freesias were much 

 too abundant and hard to sell. Snap- 

 dragons were not yet abundant and 

 sold moderately well. Valley sold 

 slowly and cattleyas were decidedly 

 '^'■"ggy> with prices down. Good cut 

 acacia and amaryllis were noted. There 

 was a fair call for asparagus. Among 

 pot plants were some Tausendschoen 

 roses, French hydrangeas, azaleas, cin- 

 erarias, cyclamens, genistas, acaciafs and 

 bulbous plants in variety. 



New England Growers. 



There was a splendid attendance at 

 the meeting of the New England Flower 

 Growers' Association, held at the Bos- 

 ton City X!lub, February 19. After an 



excellent dinner had been enjoyed. 

 President S. J. Goddard briefly ex- 

 pressed his appreciation of the excellent 

 attendance and outlined work being 

 planned. Secretary George C. Moyse 

 gave an exhaustive and interesting re- 

 port on the convention of the National 

 Flower Growers' Association, recently 

 held at Washington. William Sim also 

 spoke on work done at the convention. 



Professor Frank De Chant, of the 

 Sheldon Business College, gave a most 

 entertaining lecture, illustrated by 

 blackboard drawings, on business meth- 

 ods. 



A representative of the Boston Her- 

 ald, who was present, spoke on the plans 

 of that paper to feature flowers for 

 Easter in its issue of March 20, one 

 page of the photogravure section to be 

 devoted to special flower pictures. Many 

 of the members took advertising space 

 for this special edition. 



Short addresses were made by W. H. 

 Judd, W. N. Craig and E. I. Farrington, 

 who were present as guests. Secretary 

 Moyse gave prices on a number of ar- 

 ticles being used by florists, such as 

 coal, glass, paint, lumber, hose, sheep 

 manure and bone, which he had secured 

 from prominent dealers and manufac- 

 turers and which showed substantial re- 

 ductions from prices to be had by indi- 

 vidual purchasers. Many members, in- 

 cluding W. H. Elliott, William Sim, 

 W. C. Stickel, J. K. Chandler, Gordon 

 Fisher, E. A. Peirce, James Wheeler and 

 others, spoke on coal prices paid the 

 present season. The average would be 

 .$14 to $15 per ton for soft coal, with one 

 or two growers paying as high as $18 

 to $20 and one large buyer paying as 

 low as $10.50 per ton. Prices show a 

 softening tendency at present and deal- 

 ers are anxious to sell. The question of 

 cooperative buying of various commodi- 

 ties in order to eliminate commission 

 men's profits occupied considerable time 

 and will be taken up again at the March 

 meeting. 



Vases of Gay Gordon carnations from 

 William Sim and Eastern Beauty from 

 Littleficld & Wyman adorned the tables. 



Various Notes. 



The W, W. Edgar Co. has some fine 

 Tausendschoen roses now in bloom and 

 a magnificent cut coming on for Easter. 

 The firm is already selling French hy- 

 drangeas, well flowered. The giganteum 

 lilies are coming along finely for Easter. 

 Of Lilium speciosum, this companv has 

 10,000 potted. A nice lot of L. candi- 

 (lum promises to be in flower for F.nster. 



William T. Walke, of Salem, Mass., 

 has .'),000 giganteum lilies and a splen- 

 did lot of roses in fine condition for 

 Easter. Mr. Walke is an excellent 

 grower of all kinds of pot plants. 



Robert Cameron, of Castle Hill Farm, 

 Ipswich, Mass., will be the lecturer at 

 tlie meeting of the Gardeners' and Flo- 

 rists' Club, March 15, on "Annuals." 

 There will be special exhibits of forced 

 annuals. 



Penn had a charming window of Aca- 

 cia Baileyana drooping from cork-cov- 

 ered piers, resembling heavily bloomed 

 trees, and masses of Forsythia interme- 

 dia, February 19. In another window 

 vases of various narcissi place(t over 

 green velvet showed up effectively. St. 

 Valentine's day business here was 

 heavy. 



Gordon Fisher, of Woburn, Mass., 

 now grows roses exclusively in his fine, 

 new, modern houses. The varieties are 

 Butterfly, Premier, Columbia, Ophelia 



and Double White Killarney. He hopes 

 to plant Red Columbia later. 



Recent visitors included A. E. Earn- 

 shaw, of Paterson, N. J., and George A. 

 Halladay, Bellows P'alls, Vt. The latter 

 enjoyed the Florists' Club field day at 

 Cliftondale. 



James Wheeler, of Natick, Mass., 

 hopes to plant about 15,000 of his own 

 pink sport of Matchless next season. It 

 is of a pleasing, soft color and prom- 

 ises to be useful commercially. 



Harry Quint, for the last six years lo- 

 cated at the Hotel Brunswick, recently 

 opened in a new location, at the Hotel 

 Victoria. 



The New England Florists' Associa- 

 tion will give a complimentary dinner 

 to Thomas Roland, president of the 

 S. A. F., at the Parker House, March 1. 

 Tickets for this function are selling well. 



John Eisemann, the Beacon Street 

 Florist, has justly earned the sobriquet 

 of "the literary florist." February 22 

 he displayed in his large show window 

 an original George Washington letter, 

 surrounded by cherry trees in which 

 small hatchets were displayed. Old and 

 rare books were also on exhibition here, 

 as well as a valentine sent by President 

 Pierce to his. sweetheart. John Drink- 

 water, author of the play, "Abraham 

 Lincoln," was a recent caller on Mr. 

 Eisemann. W. N. C. 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



There was a splendid run of business 

 for St. Valentine's day, but after that 

 special demand had been satisfied there 

 came the most distressing slump this 

 market has encountered in nearly a 

 year. Coincident with the decrease in 

 the demand there came two warm, 

 bright, spring-like days which rushed in 

 a lot of flowers and overloaded the mar- 

 ket, a condition which has not been 

 cliangcd by the return of normal 

 weather. It has been a buyers' market. 



The slump has been serious. With the 

 larger wholesale houses the decrease in 

 aggregate sales runs into many, many 

 thousands of dollars compared with the 

 same February days of last year. The 

 decrease in sales probably averages as 

 much as one-third in total for last week, 

 due to lower prices, not compensated 

 for by the larger quantity of stock 

 handled. The worst feature of it is that 

 crops are on almost everywhere, when 

 they are not wanted, and are likely to 

 be off at Easter, when they will be 

 needed. 



It might almost be said there no 

 longer is a scarcity of anything, but 

 this might not be strictly true. While 

 there are large supplies of roses, prob- 

 ably half the day's arrivals are Colum- 

 bia and it is not always easy to find 

 just the grade one wants in Russell, 

 Premier, Milady or Butterfly. Ophelia 

 is not easy to sell; it will be planted in 

 still smaller quantity for next season. 

 Beauties have reappeared. The quality 

 of most of the roses is fine. At present 

 prices they afford splendid values and 

 offer the retailer every incentive to push 

 his business. 



The carnation crop has ended its win- 

 ter hibernation. The supply has in- 

 creased to a marked extent, probably 

 doubling in a fortnight. Quality has 

 improved as quantity has increased, but 

 prices for the best now are less than the 

 poorest commanded a month ago. Sweet 



[Continued on page 32.1 



