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TOGGING OUT THE isr 

 nr EASTER PLANTS 



An overdressed plant is like an overdressed woman, all right to catch 

 y»i^gv the eye, hut not the kind one would t^a^i in one's home. But, on the other 



^^^ hand, a dowdy dresser never gets a second glance — not when all the Easter 



parade is togged out for inspection. 



HAT was it the Bard of 

 TX 77" Avon said! Oh, yes: 

 W/ "Costly thy habit as 

 ^^W thy purse can buy; rich, 

 •^ * ^ not gaudy: for the ap- 

 parel oft bespeaks the 

 man." The apparel oft 

 bespeaks a lot of other 

 things besides the man. 

 Suppose the irreverent do 

 call him Little Willie Shake-his-spear 

 and pooh-pooh his philosophy, just the 

 same the quotation is pat— it describes 

 exactly the togging up of the Easter 

 plants. 



Of course the skillful plantsman 

 wants the stock sold au naturel — as 

 nearly as possible the way nature 

 made it — because he knows it takes a 

 better plant to sell that way. He 

 seeks to limit competition. But every 

 retailer knows the Easter stock would 

 make a sorry display if it were not 

 for the trimmings. No matter how 

 fine the plant, it needs the trained 

 hand of the decorator to make it look 

 its best. Ask any flower show manager. 



We Must Trim. 



No one but a depart- 

 ment store, selling lilies 

 for advertising pur- 

 poses, would think of 

 oflPering plants without 

 a pot cover, at Easter 

 •or any other time — a 

 piece of crepe paper or 

 a penny pot cover at 

 the least. But the 

 tendency in some first- 

 class flower stores is 

 rather to overdressing. 

 Perhaps it would be 

 more accurate to say 

 the tendency has been 

 toward overdressing, for 

 at present there is, hap- 

 pily, a more rational 

 trend — the furbelows 

 are no longer permitted 

 to conceal and extin- 

 guish the natural beau- 

 ties of a well-grown and 

 well-flowered plant. 

 Time was that an Eas- 

 ter azalea was so 

 swathed in crepe paper, 

 Porto Eican mats and 

 ribbon that about the 

 only glimpse of the 

 plant itself was to be 

 had directly from 

 above. 



The overdecorating 

 waned as the vogue of 

 the basket waxed. You 



cannot so readily overdress a plant 

 with a basket as you can with mats. 



The Present Vogue. 



In this issue there are a number of 

 illustrations showing the most modern 

 method of presenting the Easter 

 plants to a discriminating public. 

 These are worth study, especially for 

 the reason that they represent con- 

 servatism. The store in which the 

 plants were photographed has been, 

 first, last and all the time, a flower 

 store, never a mere merchandise mar- 

 ket. In that store the basket is se- 

 lected as an embellishment for the 

 plant, not the plant as an embellish- 

 ment for the basket. The accessories 

 are chosen with the idea of bringing 

 out the merits of the plant, except in 

 the case of concealing and correcting 

 the defect of an occasional ill-shaped 

 specimen. The decorating is on a par 

 with the art of the modiste whose 

 costumes set off the charms of the 

 wearer rather than cause the wearer to 

 be merely a figure for the display of 



Rhododendron Mme. Wagner in Easter Attire. 



the habit. "Rich, not gaudy." Abso- 

 lutely every plant that goes out is 

 trimmed, and the accessories are of 

 the best quality. 



A man need not be old in the busi- 

 ness to look back to the day when pot 

 plants were sold exactly as they came 

 from the greenhouse benches. Some of 

 the better stores scrubbed the pots, 

 but that was all. Then crepe paper 

 came into use, and it still covers more 

 pots than all other materials combined, 

 as it is so inexpensive that the cost 

 doesn't count, even with the cheapest 

 plants. For a while Porto Eican and 

 then chiffon mats had a big run, and 

 some of the stores seeking novelty 

 made a large use of earthenware for 

 a year or two, but the way the basket 

 has swept into favor is one of the re- 

 markable developments of recent years. 

 Hundreds of thousands of baskets now 

 find their way annually, "dust to 

 dust," through the channel of the 

 flower trade. Indeed, the demand has 

 become so large that it seems likely to 

 establish a new industry on American 

 soil, that of commercial 

 basket weaving. 



Baskets and Ribbons. 



Most • of the, bas- 

 kets used by florists 

 have been the low- 

 priced and none too per- 

 fect product of the 

 fireside industries of 

 Europe. The war has 

 rendered imports un- 

 certain. A direct re- 

 sult seems to be the 

 establishing of a bas- 

 ket-making industry in 

 America. As a matter 

 of fact, several of the 

 large supply houses 

 already are nearly inde- 

 pendent of foreign sup- 

 ply. It is impossible 

 to compete in price with 

 the German hearthstone 

 workers, but a decided 

 advantage is obtained 

 in the quick develop- 

 ment of novelties — 

 with the basket work- 

 ers under his own roof 

 the supply man can pick 

 up an idea, work it up 

 into a sample the same 

 day, and have it on the 

 market in less time 

 than it would take to 

 send a letter to Europe. 



Ribbons are not so 

 largely used at Easter 



