76 



.■'■■si . ■>;^7^ ■ 



The Florists' iRicviiW 



Jdnb 24. 1915. 



Charles Momm & Sons, Iryingtoi)^ 

 N. J., are enlarging the land under cul- 

 tivation hj ten acres this summer. This 

 ten acres is planted with ornamental 

 stock. 



Eeport of the filing of a petition in 

 bankruptcy against vie Southern Nut 

 Nursery Co., Kansas City, Mo., will be 

 found under the head of Business Em- 

 barrassments in this week's issue. 



An exceptionally heavy spring trade in 

 general nursery stock, which cleaned out 

 some varieties, is reported at Duluth, 

 Minn., by Oliver Brown, nurseryman and 

 landscape architect, at 517 East Eighth 

 avenue. The combination of heavy rains 

 and sharp freezes last autumn and this 

 spring killed large numbers of perennials 

 outright and many shrubs and trees down 

 to the ground. Frosts have continued 

 to this late date. 



Elmer Runyon, manager of the Eliza- 

 beth Nurseries, Elizabeth, N. J,, started 

 early last week for the Detroit conven- 

 tion, going by automobile by way of 

 Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. 

 He will return by another route. He is 

 accompanied by his wife. Notwith- 

 standing the general business depression, 

 the spring business of the Elizabeth 

 Nurseries was up to normal. There have 

 not been such large orders from the 

 wealthy, but more from the comfortably 

 well off, who own their own places and 

 are fixing them up. Plans are being 

 made for the rebuilding of the storage 

 and packing house which was burned on 

 March 22. 



A. A. N. IN ANNUAL SESSION. 



PETERSON SELLS AND BUYS. 



William A. Peterson, proprietor of 

 Peterson Nursery, Chicago, appeared 

 in two real estate transactions recorded 

 this week, in one of which he was a 

 seller and the other a purchaser, in 

 which the combined consideration was 

 $227,000. 



One of the transactions was the sale 

 to W. F. Kaiser & Co., subdividers, of 

 a tract of about eighty-two acres 

 bounded by Bryn Mawr avenue on the 

 south, Central Park avenue on the west, 

 Ardmore avenue on the north, and the 

 sanitary district canal on the east, for 

 an indicated consideration of $107,000, 

 as evidenced by the revenue stamps on 

 the document. This has been subdi- 

 vided by Kaiser & Co. into 578 lots of 

 thirty feet frontage. The contract for 

 this deal was reported in this column 

 some months ago. 



Mr. Peterson purchased from W. L. 

 Turner two tracts of forty acres each, 

 the whole being bounded by Peterson 

 avenue. Central Park avenue, Kimball 

 and Ardmore avenues, for a total indi- 

 cated consideration of $120,000. Mr. 

 Peterson gave back a part purchase 

 money mortgage of $50,000, five years, 

 at six per cent. 



Peterson Nursery of 275 acres ad- 

 joins this on the north and the property 

 just acquired will be used for nursery 

 purposes. Mr. Peterson has three years 

 in which to remove the trees from the 

 tract which he has sold to Kaiser & Co. 



Meets This Week at Detroit. 



This week the American Association 

 of Nurserymen is celebrating the com- 

 pletion of its second score of years, in 

 annual convention at Detroit, June 23 

 to 25. At the Cadillac hotel are gath- 

 ered nurserymen from all sections for 

 what has started out to be the most 

 important convention in those forty 

 years. On the opening day 250 were 

 registered, and many more expected. 

 J. B. Pilkington, of Portland, Ore., was 

 the only member of the executive com- 

 mittee who was absent. 



Everybody is saying to everybody 

 else, "Cheer up." The prevailing sen- 

 timent is that last year was 'so bad 

 that next year is bound to be better. 

 And the prevailing spirit is one of op- 

 timism and energy. For those in at- 

 tendance are the "live wires" and the 



Henry B. Chase. 



(President American Association of Nurserymen 



"stand-bys," those who have spent 

 money to come to the convention in 

 spite of the shrinkage in profits, to stick 

 to the association through hard times 

 as well as good times, and help it to 

 make the coming good times better and 

 any future hard times not so hard. 



When depression removes the press 

 of business, it leaves a man time to 

 think, and particularly to think of 

 other things than the orders on his 

 hands. Some of these thoughts are 

 making their appearance at the Detroit 

 convention, and the result of their ap- 

 pearance promises to be momentous in 

 the trade. 



A More Efficient Organization. 



Everyone's thoughts are on improve- 

 ment in geiieral at present, and the 

 thoughts of the nurserymen at Detroit 

 are on improvement in the association 



in particular. This was apparent from 

 the start. After the opening cere- 

 monies were finished — the address of 

 welcome by Mayor Oscar B. Marx and 

 the response — President Chase began 

 his address with an exhortation to 

 nurserymen to cheer up. He said: 



" E. C. Simmons, the hardware king 

 of St. Louis, recently mailed a letter 

 to all his salesmen reading: 



" 'Don't worry. War or no war, 

 freight rates or no freight rates, tar- 

 iff or no tariff, baseball or no baseball, 

 grape juice or champagne, the farmer 

 is still on the job. Don't forget him.' 



"There is comfort and encourage- 

 ment in this for every one of us; the 

 farmer is still on the job, and he is to- 

 day the best farmer this country has 

 ever known; he is producing bigger 

 crops, selling them for more money, 

 and consequently spending more money 

 than ever before. He will buy our 

 trees, and will have the coin to pay 

 for them. See to it that he gets full 

 100 cents in value for every dollar he 

 spends with us. Don't worry! "Forget 

 your worries in work." 



With regard to improvement in the 

 association. President Chase said: 



"With last season's troubles behind 

 us let us now cheerfully and buoy- 

 antly face the problems of the coming 

 season and of the coming years. What 

 are theyf There is just one problem 

 that I shall dwell on, only one, and 

 that is this: Can this association by 

 any change in its methods or organiza- 

 tion make of itself a more efficient or- 

 ganization, an organization that will 

 really help to control production and 

 to eliminate price-cutting, an organ- 

 ization that can keep closer watch on 

 legislative and transportation matters 

 than is possible under our present sys- 

 tem of working through committees? 

 Can it be done! How shall we go 

 about it? 



What Has Been Done. 



"This association is now forty years 

 old; it was founded by a few repre- 

 sentative nurserymen with the idea of 

 bringing together in an annual conven- 

 tion the reputable nurserymen of the 

 United States, to get acquainted with 

 one another, relax from business, mix 

 and mingle together, to exchange views 

 and ideas, discuss methods of propaga- 

 tion, cultivation and all questions of 

 common interest, and incidentally, or 

 possibly primarily, to exchange, buy 

 and sell nursery stock; the founders 

 of this association had in mind the 

 bringing into its membership all repu- 

 table nurserymen of this country, a na- 

 tional association of American nursery- 

 men. They had in mind the greatest 

 good to the greatest number. The dues 

 were nominal, expenses small, their 

 problems far less complicated than 

 those we face today. Up to 1905 the 

 dues were $2 per year; they were then 

 raised to $3 and in 1906 to $5; so, go- 

 ing back ten years, we find we have 

 had an income of $5 per year for nine 



