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SKPTISMBeR 29, 1004. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review 



905 



PHILADELPHIA. 



The Market. 



The untimely frosts had a serious 

 effect on plants and flowers outdoors. 

 This has been especially felt in gladioli, 

 now in brisk demand, and to a lesser 

 extent in dahlias. On Saturday Arthur 

 Cowee wired the Leo Niesseu Co. that 

 his gladioli were over, and this Eeenis 

 true of all the other growers. Dahlias, 

 now in their prime, suffered, but fortu 

 nately not so much. L. K. Peacock re- 

 ports the temperature fell to 29° at At- 

 co, but luckily some of his dahlias were 

 sheltered by peach trees and others will 

 recover. He was able to send S. S. 

 Pennock 8,000 blooms on Monday. Cos- 

 mos was scarce for several days. Asters 

 are about over. Single violets are com- 

 ing to town in increasing quantities. 

 There are very few chrysanthemums as 

 yet. Carnations are improving steadily. 

 There is no change in the rose situa- 

 tion; a fair demand for the best stuff 

 and too many poor blooms. Greens do 

 not sell well. Valley is more plentiful. 



Two department stores' decorations, 

 that of Gimbel Bros., by the Wm. Gra- 

 ham Co., and that of Strawbridgc & 

 Clothier, by J. J. Habermehl's Sons, 

 have occurred since those last reporteil, 

 but the general tone of the market i^ 

 rather flat, despite the check on the out- 

 door supply. 



West Grove. 



It was a glorious September morning, 

 cool and beautifully clear after the 

 fierce storm of a few hours before, when 

 the early train over the Baltimore Cen- 

 tral rolled out of Broad street station. 

 There was a pair of floricultural chaps 

 on board, D. T. Conner, determined to 

 convince the Chester county growers 

 that Lord & Burnham material is the 

 best for building, and incidentally to 

 visit the scenes of his boyhood, and 

 Phil, determined to prove to Chester 

 county that the Review is far and away 

 the most progressive paper of the day; 

 both bent on enjoying a day's outing. 



By the time Chadd's Ford was reached 

 it was decided that there were too many 

 places to visit half of them in a day 

 and that it would be better to see a 

 few and do them thoroughly rather 

 than hurry over a large number, leav- 

 ing the others until some future day. 



Mr. Conner further decided that, while 

 the railroad had contracted to carry 

 the pair to West Grove, the train should 

 be left at Avondale in order to secure 

 a central base of operations from which 

 both West Grove and Kennett would 

 be easily accessible. So at Avondale 

 the pair disembarked, instantly con- 

 tracting with an enterprising local liv- 

 ery man for a horse warranted to out- 

 strip anything on the road, with buggy 

 with lap cover, hitching strap and 

 blanket, everything complete for an in- 

 definite period, on consideration where- 

 of the pair, were to pay the sum of $1. 

 This merely nominal rental so delighted 

 Mr. Conner that he put Patrick (the 

 descendant of Maud S. responded to 

 this name) through his paces in such 

 good style that by nine o'clock he was 

 safely tied at the Conard & Jones Co.'s 

 place at West Grove, where the paii 

 were most kindly received by Antoine 

 Wintzer. 



The place is said to consist of aboui 

 50,000 square feet of glass, with about 

 thirty-five acres of ground outside un- 

 der cultivation. Mr. Wintzer showed 

 his visitors over the entire place, giving 

 freely of his vast store of knowledge in 

 a way that recalled the fascinating talk 

 of Robert Craig, making the three and 

 a half hours spent with him seem like 

 but thirty minutes. 



First came the inspection of the 

 shedvS. Folding paper boxes have suc- 

 ceeded the cumbersome cigar boxes for 

 orders of small lots of young rose plants 

 to all parts of this country as well as 

 to Cuba and Porto Rico, while the 

 tubular boxes are used when sending to 

 Europe or South America. After a 

 look at the boilers (one had been going 

 a few days) came the houses devoted to 

 tropical, bedding and miscellaneous 

 plants used in a catalogue trade. It 

 was a general collection, including many 

 well-known and some scarce plants, 

 chiefly soft-wooded. A certain Mexican 

 palm said to be a winner as an addition 

 to inexpensive collections — the Amer- 

 ican people do love getting something 

 for nothing — was very prominent. 



Next came the rose houses. Here Mr. 

 Wintzer was in his element, going from 

 variety to variety, giving the name and 

 characteristics of each with a facility 

 simply marvelous, proof of years of 

 careful study combined with a true love 

 of our calling. 



"Here is the old Perle, you will mind, 

 Dennis," he said, turning to Mr. Con- 

 ner, who was his pupil for ten years. 

 "We had it in '75, the year after it 

 came out. This is Mme. Gerard. John 

 Burton got some of that to replace Ma. 

 Capucine, which wasn't a grower. See 

 what rich foliage and fine growth Mme. 

 Gerard has. This is Magnafrauo. We 

 could have sold 50,000 of that rose, but 

 we sent it out too soon and never could 

 get stock enough. This is Mme. Abel 

 Chatenay; the American Rose Co. made 

 a hit with that. And this is one of 

 I^mbert's new varieties. I wish you 

 could see a flower of it. It is a beauty, 

 but there was a Quaker lady married 

 down here today and all the good flow- 

 ers were taken off," and so on over hun- 

 dreds of varieties, with occasional an- 

 athemas on the rapacity of the aforesaid 

 Quaker lady. That bride must have had 

 a bouquet such as H. H. Battles de- 

 lights to hold up and say that "this 

 bunch cannot be duplicated in America," 

 though it may be Mr. Battles would not 

 have approved the great variety of color 

 and shades of color that bouquet must 

 have contained. A cutting bench with 

 sand from a near-by quarry was full 

 of rose cuttings just callousing, bottom 

 heat but seldom used as yet. 



Outside, despite the fierce storm of 

 the night before, was one of the finest 

 sights one could wish to see. Five acres 

 or more planted with cannas. Such 

 cannas! Nowhere else can a finer col- 

 lection of blue blooded, aristocratic can- 

 nas be found. Here is a beautiful bed 

 of Brandywine, considered the best of 

 its kind, its rich bronze foliage giving 

 contrast to the lar^^e red flowers; there 

 a half dozen long rows of seedlings from 

 seed of Buttercup, grand, green-leaved, 

 yellow-flowered cannas whose character- 

 istic of faithful reproduction is so rare 

 among the cannas. 



Then there were the experiments un- 

 der way in hybridizing. Long rows of 

 varieties carefully labeled with date and 

 name of variety used in cross. Here 

 Mr. Wintzer is in a world of his own 

 into which the ordinary mortal can go 

 but a little way. Progress is being 

 made slowly but surely. Hundreds of 

 seedlings of the best sorts are thrown 

 away every year as no improvement 

 over their parents, while an important 

 advance in the method of hybridizing 



