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12 



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The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



November 24, 1904. 



it as done by good growers in the east. 

 Dailledouze Bros., FlatbusU, sold it 

 wholesale on the New York market this 

 season as high as $9 per dozen. 



The trade visitors at flower shows 

 should refrain from smoking in the ex- 

 hibition hall, even though the manage- 

 ment be a little lax in enforcing this 

 rule. We of the trade are usually the 

 only offenders in this respect and it is 

 a distinct injury to our shows and our 

 business. 



HORTICULTURES INTERESTS. 



By Wm, Falconer, Pittsburg, Pa. 



[A paper read at St. Louis, November 10, 

 1904, at the inception of the National Ciouncil 

 of Horticulture.] 



I will not touch advanced horticulture 

 but strike directly at the foundation, that 

 is, the beginners, for it is here, I am sat- 

 isfied, that the greatest necessity prevails. 



We should endeavor to convert to hor- 

 ticulture every person in this broad land 

 of liberty who owns a home or lives in 

 one, whose garden may be an acre patch 

 or a simple windowsill in a back alley. 

 Every living person has flowers in his or 

 her heart and would grow them in their 

 homes if they knew what would grow 

 there and how easily these plants can be 

 cultivated. Help these people and you 

 help yourselves and you brighten and 

 glorify this country. Our minds revert 

 to the lovely flower-filled cottage and win- 

 dow gardens of England, France, Ger- 

 many and other old country homes, and 

 the question strikes us — ^why not the 

 same here, and more so than there, for 

 means are more ample and prosperity 

 broader here than there! Your associa- 

 tion can help this. Beach those people 

 and show them how. The results will 

 stimulate the fiorist business by creating 

 a greater demand. 



My long and intimate connection with 

 decorative gardening and acquaintance 

 with amateurs who would, if they could, 

 have beautiful gardens, convinces me that 



or have the occassional help of a hired 

 man. The horticultural press scarcely 

 a- all reaches these people. 



Every person who has a home lot wants 

 to beautify it and would do it if he 

 knew how, but the great majority of them 

 do not know anything about trees, shrubs 

 or garden flowers and don't pretend to, 

 but they are aching for reliable help or 

 advice. Your association can give it to 

 them. And in helping these people you 

 are helping yourselves, you are creating 

 a demand for your supply. 



In an amateur who begins aright and 

 whose garden lot has been designed con- 

 veniently and appropriately, and whose 

 plants are pleasing and thriving, the 

 spirit of gardening is insatiable; he 

 wants more and more, and the contagion 

 of experiment seizes him and he becomes 

 a living impetus to your business. And 

 emulation seizes his neighbors and 

 friends J they behold in his garden the 

 proof of what can be done and what will 

 grow and they too endeavor after similar 

 results. 



But let an amateur start in wrong and 

 botch his place and plant unsuitable ma- 

 terial and in an improper manner, the re- 

 sults are displeasing and unsatisfactory 

 and he gets disheartened or disgusted, his 

 interest flags and he and his place become 

 a horticultural frost at home and abroad. 

 Now. a little plain, practical, trustworthy 

 advice to this man to begin with would 

 have obviated all this and turned the tide 

 trom woe to joy and his home would 

 have been a glowing tribute to horticul- 

 ture instead of a cloud upon it. 



Voluminous advice to a beginner is a 

 mistake; so, too, are long liste of plants 

 for any purpose. Let simplicity and 

 brevity prevail in all your teachings. 

 Don't advise a client unless he has abso- 

 lute confidence in you; then don't give 

 him the option of selection ; you just tell 

 him pointedly what to do and what to 

 plant ; you know, he doesn 't, and you '11 

 lift a mighty weight off of his mind and 



Aquatics at Cedar Court, Morristown, N. J. 



in this line the greatest need of the 

 American people is brief, pointed, relia- 

 ble, practical information respecting their 

 gardens and what to plant in them and 

 how and when to plant it. This does not 

 appeal to public parks or pretentious pri- 

 vate properties where landscape or pro- 

 fessional gardeners are employed, but to 

 the small country and suburban yards 

 and town lots of the vast multitude of 

 our busy citizens who do their own work 



the work that to him would have been 

 bothersome and laborious is plain sailing 

 and pleasure and doesn't cost him a 

 thought. 



Different places, considering latitude, 

 location and environment may require 

 different treatments and different plants 

 for shade, use and ornament, but a few 

 general principles are applicable in all 

 cases: AH trees, shrubs, roses, vines and 

 perennials recommended for a certain 



locality should be beaufil^E'fii" themselves ' 

 and easy to grow. Every outdoor garden, 

 large or small, shoi^d nave interest and 

 beauty from frost in spring until frost 

 in fall, and selections for its furnish- 

 ment, even if only a dozen kinds, should 

 b9 chosen with this end in view. And as 

 all people yearn for cut flowers in their 

 dwellings, the blossoms of their gardens, 

 like peonies and lilies, should be such 

 as are adapted for this purpose. Avoid 

 expensive plants, miffy plants, weedy 

 plants, and such as have inconspicuous 

 flowers, but give them the gooa old-fash- 

 ioned favorites, irises, bleeding heart, 

 pinks, bell-flowers and the like, and be 

 sure to include some vigorous, floriferous 

 roses, of which Crimson Bambler shall 

 be one. 



Don 't decry ' ' bedding ' ' plants, . be- 

 cause to do so may be a modern fad. Re- 

 member the scarlet geranium is the most 

 universally grown and popular garden 

 plant on earth; it prevails in the tin cans 

 of our poorest tenement windows and 

 adorns the painted parterres of our palace 

 gardens. A flower bed is intuitive in the 

 first gardener 's heart, and that 's all 

 right, but tell him where to put it — 

 never in the middle of his lawn. 



Encourage poor people who cannot af- 

 ford to buy plants; show them what can 

 be done with a few cents' worth of seeds, 

 say nasturtiums, zinneas, Drummond 

 phlox and mignonette. 



Because a man planted Carolina pop- 

 lars as shade trees and the borers rid- 

 dled and destroyed them, or horse chest- 

 nuts and thd larvae of the^^tussock moth 

 defoliated them, or a group of lilacs and 

 the- borers infested them and bark scale 

 killed them, don't let him get discour- 

 aged; you can help him. Some affluent 

 men want and get and plant the finest 

 varieties of rhododendrons obtainable 

 and they are charmed with the vivid 

 gcrgeousness and profusion of Ihese 

 shrubs the first year, and they are exult- 

 ant in their success and the envy of their 

 neighbors, but alas, the following year 

 their rhododendrons are dead or (lyi 

 and all of their happy hopes are bla."*"' 

 and they become disgusted with garden- 

 ing. Now, expert advice would have 

 saved them from this mortification ; it 

 would have named absolutely hardy eortr. 

 less brilliant in hue maybe, but yerr 

 after year they would have gone on i-- 

 creasing in size and glory and exerting a 

 proud and exhilarating influence in the 

 gardening sphere of their owner and he'd 

 want more of them and his neighbors 

 would want some, too. 



The vital question now is — how can we 

 best reach these people? My own experi- 

 ence is: Through our schools, village 

 improvement societies, practical men, our 

 churches, the daily press and local coun- 

 try weekly newspapers, and our com- 

 mercial horticulturists. 



In the Phipps Botanical School at 

 Pittsburg 700 children of the public 

 schools are being instructed in botany. 

 The material used in their work is living 

 plants from the parks and conservatories, 

 and they also have field days in the parks 

 and woods. It is their favorite study. 

 And it is delightful to see how eagerly 

 and carefully they save their unused flow- 

 ers, slips, buJbs, roots or seeds and take 

 them home with them. Everyone of these 

 children is a horticultural missionary. 

 All school children should be taught to 

 know our common wood, field and way- 

 side trees, shrubs and flowers, and en- 

 couraged to know and grow the commoner 

 garden plants, and I would approve giv- 



