' V* 



34 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



Septbmbkb 2, 1900. 



twenty-seven years will be steady and not 

 too strenuous. 



Thb Review always is glad to hear 

 from the trade with items of news for 

 publication in this column. 



FREE SEEDS. 



The government expenditures for the 

 last three years on account of the con- 

 gressional free seed distribution were 

 as foUows: 



1907 $242,920 



1908 288.000 



1009 268.000 



So now the government must tax the 

 incorporated seedsmen one per cent of 

 their net earnings. 



DUTCH BULBS. 



Shipments of Dutch bulbs, while late 

 this year, have now begun and the stock 

 will be arriving in every boat from Hol- 

 land for the next few weeks. 



On the Potsdam, that reached New 

 York August 25, there were the follow- 

 ing consignments: 



Consignee Cases 



Amerman & Patterson 5 



Bartle, J. S 5 



Slegel, Cooper & Co 22 



Vaugban'8 Seed Store 23 



Meadows, T.. & Co 46 



Maltus & Ware 112 



IMPORTS. 



The imports of seed through the port 

 of New York for the week ending Au- 

 gust 14 were as follows: 



Kind Pkgs. VaL Kind. Pkgs. TaL 



Annatto ... 19 f S24 Cummin 60 $ 780 



Canary ....5109 12953 Fenugreek ...350 948 



Caraway ... 550 8753 Onion 168 8574 



Cardamom . 20 944 Poppy 962 4807 



Celery 25 882 Other 4622 



Clover .... 50 57«> . ^. 



In the same period the imports of 

 bulbs, trees and plants were valued at 

 $18,500. 



HONOR TO EDWARD L. COY. 



At the annual convention of the Amer- 

 ican Seed Trade Association, held at 

 Niagara Falls, Ont., in June, special 

 recognition was made of the work of 

 Edward L. Coy, the veteran seed grower, 

 now of Melrose, Mass., but for most of 

 his active life a resident of New York 

 state, in electing him an honorary mem- 

 ber for life. The distinction is the more 

 notable in that it has been conferred but 

 once before, in 1907, in the case of Wm. 

 Meggat, of Wethersfield, Conn., a former 

 president of the association. An honor- 

 ary member can only be elected on rec- 

 ommendation of the president, backed up 

 by the unanimous vote of the members 

 present, this amendment to the by-laws 

 having been adopted in 1907 to permit 

 the election of Mr. Meggat. Ex-Presi- 

 dent S. F. Willard, of Wethersfield, 

 Conn., spoke of Mr. Coy's long and hon- 

 orable record in the seed growing busi- 

 ness and the fact that he has now re- 

 tired from active work, and President 

 "Woodruff at once recommended his elec- 

 tion to honorary membership. 



This well deserved recognition for one 

 who has served so long and successfully 

 as a seed grower makes it particularly 

 appropriate that some of the facts in 

 his active career should be recalled at 

 this time. 



Edward L. Coy was born April 4, 

 1831, at Bernardston, Mass. His ances- 

 tors were among those who came from 

 England in the early Colonial days, and 

 his grandfather on both sides, each with 

 two brothers, fought through the Bevo- 



Edward L. Coy. 



lutionary war. When 16 years old he 

 moved to Washington county, N. Y., and 

 about a year later began growing seeds 

 for E. N. Rice, of Cambridge, N. Y. At 

 first in a small way, then on an increas- 

 ingly larger scale, for some of the big- 

 gest seed houses of New York, Philadel- 

 phia and elsewhere, he diligently kept at 

 the business of seed growing through all 

 these years, until now at 78 he has 

 rounded out sixty years in the business. 

 In his early manhood Mr. Coy wrote a 

 great deal for the agricultural press, and 

 during that period delivered many ad- 

 dresses before county and state agricul- 

 tural societies. It was at this time that 

 Horace Greeley, who had become inter- 

 ested in his contributions to the press, 

 using many of them in the New York 

 Tribune, urged him to take the editor- 

 ship of the agricultural department of 

 his paper. Mr. Coy has sometimes 

 thought that possibly his declination was 

 the great mistake of his life. 



In 1875 he was elected president of 

 the Washington County Agricultural So- 

 ciety and in 1881 and 1882 was reelected. 

 For eighteen years he was on the board 

 of directors of this organization and was 

 four times president of the Hebron Agri- 

 cultural Society. In 1903 he was selected 

 by the U. S. Department of Agriculture 

 to make a full and complete test of 

 nearly 250 varieties of cucumbers, with 

 the idea of establishing a type of each; 

 also to learn how many of the named 

 varieties were synonyms. No one better 

 qualified for the task could have been 

 selected, for he was for many years 

 possibly the largest grower of cucumber 

 seed in the world. He has stated that 

 his largest crop, harvested in 1902, was 

 over thirty-five tons. But it will be as 



a breeder, or originator, of potatoes that 

 he will be most generally remembered in 

 years to come by the horticultural world. 

 The number of varieties he originated 

 counts up to nearly a score, each of 

 which, in its day in some section of the 

 country, has been a standard market 

 variety. The following are a few of his 

 well known varieties: Beauty of Hebron, 

 White Elephant, Late Rose, Burpee's 

 Empire State, Henderson's Early Puri- 

 tan, The Thorburn, White Late Rose. 



September 21, 1858, Mr. Coy married 

 Miss Clara B. Cary, of Hebroa, N. Y. 

 There are three children living, C. Her- 

 bert Coy, of Valley, Neb., who is also 

 well known in the seed growing busi- 

 ness; Dr. S. Willard Coy, of Boston, 

 Mass., and Mrs. Ida B. Sievwright, of 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. 



GLADIOLL 



[A paper by Henry Field, of Shenandoah, la., 

 read before the Iowa Florists' Society at Dea 

 Moines, September 1, 1909.] 



I have often thought that if I were 

 confined to one single variety of flowers 

 I would choose the gladiolus. There is no 

 flower with so wide a range of color, 

 none more easy to grow, and none that 

 will keep so well as a cut flower under 

 ordinary house conditions. 



Roses are all right, and I love them, 

 but for the ordinary gardener they are so 

 hard to grow that they are a disappoint- 

 ment. The same is true of lilies. But 

 the gladiolus will grow and bloom for 

 anyone. It will grow in any soil and in 

 any climate. 



Speaking as a dealer, it is more of a 

 pleasure to me to sell gladiolus bulbs 

 than any other bulb or plant. The cus- 



