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42 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



IfAT 6, 1910. 



Seed Trade News 



AMEBICAN SEED TBADE ASSOCIATION. 



Pres.. J. C. Robinson, Waterloo, Neb.; First 

 Vioe-pres.. M. H. Duryea, New York; Sec'yand 

 Trea8.,C. E. Kendel, Cleveland, O. Twenty-eighth 

 annual meeting, Atlantic City, N. J., June 21 to 

 2S 1910. 



Seedsioin will be interested in House 

 Bill No. 23252, which nursery interests 

 oppose. See page 56. 



The Canadian Pacific railroad, through 

 its gardening department, is distributing 

 free to its employees 80,000 packages of 

 flower seeds. 



Nebraska sweet corn and vine seed 

 growers appear to be having some difli- 

 culty in contracting the necessary acre- 

 age. At least one of them is advertising 

 in country papers to reach farmers. 



The English seedsman who was haled 

 into court for violation of that country's 

 new Prevention of Corruption Act, be- 

 cause he gave a case of whisky to a cus- 

 tomer 's gardener, has been declared not 

 guilty by a jury. 



Caroline C. Schisler, wife of Henry 

 M. Schisler, of Schisler-CorneU Seed Co., 

 St. Louis, died April 29, after a short 

 illness. The funeral took place Sunday, 

 May 1, from the family residence. Mr. 

 Schisler is well known in trade circles. 



The first estimates of general crop 

 damage by the freeze of April 22, in the 

 central states, prove to have been, as 

 usual, greatly exaggerated, but there has 

 nevertheless been much loss of early vege- 

 tables, calling for considerable replanting. 



D. H. Gilbert says that the melon 

 crops in Florida escaped the frost. "We 

 had unusually cold weather, with high 

 winds, for several days. It looked as 

 though for two or three days, April 24 

 and 25, everything would be killed 

 by the frost, but the damage to the melon 

 crop is slight and, with favorable weather, 

 prospects are good for an average crop. ' ' 



J. J. BuDLONO, vice-president and man- 

 ager of the L. A. Budlong Co., Chi- 

 cago, in speaking of the damage to onion 

 set crops caused by the blizzard of April 

 22, said, April 28: "So far as we are 

 informed up to date, there is considerable 

 damage done to onion sets which were 

 up at that time. I do not believe the 

 seed in the ground was hurt, and the ex- 

 tent of the damage cannot be told until 

 a reasonable time for recovery has 

 elapsed. As a general proposition, this 

 class of damage usually proves to be less 

 than the first estimates." 



Burnet Landreth, secretary of the 

 Wholesale Seedsmen's League, states that 

 a board meeting will be held in New 

 York City today, Thursday, May 5, to 

 suggest what in the opinion of the board 

 should be the wholesale values, at this 

 present moment, of certain scarce varie- 

 ties of garden seeds sold for immediate 

 shipment, also as respects trade prices 

 for advance orders for certain biennial 

 seeds now being daily booked for ship- 

 ment next winter. This proposed course 

 of naming trade values is only suggestive 

 and will be taken by the board conse- 

 quent upon the marked advance in price 

 of all unsold European stocks of seed of 

 biennials of the crop of 1909, and all 

 uncontracted stocks of incoming crop of 

 1910. The values, notably of beet, cab- 



bage and turnip, have in many eases 

 enormously increased in France, Germany 

 and England. 



MICHIGAN PEAS. 



C. B. Pyle thinks a black cat must 

 have crossed the path of the Michigan 

 pea growers. Writing April 28 from 

 Harrisville, where the Sheap-Johnson 

 Seed Co. has its headquarters, Mr. Pyle 

 said: 



"As to the effect of the April blizzard 

 on the peas that were already planted, 

 will say that at present there is no way 

 of estimating the amount of damage, as 

 only now and then are there any signs 

 of germination, the seed simply lying dor- 

 mant in the ground. 



"Many growers took advantage of the 

 extremely fine weather during the month 

 of March and as a result about two-thirds 

 of the peas to be sown in this section 

 were put into the ground. Some of the 

 more oonservative have held off planting 

 and still have the seed in their barns. It 

 seems to be a case of 'he laughs best 

 who laughs last.' There will, no doubt, 

 be many complaints of seed perishing in 

 the ground and poor stands, and in some 

 cases a second sowing will be necessary. 

 The question arises, where will we get the 

 seed to replace those that are lostf 



"It seems the hoodoo stDl follows 

 those interested in the growing of garden 

 peas for seeds." 



E. J. Sheap, of the S. M. Isbell Seed 

 Co., Jackson, Mich., is president of the 

 Sheap-Johnson Seed Co.; F. G. Johnson 

 is secretary and treasurer, and C. B. Pyle 

 manager. They are contract growers for 

 the wholesale trade, making a specialty of 

 garden peas. Headquarters are at Harris- 

 ville, but growing stations also are main- 

 tained at Lincoln and Ossineke, Mich. 



PEAS IN WISCONSIN. 



E. L. Olmsted, who is in charge of 

 the Wisconsin branch of the Everett B. 

 Clark Seed Co., is alarmed for the safety 

 of peas not germinated in the Wisconsin 

 pea growing district. Writing at Green 

 Bay, May 2, he said: 



* ' We feel certain that considerable dam* 

 age will result to the growing pea crop 

 from the snow, rain and continued cold 

 weather that has been general over the 

 Wisconsin pea growing section since April 

 22, but we cannot give much estimate 

 of the probable amount of loss for an- 

 other ten days or two weeks. The earlier 

 sown peas were up before the storm and 

 we doubt if these will be damaged to any 

 great extent, except upon the fields so 

 situated that the water did not drain off 

 quickly. We fear the most loss upon 

 those fields sown a few days before the 

 storm, as the wet soil, together with the 

 continued cold, will cause a portion of 

 the seed to rot, especially of the more 

 tender wrinkled-seeded sorts. We feared 

 that the unusually warm weather of 

 March and early April could not continue 

 and we cautioned all of our growers hav- 

 ing sorts like Telephone and Gradus not 

 to sow until the last week in April, but 

 do not know, as yet, how many followed 

 instructions. One favorable condition is 

 the continued cloudy weather, as this will 

 permit those vines nipped by the frost 

 to recover and will also allow the soil 

 to dry without crusting the top. 



"Practically none of the growers in 

 upper Michigan had sowed peas before 

 the storm and the only damage that we 

 can see likely to result there wiU be from 

 late seeding on account of wet soil. 



"Taken altogether, this storm is most 



unfortunate for all of the Wisconsin pea 

 growers and their customers, as stock 

 seed this season is too valuable to lose 

 and there is practically none for resow- 

 ing, if this should be necessary on any 

 of the fields. In our own case we have 

 not a single bushel for this purpose, as 

 we have contracted our entire stock seed 

 reserve with our growers." 



CONDITIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



* * Now that our spring hoeing is practi- 

 cally done," writes A. J. Pieters, at Hol- 

 lister, Cal., under date of April 27, * ' we 

 are in position to give you some idea in 

 regard to the condition of the crops. It 

 is almost enpugh to say that we have 

 never had a better season than the past, 

 taking it as a whole. The crops all look 

 well. The only fiy in the ointment may 

 be said to have been the unusually cold 

 winter, which killed part of our French 

 stocks of radish. The French seed is 

 rather tender and many of the young 

 plants were winter-killed. In seme cases 

 this leaves a thin stand and in others we 

 have had to reseed, with the attendant 

 lateness of the crop. However, this is 

 a small matter when we take the fine ap- 

 pearance of the other crops into consid- 

 eration. But we shall be a little short 

 on some of these French stocks of radish 

 on this account. Onion is the best we 

 ever have had and if nothing happens we 

 shall have a fine crop. In this section 

 we do not fear the heat as they do else- 

 where, but we do fear the mildew and 

 the season for that is not yet past, so 

 we do not want to be too certain of the 

 crop till we get it. Lettuce, parsley and 

 salsify are all m good shape, and sweet 

 peas are excellent. The fact that we 

 have a fine location has been made more 

 evident lately, since C. C. Morse & Co. 

 have purchased land in this valley. Next 

 year there will be several times the num- 

 ber of acres planted to seed in this val- 

 ley that there were the year the writer 

 began the growing business." 



IMPORTS. 



The imports of seeds through the port 



of New York for the week ending April 



23 were as follows: 



Kind. Pkg8. Val. Kind. Pkgs. Val. 



Caraway .«» |2,686 Fennel 10 | 85T 



Cardamom 14 594 Grass 120 1,186 



Castor ..2322 9,162 Mustard 24 886 



Clover ...103 2,868 Other 1,218 



Coriander 301 880 



In the same period the imports of 



bulbs, trees and plants were valued at 



$20,182. 



BUSINESS OF SEED GROWING. 



Tracy Writes for Fanners. 



In the Yearbook of the Department of 

 Agriculture, which has a circulation of 

 nearly half a million copies among farm- 

 ers, William W. Tracy writes of "Vege- 

 table Seed Growing as a Business." 

 While many of the facts are matters of 

 common knowledge in the" trade, still 

 whatever Dr. Tracy says of seed growing 

 is of interest to those engaged in the seed 

 business and his opinions, as expressed in 

 the article, may be taken as representing 

 the general view of the most conservative 

 and thoughtful element in the trade. 



The development in the United States 

 of the art and industry of seed growing 

 has all come within the past century, says 

 Dr. Tracy, but its growth since about the 

 time when the United States Department 

 of Agriculture was organized as a sepa- 



