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March 27, 1913. 



The Florists^ Review 



11 



^ GREAT STORMS ^ 

 SWEEI* THE WEST 



Easter Trade Interrupted by Sleet and Rain; Much 

 Greenhouse Property Destroyed by Wind and Flood 



r^ai^^HE greenhouse industry of the 

 [j ___ y middle west, in the days im- 



T 



mediately preceding Easter 

 n X n and immediately following, 

 l^^p^l received the most tremendous 

 blow in the history of the 

 trade. The selling end of the business 

 was interfered with to the extent of 

 thousands upon thousands of dollars by 

 the storms which began in the early 

 morning hours of Good Friday, and 

 which continued intermittently with in- 

 creasing violence until the night of 

 Sunday. But the damage done to the 

 selling end of the business was incon- 

 sequential in comparison to the damage 

 done to the greenhouse structures by 

 the wind and flood. 



Telegraphic communication is so se- 

 riously disorganized that only the most 

 meager details are available. The most 

 serious loss was in the vicinity of 

 Omaha, where cyclonic storms wrecked 

 the largest greenhouses west of Phila- 

 delphia, and in the Indiana and Ohio 

 river valley cities, where great floods 

 followed ii£,^he wake of the wind and 

 rain. 



Omaha still is cut off from full tele- 

 graphic communication, but word has 

 been received that the two great green- 

 houses put up last summer by J. F. Wil- 

 cox & Sons, Council Bluffs, are down, 

 and the understanding is that they are a 

 complete wreck. It is a curious fact that 

 it is the second time that the greenhouse 

 shown in the foreground of the accom- 

 panying illustration has been blown 

 down. On the afternoon of July 31, 

 while the houses were as yet unglazed, 

 a storm leveled the front house, al- 

 though the rear house stood, twenty-five 

 feet away,„ This time both houses are 

 down, according to infornAtion received 



from Koy Wilcox, who now is the head 

 of the company. These houses are 60x 

 1,000 feet, the two covering 120,000 

 square feet of ground. They are of 

 the King iron frame construction. 

 The brick service building crumbled and 

 the boiler house roof went, but the 150- 

 foot concrete chimney stood. The 

 houses contained 60,000 canation plants, 

 12,000 Beauties and 25,000 Killarneys in 

 full crop; all frozen, a total loss. The 

 night watchman was the only man hurt. 

 Work has been abandoned at this 

 (Manawa) plant but business goes on 

 as usual at the old place in the city. 



As the storm proceeded eastward 

 from Omaha it hit a large number of 

 greenhouses on its way. Eeports have 

 been received of minor losses from a 

 large number of establishments between 

 Council Bluffs and Chicago, where the 

 storm seemed to again gather intensity. 

 Scaircely a greenhouse in the district 

 north and west of Chicago escaped with- 

 out more or less broken glass, but none 

 of the losses are to be compared with 

 the loss of Wilcox & Sons. 



Then the storm skipped into Indiana 

 and Ohio, where the losses have been 

 without parallel in recent years. No 

 details are as yet to hand, though it is 

 apparent that floods have inflicted enor- 

 mous damage upon the trade. It would 

 be bad enough because of the interrup- 

 tion to general business, even though 

 the greenhouses themselves had escaped 

 damage. In the Indiana and Ohio sec- 

 tions the loss has been by flood. As 

 The Review goes to press, word is re- 

 ceived that th§^ business section of the 

 city of Dayton is many feet under 

 water and that every flower store in 

 that city is flooded. Those who attended 



the S. A. F. convention will recall tho 

 topography: Dayton lies in a hollow. 

 With the center of the city flooded to 

 so great a depth the greenhouses can 

 hardly have escaped. All through south- 

 ern Ohio and southern Indiana flood 

 conditions are unparalleled. And green- 

 houses almost never are built on the 

 high lands; the grower's favorite site is 

 in the hollow, protected by the hills. 

 It is apparent that as time goes on 

 there will be a large number of reports 

 of greenhouses being drowned out,^f 

 not swept away. ^- 



At Des Plaines, 111., Hoerber Bros, 

 suffered more severely than any other 

 growers in the Chicago section, and two 

 Soo line brakemen lost their lives in 

 a passing freight caboose which was 

 buried under several tons of brick when 

 the greenhouse smokestack gave way 

 about inidnight March 23. Owing to 

 the fact that the stack fell toward the 

 railroad track, the flying debris did no 

 damage to the greenhouses, but the 

 twister had already demolished two of 

 the houses 27x300 at the southern end 

 of the range and partly wrecked a third, 

 all of them rose houses. In the remain- 

 ing houses in the range of twenty-one, 

 more or less glass was blown out and 

 not a house escaped. Some were more 

 seriously affected than others and great^ 

 efforts were necessary to save the stock 

 of roses and carnations. Every availa- 

 ble workman was pressed into service 

 replacing glass and closing the open 

 spaces with such covering as could be 

 obtained. Work was started at once on 

 the smoke stack, in order that the boil- 

 ers could be"* operated. The stack was 

 100 feet high and was broken off a few 

 feet from the ground. F. C. Hoerber 





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Longett GrecnhouMt in the We»t, Owned by J.F, Wilcox & Sons, Coaiicil Bluffs, Iowa, Destroyed by Cyclone March 23. 



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