Annals of Horticulture. 



Chrys- 

 anthe- 



Specimen 

 blooms. 



expenditure of so little labor, and none other presents so 

 many diverse and becoming forms, habits and colors. It is 

 particularly well adapted to exhibition purposes, and it now 

 composes the body or the finish of every late autumn show. 

 A full account of the American varieties of the year will be 

 found in "Introductions of 1891," in Part II. of this volume. 

 The following account of recent American chrysanthemums is 

 written for this occasion by Edwin Lonsdale, of Philadelphia, 

 Secretary of the American Chrysanthemum Society: 



"While cultivation for fine blooms of chrysanthemums has 

 been increasing, that of specimen plants has not improved of 

 late, if, in fact, it has not actually decreased. At the Madison 

 Square Garden Exhibition, held under the auspices of the 

 New York Florists' Club, in November last, the plants were 

 not nearly so good as we are accustomed to see at Philadel- 

 phia. It is acknowledged by those who have had an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing the different shows, that the city of Brotherly 

 Love leads them all in respect of fine specimen plants. One 

 exhibitor, James Vernor, gardener to A. J. Drexel, has taken 

 the one-hundred-dollar premium for twelve plants for the last 

 three years, and although his plants were almost, if not quite, 

 as good at the show of 1891 as they were in 1890 and 1889, 

 yet the competition was not nearly so keen. When one con- 

 siders the watchful care that is required to have plants in a 

 creditable condition on the day of the show, we need not won- 

 der that the competition is dropping off. 



" The production of large specimen blooms is on the in- 

 crease, both in quantity and quality. While care is neces- 

 sary, of course, to grow first-class blooms, either for exhibition 

 or for sale, yet it requires much less skill to produce superior 

 blooms for cutting than it does to grow even a passable exhi- 

 bition plant. The comparative ease with which these high- 

 class flowers are grown, makes the judicious florist solicitous 

 for the future. The effect of over-production will be felt first 

 in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and the other 

 large cities. 



"The demand for large flowers — those that have been grown 

 on plants that have been disbudded to a single bud on stout, 

 erect stems — still continues. The artistic mind deplores the 

 fact, preferring sprays disbudded to not less than three buds. 

 Flower-buyers generally have not reached that point, and 



