30 bunches, but that such flowers must not be wasted. He, like all 
other Frenchmen, apologized for the looks of his nursery and it was 
only afterwards that I learned from some of his friends that he had 
served in the French army at the beginning of the war and that he 
had been sent home so badly crippled that he had been unable to 
walk for nearty a year. 
I spoke before about the Httle florist in Chaumont with the 20 
varieties of HeHotrope. His place is typical of the small local florist 
and nurseryman combined, which can be found in nearly every small 
town in France. He had three greenhouses, each about 50 feet long, 
with small glass, iron frame, iron doors and iron benches. During the 
winter, 19 18, he grew some very creditable specimens of Primula, 
Cineraria, and other of the hardier greenhouse plants, and during 
April his houses were a mass of bloom. In the frames he grew large 
quantities of bedding plants, such as Geraniums, HeHotropes, Salvia, 
Ageratum, Coleus, etc., as well as hundreds and thousands of lettuce 
and cauliflower plants. There was a constant display of herbaceous 
flowers the entire spring, beginning with Arabis and continuing until 
mid-summer when the Phlox and Roses were in full bloom. In a 
section of the country where the soil was naturally a stiff clay, the 
many years of cultivation of his place had given him a deep rich black 
soil full of humus. 
I have spent most of my time teUing you of France because I was 
there so long and learned to know their customs in the nursery business 
better than I was able to learn the Enghsh methods, for I was in 
England but two weeks and spent most of my time there visiting 
Iris gardens, rather than nurseries. As a whole, however, the nursery 
conditions in England appear more serious than those of France, due 
I think, to the fact that two of the three causes I have enumerated 
for the survival of the French nurseries, have not operated in England, 
In other words, their nurseries are larger and are conducted more on 
American Hnes and their women are not able to take the places of 
the men who have been killed. Furthermore, although England did 
not lose as many men as France in proportion, she e^ddently withdrew 
more men from industry for her war work. Amos Perry, for instance, 
had had his working staff reduced from 65 men to 5, and had himself 
been forced to work in munition factories part of the time. 
My first visit in England was to the famous nurseries of Robert 
W. Wallace in Colchester, which were in none too good condition. I 
heard it said afterwards in a joking way that before the war it had 
been Mr. Wallace's custom to offer his customers a shilling for every 
weed they could find in his nurseries. E\ddently it will be many 
years before the Enghsh nurseries return to such a condition. Mr. 
Wallace had lost his only son in the war and although Admiral Sims 
19 
