30 
Gardeners and Florists’ Annual for i9f8 
Nearly $1000 was offered at the American Gladiolus Society’s show 
in August, as prizes, exclusive of cups and other trophies. 
Postal service between U. S. and Germany was suspended in April. 
Easter business was good all over the country, in some places as 
much as 50 per cent, increase. 
Teaching by cinematograph was a method proposed by a New 
York lecturer on gardening. 
Packing two or more varieties of seed of a given vegetable in 
separate envelopes enclosed in one larger envelope, was the plan adopted 
by a large seed house in New York State last year. 
A REPRINT of the official code of standardized plant names was 
published at the instance of the American Nursery Association in 
April, 1917. 
Severe hailstorms did much damage in Texas in April. 
An account of the rise of the retail florists’ business in San Fran- 
cisco appeared in The Florists’ Exchange for April 21. 
Detroit florists undertook a campaign advertising early buying of 
stock at Easter. They also had a co-operative scheme of advertising 
for Alother’s Day and Memorial Day. 
After Easter the sale of cut flowers and plants was abnormally 
small. With this there were steady complaints of the high cost of 
doing business everywhere. 
The sixth and last volume of the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticul- 
ture was published in April. 
Members of the British Wholesale Florists’ Federation, established 
early in the year, pledged themselves to devote at least 50 per cent, 
of their open ground for food production. 
With impressive ceremonies, representatives of the National Ass’n 
of Gardeners planted an English Yew near the tomb of George Wash- 
ington at Alt. Vernon, on April 23, which is St. George’s Day and 
Shakespeare’s birthday. 
The English gardening papers doubled the price of their subscrip- 
tions in April. 
The new laboratory building and plant houses of the Brooklyn Bo- 
tanical Gardens, Brooklyn, N. Y., were opened on April 19. 
In place of raffia for the tying of plants, a soft tying material at 
16c a pound was used as a substitute in England, as the Government 
there has commandeered raffia. 
Municipaijties and large employing concerns were active in pro- 
moting gardening and garden societies in all parts of this country in 
the Spring. “Byg” was coined as a word representing Baek Yard 
Garden. At Boston an old law prohibiting Sunday gardening was 
repealed. As an exaTiiple of the trade done in seeds, Peter Henderson 
& Co., New York, intimated that they had 7000 purchasers in their 
store on Saturday, April 21. 
A committee on seed stocks was appointed by the Secretary of 
Agriculture in Alay to consider the quantities of seeds available, and 
the price. 
