THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
9* 
FLORISTS’ CONVENTION, 
Large Attendance at Detroit—Co-operative Purchase Idea Sug¬ 
gests Organi/.ation of a Stock Company to Control Window 
Glass Plant—Higher Prices for Florists’ Stock —The 
Tariff Again—Officers for the Ensuing Year. 
The fifteenth annual meeting of the Society of American 
Florists, at Detroit, August 15-18, was declared to be one of 
the most successful in the history of the organization. Presi¬ 
dent Rudd reviewed the work and growth of the society and 
suggested points for improvement. In his address President 
Rudd said : 
The year’s list of new plants introduced in this country is not 
especially large, and apparently contains nothing of strikingly unusual 
merit. In the early part of the year we followed with amused admira¬ 
tion the Boston exposition of how to advertise and sell a new carnation. 
A decided tendency exists in outdoor planting to use less of the 
highly-colored flowering and foliage bedding plants, substituting 
massed effects of perennials and shrubbery, especially the native forms. 
It is quite likely that the planting at the Columbian Exposition, so 
much discussed at the time, is largely responsible for this movement, 
and as many of the leading parks and cemeteries are working on this 
line it is well for the florist to take heed. 
Many railroads are giving special attention to the care and adornment 
of their station grounds with flowers This practice is rapidly extend¬ 
ing, and not only as creating another market, but more especially as 
placing well-designed and well-cared-for plantations, most prominently 
before the public, is in future to have a marked effect. 
The present growth in floriculture in the West and far West is 
phenomenal. The number of glass structures being erected this year 
is unprecedented, notwithstanding the seemingly prohibitive prices 
of material. The tendency in the East seems to be more in the line of 
rebuilding, modernizing and increasing the quantity and quality of 
product from a given space rather than enlarging that space. 
Present conditions may render profitable these enormous ranges of 
cheaply-built, poorly-equipped houses, supplied with insufficient and 
unskilled labor, but the future has sad lessons of experience in store 
for their owners. 
The report of the committee on co-operative purchase 
resulted in animated discussion. E. G. Hill said: “If the 
S. A. F. wants to give this co-operative principle a practical 
trial I would suggest that we organize a stock company and 
that we buy a window glass plant. There are quite a number 
of co-operative concerns scattered through the country, in the 
glass belt and other sections, and if we could just hitch on to 
some of those workmen, give them forty-nine per cent, and we 
take fifty-one per cent., we could get glass at a reasonable 
price. As a starter I would suggest that we turn over the 
matter of buying a glass plant to the co-operative committee 
of the society. We were simply held up and robbed this year 
by the American Window Glass Company; that is all there is 
about that. And while I have always voted in favor of the 
protective tariff, I would no longer vote for a 140 per cent, 
tariff for the exclusive benefit of that concern.’’ 
J. C. Vaughan expressed the opinion that if a general 
advance of prices had been made by the florists of the country 
hundreds of thousands of dollars could have been added to 
the receipts of the trade last spring, and at the same time all 
plants could have been sold. He suggested that a representa¬ 
tive committee of the commercial florists of the country, or a 
committee of this society, could have issued a statement, about 
February 1, showing the general condition of the plant market 
and advising the retail plantsmen that, in the opinion of the 
committee, a fifty per cent, advance could be made on all 
plant prices for the spring trade. Then the growers could 
have acted on such advice. He believed that this was still 
possible of accomplishment. Bearing in mind that good 
quality must go with a fair price, florists who grow good 
plants, the coming year, might with safety add fifty per cent, 
to former prices and dispose of their stock before June 15 
next. Robert Craig said he liked Mr. Hill’s idea because there 
was something definite about it. For florists to attempt to 
raise the prices of their plants all over the country was too 
big a job, but they could get control of a glass plant and get 
the glass at about cost for each and all of them. Then the 
S. A. F. would be doing something. The subject was referred 
to the following committee: E. M. Wood, Robert Craig, J. 
M. Gasser, E. G. Hill and J. L. Dillon. 
Chairman Patrick O’Mara, of the committee on legislation, 
reported: 
Your committee was early convinced that the officers entrusted with 
the collection of the revenues were equally anxious with them to ex¬ 
pedite business wherever and whenever it could be done consistently 
with the proper discharge of their duties. While plants, bulbs and 
nursery stocks are on the list of dutiable merchandise there must al¬ 
ways be more or less delay in appraising and passing them; at least 
they cannot be altogether avoided. These delays are more likely 
to occur at the port of New York, where seventy per cent, of the en¬ 
tire import revenue of the United States is collected, than at minor 
ports of entry, and for obvious reasons. The appropriate remedy—in 
the opinion of your committee, the only unfailing remedy—for this 
condition lies in legislation. While the government might easily and 
willingly forego the comparatively paltry revenue derived from the 
duty now levied on plants and bulbs, yet it is doubtful if it would be 
expedient to ask that they be put on the free list, even if they are to a 
great extent raw material to the trade at large. A line of specific 
duties would do away with the most, if not all of the difficulties en¬ 
countered under the present system of advalorum duties, and would be 
preferable for many reasons to which it is needless to refer here but 
which must suggest themselves to all who have been hampered by the 
present cumbersome system. We express the hope that, when the 
occasion arises to effect a change, a remedy will be sought and found 
in legislation and that combined and harmonious action will be taken 
by the florist and nursery trades. 
The following officers were elected: President, Edmund M. 
Wood, Natick, Mass.; vice-president, F. R. Pierson, T arry- 
town, N. Y.; secretary, William J. Stewart, Boston; treasurer, 
H, b! Beatty, Oil City, Pa. The society will meet in New 
York city in 1900. 
Among the exhibitors were : Jackson & Perkins Co., 
Newark, N. Y., samples of Cryptomeria japonica, the Japanese 
araucaria; Bobbink & Atkins, Rutherford, N. J., a general 
assortment of palms and aspidistras, tulips, hyacinths, narcissi 
and crocus ; C. H. Joosten, New York, samples of palm seeds 
and bulbs, mushroom spawn, fo/stite, etc. 
horticultural SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
Horticultural society meetings have been called as follows: 
Iowa, at Des Moines, December 12-15,1899; Minnesota, at 
Minneapolis, December 5-7, 1899; South Dakota, at Parker, 
December 12-14, 1899; Nebraska, at Lincoln, January 9-11, 
1900; Wisconsin, at Madison, February 7-10, 1900; Southern 
Minnesota, Albert Lea, January 17-19, 1900 ; Southeastern 
Iowa, Mt. Pleasant, November, 21-23, 1899; Southwestern 
Iowa’, Logan, December 20-22, 1899; Northwestern Iowa, at 
Spencer, December 6-8, 1899; Northeastern Iowa, at Cresco, 
November 28-30, 1899. 
