every principal city of the United States, where it is recognized 
today as the symbol of superior quality. 
Coupled with these annual bulk shipments of holly destined for 
resale came the development of a unique direct mail order gift 
package trade. Assisted by sponsorship from the Garden Club of 
America, and promoted by a personalized national advertising 
campaign, our wreaths and berried sprays of Christmas holly 
from “Ambrose and Helen” have been received with expressed 
enthusiasm for over thirty years in thousands of American homes, 
and in every state, and even in foreign lands. 
The Quest for Perfection in Folly 
While participating in the development of a new agricultural 
industry by pioneering the sale of Christmas Holly we were contin- 
ually conscious of the need for improvement in the quality of the 
trees. Early propagators with scant knowledge of market require- 
ments had mistakenly chosen types deficient and unsuited for 
competitive commercial production. No true to type or proven horti- 
cultural varieties were available from any source at home or abroad. 
Equipped with several years of study and practice in the art of 
propagation, and well prepared with long years of experience in the 
growing, buying and selling of holly, we set out in the early thirties 
upon a quest for the beauty queens of the holly world. First for 
weeks, then for months and now after long years the search for 
perfection in holly has proved to be the most exciting and truly 
rewarding task in my entire lifetime spent among the lovely hollies. 
At times it has been somewhat like chasing rainbows, and how 
thrilled we all are when we discover after relentless search a pot-o- 
gold in the form of a new holly starlet. 
Then having found our heart’s desire we proceed to christen her 
as we undertake by vegetative means to multiply her over and over 
again. By severing tiny tips from her branches and plunging them 
for a time into warm moist sand a miracle of nature takes place. 
Rootlets take form to nourish the tender treelets, and our queen is 
recreated a thousand times over into a clone of identical reproduc- 
7 
