Title: The American florist : a weekly journal for the trade
Identifier: americanfloristw23amer (find matches)
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors: American Florists Company
Subjects: Floriculture; Florists
Publisher: Chicago : American Florist Company
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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1U The American Florist. Jan. 4, Doubtless the trouble lies farther back than this year. Years of salting and high prices are having their inevitable reward. This season was a little more of a plant Christmas than before and next year will be still more so. He will therefore be the wise grower next year who taboos salt and takes care ol his customers at reasonable prices. The traffic has had to stand more than it would bear and the Bulls of Barhan should try to come it gently hereafter. The demand for greens vras away ahead of last year and the market in that line was swept pretty clean. Good holly w^as unusually scarce, and Christmas trees were held fully fifty per cent above last year's figures. Those who made preparations with plenty of first-class holly wreaths a week or so in advance did well on them. There was no trouble in selling every one at good prices. Wm. Thompson, Thirteenth below Walnut, made a specialty of boxwood wreaths nicely done, which made quite a hit and helped to swell his bank account very considerably. Hugh Graham was one of the few who had no kick about the high prices of American Beauty. They had plenty of their own, you see. Fifteen hundred specials was the cut for Christmas morn- ing, besides a large amount of other grades. I learned here that violets were $4 per hundred at 10 a. m. and 75 cents per hundred at 6 p. m. on Christmas day; another case of poor judgement; Decent carnations $10 per hundred. Bride roses $15 per hundred. By the way, Mr. Graham showed me a new seedling car- nation he thinks much of, almost the same shade as Lawson, brighter and purer if anything and slightly better form. The size is quite equal to the best Lawson. Mr. Graham said he had but one plant of it but that $1,000 would not buy it. From reports received to date it seems to be conceded that Baxter, of Pennocks' is the best window dresser in Philadel- phia. Robert Stewart is still well up with his old specialty, violets, and did a splendid holiday business in these. Robert is a believer in the theory that you must have enthusiasm for a given flower before a business can be worked up in it. Where the enthusiasm comes in is the morning after one has thrown out $50 or $100 worth and the grower calls in offering the next supply. It takes some enthusi- asm to keep right on buying; but accord- ing to Robert it finally came out all right with him. George Craig gives it as his opinion that the poinsettia is still one of the very best Christmas plants. Dracasna termi- nalis is another of his prime favorites. Anything spicy about that? He never mentioned Lorraine. Robert Crawford, Jr., talking about the Christmas rush "never saw anything like it—tremendous business." Among other sententious deliverences by Mr. Crawford I must jot thispearl: "It's all very well for those fellows who are tak- ing in $400 or $500 in cash over the counter to get excited and brag a bit but wait until after the new year when they figure up their bills and find they havetopay out $600." A sad awakening, indeed! I hope Mr. Crawford is mis- taken, and that there are none of the craft in that unenviable condition. I see my friend "Phil" thinks, and puts it on record, that Craigs' cyclamens this year were perfection, or words to that efiect. Nonsense. I never grew a cycla- men myself, but I've seen them done much better. Anyone who ever saw a house of cyclamens such as David Allan used to grow, or even such as John Smith grew at Craigs' eight years ago, would not talk that way. I'll admit there were no better than Craigs' around, but that's nothing to the purpose. They can be done much better. Speed the day, say I, for a really well grown cyclamen is a glorious flower. But if Craigs' cyclamens were a dis- appointment what must we say about his Lorraines! Such a sea of pink I never beheld before, glorious masses of color stretching away as far as the eye could reach, each plant perfect as another, and the whole vista uniform as a field of wheat. Here was certainly a sight to take one's breath away. I did not see Mr. Lonsdale's house of Lorraines this year but if they were as good as the Craigs', oft goes my hat to him also. But the Duke confided to me in a whisper that his were really better. How glad I am not being called upon to judge between them! The Lorraines in pans bordered with plumosus were as popular as ever and although an extra number were prepared at Craigs' this year many more could have been sold. Capsicums went slow. Solannms a little better, but they drop their leaves so. Harris does not go in much for Christ- mas plants. Azaleas and bougainvilleas are about all he handles in flowering plants for Christmas. John Westcott had a fine batch of poinsettias; they were worth the money he asked, and John wanted his price, all right. He was also "in it" on solanums and ivies. This establishment was the only one I heard of that reported business "about the same as last year." It takes courage to say that, but we all know the Commodore to be a brave man. They tell a great many jokes at the Com- modore's expense, some of them true. Here's one 1 think must be a good deal ol "alairy:" A short time ago John Farquhar came down from Boston to give his Philadelphia friends a lecture on Hawaii.
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THE LAKE IN OAK GROVE CEMETERY, DELAWARE, O.

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