Page:The Tales of a Traveller.djvu/80

68 First National Flower Show at Chicago and Others

The first Louisiana exposition blazed the trail for other flower shows of a national scope. The first of this kind was held at the Coliseum in Chicago, and, to the credit of the local management be it said, everything possible was done to ensure its success. The retailers, no less than the growers themselves, did their part. And how well they did it! There were table decorations, mantel decorations, and decorations for all sorts of occasions, to attract people from every walk in life. The landscape gardener did his best, too, to give to the denizens of the city as well as to the country gentlemen an object lesson in landscape gardening. One firm, I remember, had two cottages side by side, labeled "Before and After." The one "before" represented a miserable shanty, standing in the midst of a rubbish heap of rusty tin cans, broken bottles, litters of paper, ashes, and so on. The one labeled "after" was a humble cottage, surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn, with a few shrubs planted here and there to add to the general attractiveness of the place. It was evident that the intention of the landscape artist was to reach the common people, to show them what could be accomplished with little effort and at no very great cost. The results from both monetary and educational standpoints surpassed the most sanguine expectations of the most enthusiastic promoters.

Other shows followed. The second one in Boston, the third one in New York, and the fourth one held recently in Philadelphia, all proved eminently successful.

Much criticism has been heard about the last named, held in Philadelphia, many contending that the exhibition hall was inadequate for the purpose, that it was too far out of the way, and that the Blue Laws of the Quaker City which barred out the public from attending the "greatest sermon that was ever preached in the city," to use Mr. Gude's words, were a great drawback to the success of the enterprise. It must be remembered, however, that in point of attendance there was no city that surpassed Philadelphia. The fact that the first Sunday of the show thousands of people lined the streets in the immediate vicinity of the hail, evidencing their disappointment at not being able to get in, was encouraging enough in itself, for it indicated that flower shows, as an educational institution, made a strong appeal to the people. The city of Philadelphia, I may here remark, has passed upon its loan bill, and this among other improvements provides for a convention hall, the like of which no city can equal today, let alone surpass. Let us hope that the next National Flower Show to be held in Philadelphia will carry with it a more favorable impression than the last one—that by that time the Blue Laws of 1794 will be revoked.

Horticulture continued on its march of progress. State after State fell into line; and while J should like to speak about every State in the Union, I must, for reasons of space limitation, confine myself to those sections through which I traveled most often. The Eastern States were already in advance. As I remarked before, the city of Boston supplied the great city of Chicago with Roses. It was now that the Middle West had its turn. The States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan became especially active. Truck farms were turned into greenhouse establishments. Celery growers in the Black Belt of Michigan who grew a few plants as a side line turned their attention to plant and cut flower growing, and the Celery patches became the side lines. Later the Celery man found it to his advantage to give his entire attention to flowers, and let the real farmer take care of the Celery end of it.

Expansion of Michigan Growers

A case in point is that of 'an Bochove Brothers, in Kalamazoo, Mich. In 1889, when I first met them, the Van Bochove Brothers were primarily Celery growers. They had two little houses wherein they grew Geraniums and other