File:Florists' review (microform) (1912) (16078715873).jpg

Title: Florists' review (microform)
Identifier: 5205536_40_1 (find matches)
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Floriculture
Publisher: Chicago : Florists' Pub. Co
Contributing Library: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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June 14, 1917. The Florists^ Review 21 varieties, like ceerulea, Skinneri, chry- santha, Haylodgensis and glandulosa, with a wide range of colors, make the finest garden plants. Of these chry- santha and its hybrids prove the hardi- est. Some of the other long-spurred varieties are better if treated as bien- nials rather than as true perennials. Spring-sown seed gives the best plants for fall planting, but there still is ample time to make a sowing of this most sat- isfactory and attractive hardy border plant. Digitalis, or Foxgloves. Where strong flowering plants are wanted of digitalis, or foxgloves, the present is a suitable time to make a lib- oral sowing of seeds. Sow the seeds in a coldframe, cover them lightly, water them carefully and shade until they have germinated. Careful watering in the early stages of growth is necessary, as the little seedlings damp off easily. Good varieties of foxgloves to sow are Ivory's Spotted and gloxiniaeflora. While foxgloves are usually treated as biennials, they are much finer if carried over a third season, when they make big, handsome clumps. BALTIMORE. John Cook, Veteran Rosarian. (This is the first installment of Tate's story of the life and achievements of John Cook, of Haltimore, famous as a producer of new varie- ties of roses. The second will appear in an early issue.) My long delayed visit to our friend John Cook has been made, for Saturday I spent a mighty pleasant afternoon with him. Now, this is the first time I had seen him in almost twenty years. He is now 84 years of age, yet I found him hale and hearty and able to superin- tend his fine place. Although the great- er part of the management falls to his two sons, he is a mighty good man to have about in an advisory capacity. Bom in Germany. But here I am running ahead of my story. Let us begin at the beginning of the life of the man who has done as much to put Baltimore on the map as any other son she may have. For wher- ever Eadiance, My Maryland, Francis Scott Key and Baltimore, itself, are grown, and there is no corner of the United States or Canada where they are not, any one of these varieties suggests the metropolis of the south. It was in the little town of Freiburg, on the Ehine, that John Cook first saw the light of day in 1833. At the age of 14 his education (that is, the part he acquired in school, for he told me Satur- day that it is still going on) came to an end and he started to learn the flo- rists' business. Now, instead of being paid for his labors, he was obliged to pay for the opportunity to learn the trade. So after serving his three years he spent tliree years in the nursery business. This brought hinl to the age where he was eligible for compulsory military duty and so, like many more of his countrymen, he turned his back on the land that had given him birth to be- gin a new life in a new land. His First Baltimore Position. It was in 1853 that this German boy, 20 years of age, with no assets but a rugged constitution and a thorougli knowledge of the florists' and nursery business, landed in New York and se- cured a position with David Clark, of
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John Cook. that city, with whom he stayed about a year. Then he drifted to Baltimore. Now, in those days Eobert J. Halliday's es- tablishment on Pennsylvania avenue was a sort of training school for young gardeners coming to this country. So it was natural that John Cook, in our city without work and with only a poor command of the language, should find in this old Scotchman a friend. As we talked over the past and Mr. Cook was telling me what a taskmaster liis em- ployer was, he said that in all of his 84 years he had never found a truer friend than Eobert J. Halliday. It was not long before. Mr. Halliday found out the ability of the young Ger- man, to whom he was paying the prince- ly sum of $10 per month and his board, and one day he told him: "Jolui, I am not able to pay you what you are wortli, but when the right man comes along I am going to put you on a private place. ■' Cook saw some of his fellow-employ- ees go out to now positions and was be- ginning to tliink he was forgotten. But one day J. Howard McHenry, a man of unlimited means and refined tastes, who was about to erect some new conserva- tories to cost about $10,000, a big sum in those days, wanted a gardener who could superintend tlie construction and stocking of tliem and asked Mr. Halli- day if he had such a man. He was told he had. John Cook was called into the office. Ho was then 22 years of age. As Mr. McHenry looked him over he said: "Wliy, Mr. Halliday, I want a man of some experience, not a boy." I imagine I can see him now in his broadclotli coat and his long pointed stock collar as he replied: "Mr. Mc- Henry, you asked me to recommend you a gardener. Knowing just what you want and just what will be required of him, if I did not know that this young man would prove satisfactory in every respect I would not recommend him." Well, Mr. Cook was engaged at $25 per month. But when he went to the office after his -money, and the money to pay his assistants, Mr. McHenry gave him $35 instead of the $25 he had been engaged for. This place is still one of the show places about Baltimore. His next place wns with W. F. Frick, whose fine estate passed to his daugh- ter, who was the wife of Eobert Garrett, president of tlie B. & O. E. E., and again Mr. Cook was givt'ii carte blanche to make this one of the finest places about tlie city. Upland grounds stand today a monument to tlie skill and ability of John Cook. Hillside a Labor of Love. But across Edmondson avenue was a tract of about thirty acres that attract- ed Mr. Cook's attention because it was hilly. This brings us to Hillside, the liome and range of John Cook today. But before we talk about the commer- cial end, let us look for a few moments at the part whir-li is about liis homo. As you sit on the porch and look over the well-kept lawn, with its fine specimens of trees of various kinds of hardwood— most of tliem there before the owner— fine, stately evergreens and a well- curved drive, you cannot help but real- ize that there is somotliiiig more than the skill and ability of the landscape gardener here displayed—the genuine affection of tlio man who is building a home for those he loves best. As he sits

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