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Yankee Yarns 43-03-08 (x) The Flower Show
00:11:27
Yankee Yarns 43-03-08 (x) The Flower Show
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- [00:03]
A
With New Year's resolutions, many of us will make a vow to eat healthier. And that's a good thing. But what about our beloved pets and their Nutrition? Greetings. Naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black here and I'm on a mission to provide better nutrition for cats and dogs. Because truthfully, all pet food is dead food, which is why we created Ruff Greens and Meow Greens in the first place. We bring their food back to life with live vitamins, minerals, probiotics, enzymes, omega oils, antioxidants, and so much more. All in a tasty formula that your dog and cat will love. You can improve your pet's coat digestion energy and have less vet bills. Let 2025 bring a new year and a new pet. Get a jump start trial bag. Normally $20 get 100% discount with promo code Best friend. You just cover the shipping. Go to rough greens.com use promo code best Friend. Bring your pet's food back to life with rough greens so good your pet will ask for it by name.
- [01:00]
B
Good evening. When I told you last Friday that Mrs. Hiller hired Horticultural hall in Boston and draped it with black velvet, I did not know that it was a different hall from the one on Huntington Avenue where the annual spring flower show will be held from March 18th to the 25th. So many folks wanted to know more about Mrs. Hiller and how long her casket was on display. I went up to Horticultural hall and asked the secretary of the society, Mr. Edward I. Farrington, what he knew about this bizarre performance. Right off the bat, Mr. Farrington explained that in those days the Society occupied a three story building down on Tremont street near Bromfield, and that the records had been destroyed in a fire on Sunday afternoon, December 30, 1889. It seems that a Mr. Francis D. Egan was preparing to give an illustrated lecture in the hall that evening, and he was disturbed because the chandelier that hung in front of the balcony cast a shadow on the picture screen. So he said to his operator, Sidney, see what you can do about those lamps. Sydney unscrewed the whole business and was engulfed in a rush of illuminating gas. All expert operators who run lanterns and projectors for lecturers carry a complete assortment of safety pins, thumbtacks and screwdrivers. And this one had a cock stopper in his pocket, which he shoved into the open gas pipe. And while he was focusing the lantern, he thought he could still smell gas. And the surest way of finding out was to light a match, which he did. And by the time the fire Department arrived. The flames had eaten up through the partitions to the stage and were breaking through the roof. Most of the records were burned up, and that's why I can't tell you how many folks went to see Mrs. Hiller's casket. Many times over this microphone, I have praised individual Yankees for their persistence and fortitude in the face of hardship. Tonight I want to say a word of praise for men and women who long ago banded themselves together for the purpose of studying the plants and flowers and fruits and vegetables upon which life itself depends. Here we are, all set to start the greatest of all victory gardens and the most stupendous planting of crops in the world's history, an undertaking that staggers the imagination. And how many of us ever give a thought to the Yankee pioneers who made this possible? When you look in your favorite magazine at color plates of a table loaded down with good things to eat or listen to the helpful hints that come over the radio about how to plan and plant a garden, when you get a book from the library or go to horticultural hall to ask about some little known blossom, bug or beetle, you are cashing in on the efforts of unselfish, patriotic Yankees of more than a century ago. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the first thing they did was to send out scouts in search of native fruits and vegetables. They came back with a few ears of Indian corn, some dried peas, and a few pumpkins in exchange for seeds that had been brought over on the Mayflower. The friendly Indians showed the Pilgrims how to fertilize the corn by putting a herring or a horseshoe crab in each hill. And by the middle of March, 1621, 20 acres of corn had been planted and 6 acres of barley and peas. In 1648, Peregrine White planted the first apple trees down there in Marshfield, and long before that, Governor Endicott had set out his famous pear tree at Salem. The first hothouse in America was built behind governor Bellingham's house on Tremont street in Boston. And the finest hothouse was on the farm of Thomas Hancock, where the state house now stands. A man named Gardiner Greene was the first to build a house of glass in which to raise fruit and vegetables. And Greene's glass house became the first greenhouse all over the country. Then there were individual men and women such as these, experimenting and grafting, crossing one variety with another to produce new and better fruits and vegetables. When I walk into horticultural hall next week and see flowers and shrubs from every one of our 48 states assembled into a great American garden and Gardens from England, China and Russia, and a tropical jungle from Latin America with palm trees, bananas and orchids growing alongside a 20W waterfall. I shall think about the grand old timers who used to sit in John Russell's seed store down near Fennel hall and talk about the crops and the New England weather. One winter day in 1829, one of them said, why don't we all get together and form a society? We can swap ideas and tools and seeds. So the editor of the New England Farmer put a notice in his magazine that there was to be a meeting in Zebedee Cook's office at 7 and a half Congress street on February 24th. It turned out to be a wild, blustery day with snow drifts six feet deep. But by noon, 16 men had arrived at Mr. Cook's office. There were the breeds of Lynn, who would set out the first shade trees in the Shoe City. Samuel Downer of Dorchester, the man who produced the famous Downer cherry. Enoch Bartlett of Roxbury, who developed the best pear you ever sank your teeth into. Old John Lowell wanted to go, but he was pretty feeble. But his next door neighbor, Cheever Newhall, wrapped him up in blankets and put hot bricks in the sleigh and they drove in. A discouraging time, it would seem, to think of farming and flower planting. But the rigors of our New England climate only serve to call out and develop the best characteristics of those hardy horticulturists. The first president of the society was General Henry Alexander Scammell Dearbet, and there were but 160 original subscribers, a far cry from the 7,000 members of the present Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which this year is staging its 73rd consecutive exhibition, the only big flower show in America. Other famous societies in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago threw up their hands in dismay at the very thought of staging a show in wartime. But Mr. Edwin S. Webster, who has been president for 12 years, and the exhibition committee under director Arno H. Knerling, felt that because of the war the show must go on. And for a solid year they have overcome one difficulty after another. They said, we've already been through four wars and we're in a fifth one. And we know that a flower show does a heap of good to the saddened spirits and the worn out nerves of city folks. Why, they walk in here from the noisy, war torn world of windblown papers and rubbish with the newsboy shouts of the latest bombing in their ears. And behold, they're in a land of loveliness, a place of peace. And quiet and beauty where the very air is sweet with the perfume from the fairest flowers that ever lifted their perfect heads to the morning sun. Why, it's like stepping out of an iron foundry into the cool, quiet woods of New Hampshire. It makes you realize that peace will come again and that flowers will cover the ruins and rubble of war. It's good for your soul. Some of you younger folks may not know that many of the things that we have in abundance today were displayed for the first time at these spring and fall flower shows back in 1852 when the show was held in a big tent in the public gardens of Boston. Daniel Webster won first prize for having the largest and most varied exhibit. His big squashes got only second prize. And a 10 year old girl at that time showed 129 varieties of beans and won a gold medal for a squash that tipped the scales at 133lbs. And did you know that the first orchids ever seen in the United States were exhibited at a Boston flower show this year there'll be a whole room of orchids from the hothouses of Sherman Adams, E.B. dane and Thomas Rowland. The world famed Concord grape was first shown here, as was the Baldwin apple and the Bartlett Pear. And in 1921, Mr. Albert C. Burridge, then president of the society, performed what was considered a miracle at the flower show when he displayed spring and autumn wildflowers growing at the same time. The whole exhibition hall was turned into a mountain gorge with a rushing waterfall that tumbled and splashed over a rocky ledge and fell into a shadowy pool. Growing in the pine needles under the thick conifers were ferns and mayflowers and hepatica on one side of the brook, wild asters, cardinal flowers and goldenrod on the other. This seemingly impossible feat of magic was done by forcing the fall flowers and retarding those that bloom in early spring. 83,000 people passed through the turnstiles to gasp in astonishment at the marriage of May and September. Behind the inspirational angle of this year's flower show, there's a practical side to stress. Victory garden production and home food preservation. And shown for the first time anywhere will be a garden plot showing three complete seasons of planting. It's too bad the pioneers who started all this couldn't be present to see all the methods and devices that have been invented to take care of the pests that infest our crops and flowers. You know, it was years before some of those old time hard headed farmers would believe that honeybees had anything to do with fruit crops and that Apple trees had to be sprayed and corn stalks burned if one was to have perfect fruit and be free of corn borers. The founders of the Horticultural Society were missionaries in a land of unbelievers. Take, for instance, the early battles against the tent caterpillar. It was in 1874 that Marshall P. Wilder told his fellow farmers that he'd visited a place where the worms were so thick he could hear them crawling through the grass. And Mr. E.S. rand jumped up in meeting and said he'd done his darndest to get a fruit grower out in Roxbury to do something about the caterpillars in his orchard. Why, he said, he's got more than 200 trees out there, and every tree's got 12 nests of caterpillars in it. I told him, Mr. Rand went on, that we would come out and destroy those pests at no cost to him whatsoever. But all he said was, if I want to raise caterpillars in my apple trees, that's my business. Well, those were the days when any farmer would tell you that if you killed a toad, the cows would have blood in their milk and that a hair from the horse's tail placed in the rain barrel would turn into a snake overnight. If you have caterpillars in your trees, you be careful if you burn the nest. It's mighty risky on a windy day in springtime. And goodness knows we've got trouble enough as it is without fighting grass fires when we ought to be plowing and planting. Looking backward for a moment, we find that the old time farmer and fruit grower passed out of existence when the truck gardener and the professional fruit grower came along. And lately we've been depending on those nursery men and their big farms for all our fruit and vegetables. Then all of a sudden came Pearl harbor, lend lease and 10 million husky, hungry American soldiers and sailors to feed all over the world, plus a few million starving folks in far off places. Well, to avoid a food shortage, Uncle Sam rapped on the door and said, say, fellas and girls, how about raising a few heads of lettuce and some tomatoes out there in the back lot? Wouldn't you city folks like to try your hand at farming? There's plenty of land to be had out in the country. That was 1943. And did you know that last year's Victory Garden movement was the most successful nationwide project ever undertaken by the people of the United States? Well, it was, but we've got to do even better in 1944. Besides all the pretty flowers up there in Horticultural hall there is a solid, sensible, soul stirring slogan, Food Fights for Freedom. And folks, that's the real reason for this year's flower show.
- [12:29]
A
With New Year's resolutions, many of us will make a vow to eat healthier. And that's a good thing. But what about our beloved pets and their Nutrition? Greetings. Naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black here and I'm on a mission to provide better nutrition for cats and dogs. Because truthfully, all pet food is dead food. Which is why we created Ruff Greens and Meow Greens in the first place. We bring their food back to life with live vitamins, minerals, probiotics, enzymes, omega oils, antioxidants and so much more. All in a tasty formula that your dog and cat will love. You can improve your pet's coat digestion, energy and have less vet bills. Let 2025 bring a new year and a new pet. Get a Jump Start trial bag normally $20. Get 100 discount with promo code Best Friend. You just cover the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com use promo code best friend. Bring your pet's food back to life with rough greens so good your pet will ask for it by name.
- [13:27]
C
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