Evening star., 1925-11-01

being held at the greenhouses
of the Department Of Agricul-
Il ture marks a quarter of cen
tury of such flower shows in
the National Capital, which have be-
come famous in this country as well
as abroad.
Today visitors from nearly every
State in the Union and many foreign
countries are trooping along the aisles
between handsome blossoms, some of
which rear their heads eight and ten
feet in the air. Before the week IS
over, nearly 900 diplomats. pluto
Gratis, autocrats and street gamins will
have proved their love Of flowers
The event has a human interest
story behind it, for the mum" show in
the FAN and the amaryllis show in the
Spring-incidentally the only one of
its kind in the United States-have
been staged over a period of 20 years
by two men, father and son.
Back in 1901 Edward NJ. Byfnes
originated the mum" shows of the
Department Of Agriculture. He came
to the Bureau of Plant Industry when
it was first organized from the propa-
eating gardens of the War Depart
ment, across from the Bureau of En-
craving and Printing, where all the
flowers for the public parks and
squares Of the city are grown.
His sole purpose in showing the
flowers was TO get the people inter
ested in them. How admirably he has
succeeded the crowds OF the week at
test. In February of last year, after
% years in the Government service,
he passed his work on to his son, j.
Wise Byrnes, who had been his under
study and who had learned from his
master all the highly specialized work
required to produce the gorgeous bios
SONS on display.
On the middle table of the exhibi-
ton house there are between 1900 and
I 400 ChrySanthemumS in nearly every
conceivable shade and hue and each
bloom represents a plant. On the side
tables there are about 500 plants with
clusters of hundreds of pompons. 1t
represents three days work of several
men merely TO place the plants on the
center table alone. They have been
arranged according to height to form
several waves in order TO throw the
most blossoms possible directly within
| the line of vision. If there had been
any attempt TO arrange them accord
ing to color the task would have been
a longer one.
Each night during the week of the
show, while the city sleeps, workmen
carefully take out fading blossoms
ana replace JleIn with IGeSn ones. so
that the ranks of flower soldiers shall
remain unsullied. Sometimes this
means that as many as 400 plants
have to be replaced in single night.
When the elder Byrnes staged the
first show he used the Japanese
chrysanthemum, as it was known to
the trade of that day. Since that
time hundreds of new varieties have
been added. Some of them have been
originated in the department, and
others are varieties originated by
commercial growers which have been
purchased by the department and
grown especially for the show
Many Of the new varieties which
appear in the present collection have
been produced by cross pollination in
the greenhouses of about 80 of the
principal florists of this country. Oc-
| casionaily new variety comes. The
new varieties originated by the De-
partment of Agriculture are given to
commercial growers, and in this man
ner they get into the trade, for the
department is not allowed TO sell any
variety 1t may originate