The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-04-01
In New York
Rx PAUL HARRISON

New York-This is a busy time for Mrs. Ethmel Ely Pattison, q stout adn genial lady who has be- come America'sfforem seed ex- pert, The worlds foremost seed ex- pert. for all l know; anyway, she's called into consultation by foreign departments of agriculture.
 Chancse are she had something to do with the seeds you are plant ing in your own gardens, for many of the companies which issue these burbling catalogues call on her Tor advice and analyses. One crop Of seds may look exactly like another yet be very different in virility' or adaptability, or resistence to disease.
 That's where Mrs. Pattison comes in. For eight years she has had a laboratory down or Park Place with assistants, micro scopes, retorts. culture tube, thermostatic germinators and boxes of loam. Give her seed of flower, fruit, vegetable or grain and shell tell you what sort or forebears 1t had, what diseases it's susceptible to, what climate II needs, and how rapidly 1t Will grow. She has inspected most or the seeds planetd in recent years on the estates of wealthy NeW Workers. Golf and polo clubs, ana the arrangements of flying heids. bring her soil samples and ask what's best to plant.
 Tobacco cOmpanic regularly send her seed for testing. 50 do the governments of Haiti ana Liberia (cotton seed, mostlO. She also devises insecticides and fun gicides. Soviet Russia Is her big best single client. She has made five trips there, representing not only herself but several American seed and nursery companies. She finds everything intensely inter- ting, even the flowers she grows for her personal amusement. Plant Doctor
 Less of speicalist, but just as practical, in her sphere, is Misa Helen Ludlam, a Manhattan flower doctor. Khile Mrs. Pattison holds consultations on tho crops or na- tions, Miss Ludlam goes around minlstering to the discouraged l window boxes and penthouse gar- dens of New Workers.
 You'd be surprised, she says, to see how much q rich banker can wory about a languishing gerani- um. She went to the offices of prominent publisher to plant some window boxes and was surlily re- ceived because, 1t seemed. he was much too busy to have her around. He began watching her out of the corner of an eye as she prepared the earth for tucking in her plants. It was too much for him. He knocked off work for the day and l followed her from room to room | in the suite, chattering about gar- | dening. Got to be quite a nui- sance, really, and she wanted 10 tell him to get back to his silly | dictating.
 Miss Ludlam never gets over be- ing astonished at the ignorance of New Workers, who seem to love l flowers in a wistful way. but don't know how to care for them. She is associated with flower com pany, the Hawthorne, in Green wich Village, and has to answer lot of complaints. Usually the l trouble is entirely elemental--peo- | pie persist in putting fiowe.s on hot radiators, and many deliber- ately refrain from giving them any water. Afraid water might rot the
 roots, or something.
 u t.fh
 Fatal Errors
 One fact I learned is that cut flowers cant be kept long in cop
 per vases. People are forever cail- l ing up and complaining that I t0f fn l and usually 1t turns out that Q copper vase has wilted them. Cop per pieces that have been lacquer
 ed inside are all right. There are
 other causes, of course. Custc-
 mers have hard time believing
 that draughts are bad for flowers, dehydrating them. Food ,Odors
 are bad, too: that's why restau-
 rants have trouble keeping blooms
 fresh. Ono swanlSy Manhattan
 restaurant spent young fortune
 keeping fresh flowers on big
 marble mantlepiece. Miss LudIam
 couldn't detect any food odorD
 there, finally discovered that .
 draught was drying out the
 blooms.
 A few years ago she was hish-
 iy-paid writer for . magazine in
 Hollywood. Put all her money ir-
 to q production venture, came to
 New York and went broke. She
 began selling dahiias from q
 friends farm. Later she secuted
 through Connecticut woods for
 bayberries and bittersweet. For
 awhile 1t was tough going finan-
 cialiy. Physically, though, 1t was
 her happiest venture; what with
 tramping through htef woods ana
 climbing trees for blttcrswAst. she lnAt 70 hounds.