ordinary business communications. Her annual descriptive catalogs have been commented upon not only in this country but in Europe as well, for the lucidity and precision of her way of describing every flower and variety.
My business connection with the E. G. Hill Company has been both profitable and pleasant for the past eighteen years.
During my younger days, in Russia, I often entertained the aspiration of becoming a journalist; in fact, my imagination carried me much further than that. I had visions of myself startling the world with great poetry, novels, and plays. Alas for the dreams of youth! Upon my landing in this country, I was correspondent for a while for a few Russian papers. For a time I entertained the same idea here. But Fate decreed otherwise. I married and had a family. As Bacon has said, "He who hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune." It is a matter of debate whether a man is spurred on to greater efforts by the responsibility that rests upon him when he is accountable for other lives besides his own, or whether that responsibility hampers him and impedes his race for success. In any event, certain it is that a married man must lay aside his dreams and deal with practical issues. Whether he is the better or the worse for that is the question.
Translating for the Newspapers
In my particular case it meant that my dreams of authorship had to make way for some more practical activity. I found it, as I have already set forth, first in florists' supplies, and thence by a natural step in horticulture. But something of the old impulse remained with me. I conceived the idea of translating some of the Russian works, and in the evenings, when my day's work was over, I would give myself up to translations.
Some of the writer's Russian translations appeared in the Philadelphia Times, now extinct, in The Evening News, and in the Sunday School Times. Before that I had translated, in conjunction with Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole, a well-known man of letters now in Boston, a novel called "The Vital Question," which in the '60's created quite a furore in Russian society. We got a publisher for it, and the little sum it brought in was a very opportune help to me. That was in the early days before my association with the florists' business. When I say that just about then I had had printed in one of the newspapers an article, "How to live on $8 a week," which was based upon sober experience, it will be well understood how opportune that help was.
Entering the Field of Trade Journalism
My journalistic tendencies naturally led me to turn toward trade journalism. The little sum I could realize every week would be a welcome addition to my legitimate income. So one day while in Chicago I called upon Mr. G. L. Grant, at that time editor of the American Florist, and suggested to him the idea of supplying him with trade notes from various towns on my route. Mr. Grant agreed to accept my notes, and pay for them, providing I would confine myself to matter of interest to the trade, outlining the work I was to do. In addition, he offered me the chance to solicit subscriptions to the journal, and advertisements. I commenced my work, and for a few years thereafter I supplied him with weekly notes from many centers on my route, signing my articles "Homo." The work, at first dull and arduous, became quite a pleasant task in the end. I would do this work in the trains, now and then at the railroad station while waiting for a train, and more often on Sunday morning at the hotel. Much as I endeavored to hide my identity, "Homo" and I soon became one to the florists. I was often welcomed, not as a representative of horticultural houses, but as a correspondent for the American Florist. It was amusing how some little grower would take me through
