Page:The Tales of a Traveller.djvu/92

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The Tales of a Traveler

on Main and High streets, Buffalo, and Mike Bloy of Detroit, Mich. Both men still refer to their former employer with the deepest admiration.

Mike Bloy, now a very successful grower of Detroit, received his first instructions at the hands of William Scott in Buffalo. Mr. Scott had the faculty of discerning the abilities and possibilities in men. He saw in young Mike the successful florist of the future. And he gave him all the chance to develop. After being in Scott's employ for a number of years, he drifted out West, working for a while in Denver, Col. Later, he came to Cleveland, and assumed the management of the J. M. Gasser Company's large greenhouse range at Rocky River, a suburb of Cleveland. Subsequently, he saw his chance in Detroit, and took it. The Rackham Greenhouses, on Van Dyke street in Detroit, were for sale, and Mr. Bloy purchased them. At that time, although it is comparatively of recent date, that section of the city was not promising much in the way of retail trade. For a while Mr. Bloy confined himself to the wholesale market. During the past few years, however, the tremendous growth of Detroit has affected all sections; and Mr. Bloy's trade grew apace. At the present time, he enjoys a most prosperous retail business in the thriving Michigan metropolis.

Louis Neubeck stepped out of Scott's establishment a finished all-around grower. His knowledge of the growing end of the business, no less than his business acumen, soon brought him to the front ranks among the successful florists of Buffalo. At any season of the year, it is a pleasure to go through his greenhouses, and feast your eyes upon plants worthy of an exhibition hall.

Mr. Scott's own sons conduct the business now under the name of the William Scott Company. They are Alex, William, and Robert; the last named attends to the financial end of the business, while the other two take charge of the growing end. The success of their father is perpetuated by his worthy sons.

Another son, David J. Scott, is located in Corfu, N. Y., and grows largely for the wholesale market, shipping to Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago, St. Louis, and other points. He grows a miscellaneous stock of cut flowers, and is very successful in his business.


The Palmers of Buffalo

Buffalo had other distinguished men whose reputation extended far beyond the limits of the city and the State of their abode. The late W. J. Palmer was a man of distinctive personality. I never had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Palmer personally, but what I heard about him during my frequent visits to Buffalo, long after his demise, leads me to believe that there was a man who planned well and left a marked influence upon the future growth and development of floriculture in his city.

His worthy successor, W. J. Palmer, Jr., a man whose greatest fault is his exceeding modesty, took up the good work of his father, and carried it on in a way that outstrips even his father's most sanguine hopes. He has two stores in Buffalo, and they are among the finest in the country. The business transacted mounts into high figures. His greenhouses at Lancaster, N. Y., have been completely rebuilt, and are under the most efficient management of Barney Meyer, a man who entered the employ of Palmer, Sr., as an errand boy, and graduated into one of the few very successful growers and managers in the country.

Mr. Palmer is among the few men to recognize the value of a college education as a means to lift the profession of horticulturist to the high standard of efficiency it deserves. His son Max, a boy of about twenty-two, is a graduate of Cornell University, where he took the horticultural course. He has now the opportunity to apply his theoretical knowledge to practical work. And to see young Max attired in a pair of overalls roaming among the Carnation and Rose plants, making notes, testing one thing, experimenting with another, is to be forced to the