North Carolina Newspapers

THE PILOT, Southern Pines and Aberdeen. North Carolina Friday, May 6, 1938 New Greenhouse Gives Plant of Carolina Orchid Growers, Knollwood, 30,000 Square Feet Under Glass Buildings Contain 30,000 Flow ering Plants of Some 600 Species of Orchids ONE OF LARGEST IN U. S. By BKN BOUDEX But few Sandliills residents, and even fewer visitors to the section, are aware tiiat Southern Pines is the home of a great manufacturing plant, and that what it manufac tures is plants—orchid plants. The project started back in 192o ■when Judge and Mrs. William A. Way began to experiment in orchid culture, in a small way, out in the Knollwood section. At that time it wag strictly a hobby with them and the greenhouse area under glass was limited to their modest requirements. In the intervening twelve years, however, and with the recent com pletion of a new 5,000 square foot, ateel and concrete, thoroughly mod- em addition to one of the buildings, the Carolina Orchid Growers, Inc.— tliat'.«» the great commercial enter prise that has grow’n out of the hob- Tjy has 30,000 square feet under glass and ranks with eight or ten others as the third largest commer cial orchid greenhouse in the United States. Only two other such enter prises, one in Bound Brook, N. J., And one in California, are larger. At the present time there ai’e ap proximately 30,000 flowering plants of some 600 different varieties of or- chid.s in the nine greenhouses and Ihe.'W plants produce some 30,000 lilooms annually. In addition to the flowering plants, however, there are many thousands of other plants varyinST in size from the |tLniest .seedling’s only a few weeks old to large, strong, healthy ones seven and •eight years old that w’ill bloom for the first time some time within the next year. Marketing the Orchids 'Pheir j)rincipal nvvrketa, Judge Way says, are the retail florists ■along the eastern seaboard from Washington to Florida. From them Jie receives daily wires, phone calls and letters icommunicating ^heir wants and the orders are filled and shipped the same day they are receiv- <d. Other markets are the retail and wholesale florists in Philadel phia, New York and Boston, to whom .are shipped the surplus and the great majority of the rarer blooms. There are definite styles in or chids, according to the Judge, and these styles change from time to time just as do the styles in clothes, Automobiles and other necessities and luxuries that vve associate with our •daily lives. But by style, when re ferring to orchids, is meant the col- «r rather than the shape of the Woom, for the shape is pretty well ■confined to that of the South Amer ican Cattleya, the principal type of eommcrciai orchid, of which there are some half-dozen species that ;prow wild, and from which an infi nite variety of hybrids of varying colors have been produced for com mercial purposes. At the present time the style in orchids is running jtrongly to those of the deeper lav- endars «md purples and to blooms with white petals and deeply colored •lips,” as the large center section the orchid is known. The native, or pure-bred, orchid, we learned, is not as commercially Taluable as the hybrid. The plant Ttfcclf, none too strong and the Woom is more apt than not to be of inferior color and texture. As a re mit, man has found it necessary to improve upon nature in the produc- ilon or orchids for the commercial ■market, and he has done this t« a surprising degree and in a manner tliat is little short of bewildering to (he layman who has the process ex- :plained to him and sees the results that have been accomplished by this process. During the course of the years, as breeder after breeder has cross-bred ■ative species of orchids and then recrossed the resulting hybrids with »ther hybrids or with other native jfpeciea, there has been built up an ■amazing total of named and regis tered hybrid varieties of orchids that is estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these have been found to constitute no improvement ■aver existing varieties and further <xperimentation with and develop, ment of the strain has been drop ped. But frequently an outstanding new bloom of distinctive color and characteristics is developed and the indu.'Jtry at large benefits from the discovery. Pure White Flower As a matter of fact, Judge and Mrs, Way have recently iucceeded in <feveIoping as close an aoproach to a,pure white orchid as haa ever been Attained by any orchid grcwer. They Kiwanis Hears, Lauds S. P. School Glee Club Members Insist on More When Youngsters Finish Program at Highland Pines The Sandhills Kiwanis Club was convinct-d on Wednesday that South ern Pines has a glee club that is a glee club. Prof. Frederick Stanley Smith brought his high school boyg and girls to the Highland Pines Inn tor the club’s weekly meeting, and they sang a number of the songs V. hich have landed them in first place ic State cnmpetitlons for several years. They acored such a hit Wed nesday the Kiwanians continued to sit after Prof. Smith had announced the show was over, so the youngsters sang some more. Charles W. Picquet voiced the sen timent of the Kiwanis club when he congratulatod Mr. Smith and the glee club members on the excellence of their performance, and further congratulated the Southern Pines School Board and the Board of Com missioners on making possible the training in music which these young people are receiving. GOOD LEGAL NOTICES (Top) General view of the offices and greenhouses of the Carolina Or chid Grow’ers, Inc., owned and oper ated by Judge and Mrs. William A. Way, located at Knollwood on the outskirts of Southern Pines. There are about 30,000 square feet imder glass in the nine greenhouses, mak ing it one of the third largest orchid growing enterprises in the United States with an annual production of approximately 30,000 blooms. (Lower left) General view of the interior of the new, 4,000 square foot addition to the greenhouses. This addition, built by K. M. Gamer of Aberdeen is of steel and concrete construction and the tiers are arranged so that all of the plants are equi-distant from the roof and therefore will all get an equal amount of sun. (Low er right) Cross section view' of the new greenhouse showing the arrange ment of,the tiers, the board walk throus'h the center of the building to allow attendants access to every plant in the building and the venti lating space above the coke beds that hold moisture and provide the humidity necessary to the success ful growing of orchids. have not yet reached the point where they are producing these blooms in any great quantity, but what few blooms they can put on the market are commanding top prices. In addition to the Cattleya, there i are several other species of orchids that enjoy some measure of com mercial popularity and it is with these and with still others, of in terest almost entirely to the breed er alone in his experimental work, that the great orchid greenhouses are concerned. The hybridizing of the plants, as Judge Way explained aijd illustrated through the medium of the plants in his greenhouses in their various stages of development, is a fascinat ing and painstaking process, the first step of which consists of the artificial fertilization of the bloom of one of the chosen species with the pollen of the other. Then nature is allowed to take its course for sev eral months until the seed pod on the stem of the fertilized plant has swollen and burst. The seed is then collected for planting in a tightly sealed jar containing a jelly-like mix ture of agar-agar, water and chemi cal nutriments upon w'hich it will subsist during this stage of its de velopment. When the seeds have taken root and the young roots start to tjhow in the jar the tiny plants, or seed lings, are removed from the jars and carefully packed in small pots filled with the chopped up roots of the osmuda fern and are carefully tended for a year or so until they begin to outgrow their quarters. Then, at ap proximate intervals of a year, as they gi’ow larger and larger, the plants are thinned out and repotted years, they produce their blooms. If the hybridization is an experimen tal one the grower just sits and waits for that length of time to find out what he is going to get. If, on the other hand, the same two species have been crossed before, he can be absolutely certain that the results will be exactly the same as the re sult that was achieved previously. Fairly Hardy Plant And all of this nursing, planting, potting and repotting takes place under the most rigid and exacting requirements as to temperature, hu midity, ventilation and watering, calculated to simulate the tropical conditions under which the native species grow in their wild states. And, contrary to the general impres sion, the orchid is a reasonably hardy plant and stands up well under hand ling. In connection with the hybridizing process. Judge Way stated that na tive hybrids, or hybrids in their wild state, are practically unknovra to the professional collectors from whom orchid growers purchase their wild plants. The reason is that the differ ent cycles of wild orchids grow in distinctly separated parts of tke world and that it is practically im possible for insects of any kind to travel the distances that would be necessary in order to carry the pol len from one species to another in order to produce a native hybrid. By the hybridization process, also, the grower is able to assure him self of a constant supply of blooms to meet his market requirements for, although the orchid in its native state blooms at regular intervals that cannot be altered, the bloom ing: of the hybrid can often be de termined in advance. An orchid flower is not cut from the plant the moment it blooms, for growers have found that allowing it to remain on the plant for a day or so gives it a chance to become more firm and marketable. Then, after it has been cut, it is placed in a cool place for a day or more before it is in ideal shipping condition. An or chid will keep, under proper condi tions (principally a reasonable amount of humidity and daily clip ping of the stem) for from two to three weeks. So the next time you buy an orchid don’t wonder at the price. It will have been the result of eight or nine years of constant and expensive care under exacting conditions and if you could but see that process you would wonder that they can afford to sell an orchid at almost any price. And if you want to see for your- self what goes on in an orchid green. hou.se. Judge and Mrs. Way will be glad to show you around and tell you all about it. It's a charitable side-line with them. They charge the nominal sum of $1.00 per person for a tour of the premises and all of the proceeds go to the Sandhills Kiwan is Club’s Hospital Bed Fund to pro vide free hospitalization for under privileged children at the Moore County Hospital. Democratic Meeting The Democrats of the Southeni Pines Precinct will meet at the Municipal Building on Saturday af ternoon, May 7th at 4:00 o’clock. At this meeting the Precinct Committee will be elected and also the delegates to the County Convention on May 14th, at Carthage. All Democrats are requested to attend, GEORGT G. HERR Chairman, Southern Pines Democratic Precinct Committee FURNITURE If it’s for the Hume the Place to Buy is from McLEAN Southern Pines ^ Aberdeen We are the oldest, largest and the most complete Home I Furnishers in Moore County. McLEAN FURNITURE CO. EASY TERMS IF DESIRED NOTICE OF FOKKl^LOSLKE SAUU Notice is hereby given that under and pursuant to the power of sale ■ contained in a certain mortgage deed I of the 29th of August, 1929, by Ger trude Brown, widow to Thos. S. Bur gess, same being recorded in the public Registry of Moore County, in Book of Mortgage.s No. 46, at page 551, default having been made in the I payment of the indebtedness secur- I ed thereby and the power of sale ; therein contained having become op. 1 erative, the undersigned Administra- I trix of the estate of the late Thos. S. Burgess, will, on the 17th day of May, 1938, at the Courthouse door I in Carthage, Moore County, North ! Carolina, at 12 o'clock noon, sell at ' public outcry to the highest bidder i for cash, all those certain lots, tracts or parcels of land in McNeills Town- .ship, Moore County, North Carolina, described as follows, towit: Those certain lots situated in the town of Southern Pines, designated as Lot No. Nine (9) in Block M and Thirteen (13), and that portion i of Lot Number Ten (10) in said Block M. and Thirteen (13) immed iately adjacent to Lot Number Nine (9), and having a frontage of 34 feet on New York Avenue, said lots beings according to the official map of the Town of Southern Pines, which map is of public record in Moore County, N. C. This the 16th day of April, 1938. MRS. MOLLIE BURGESS, Administratrix Estate Thos. S. Burgess. A22-M13 .\D>fINlSTR.\TOR’S NOTICE USED Having qualified as administra tor of the estate of Erastus E, Holt, deceased, late of Moore County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons having claims against the estate of said deceased, to exhibit them to the undersigned at South ern Pines, N. C., on or before the 15th day of April, 1939 or this no tice will be pleaded in bar of their lecovery. All persons indebted to said estate will please make immediate pay ment. This April 15th, 1938. F. W. VAN CAMP, Administrator of the Estate of Erastus E. Holt, deceased. A15M20. 1935 Chevrolet Station-Wag on. Mechanically perfect, good appearance. Priced low for quick sale. 1936 Chevrolet 1 1-2 ton truck. Good condition. Very low price. Six 1933 Chevrolet Sedans and coachcs, all thoroughly reconditioned and priced reasonably. 1937 Chevrolet 1 1-2 ton truck. Runs and looks al most like new. Extra good tires. 1937 DeLuxe Sports Sedan. One of the best used cars we have ever had to offer. Our complete stock totals 45 units, all of which are un surpassed in quality. See them today. MID-SOUTH MOTORS, INC. Chevrolet Sales-Service Aberdeen PhoHe 59 NOTICE OF SALE OF NOTES $7,500,00 TOWN OF SOl'THEIlN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA, REVENUE ANTICIP.VTION NOTES Sealed bids will be received until 11:00 o'clock a. m.. May 11, 1938, by the Local Government Comuiisaion of North Carolina, at its office in Raleigh, for the above notes, dated May 10, 1938 and maturing October 10, 1938, withoat option of prior payment. There will be no auction Notes will t?e a.varded at the lov'est interest rate not exceeding 6 percent for which a h;d of par and accrued interest is made. Principal and in terest payable at place of purchas ers choice if specified at time bid is made. Interest payable at ma turity. Notes will in denomination or denominations to suit purchaser if specified at lime bid is made. Bid ders must present with their bids a certified check upon an incorporated bank or trust company, payable un- conditional'.y to me order of t.'ie State Treasurer for $37.50. Tha right to reject all bids is reserved. LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSION, By: W. E Easterling, Secretary. PIANO LESSONS Harmony and History of Music. Mrs. Claude Hafer McBrayer Building Southern Pines Qaneral (Dlrecbm 24HOUR AMBULANCE SERVICE PHONE 6161-SOUTHERN PINES To serve those who call npoa os to the beat of oor ability aad nith thouf^htful fUme« H Um basis upon which our orgmnintloB Is formsd. H. G. MoELROT Manager B. V. PERKINSON General Contrmetor Storasre Southern Pines, N. C. T«1 5039 M. H. POLLEY Lumber, Millwork and Builders’ Supplies Aberdeen Hemp