The Arkansas Farmer

Bank Sponsors
Flower Club
By Mrs. Everett Tucker, Tucker, Ark.
Mrs. G. Y. Hancock, of West 29th street, Pine Bluff, Ark., who won first prize for single perfect blossom in the third annual chrysanthemum show sponsored by the Merchants and Planters Bank and Trust Co. of Pine Bluff. This was the first prize won by her, after exhibiting in each show. The stem measured four feet, foliage was perfect, and the blossom was a huge white one.
This bank was the first in Arkansas to sponsor a flower club, culminating in a show, and is probably the only bank in the country sponsoring an annual chrysanthemum club and show. The chrysanthemum was chosen because of its prolific and hardy nature, free blooming habit, ease of culture, and popularity both as a cut flower and a garden plant.
Each year six plants of fine varieties of chrysanthemums are given to each club member, with a bulletin on chrysanthemum culture written by Miss Vivian Hawkins, Home Demonstration Agent for Jefferson county. She cooperates with the bank in its project designed to promote interest in home grounds and home ownership, by giving any help and advice needed besides the bulletin given with the plants as well as those sent every six weeks during the growing season.
Flowers are exhibited each autumn in the bank lobby from half past three till 9 p. m., during which time an orchestra plays.
Fourteen cash prizes are offered to amateurs. Professionals are invited to exhibit for advertising purposes, and because their exhibits give amateurs a standard of excellence for comparison with their flowers. By special request a few prizes are offered for roses, but it is a chrysanthemum show.
Claud Woolsey, formerly horticulturist for Arkansas, and now of Washington, who acted as judge for the 1929 show, says: "The chrysanthemum show of the flower club of the Merchants and Planters Bank and Trust Co. of Pine Bluff is certainly the best amateur show in the South and ranks very close with the best established shows of the North and West."