The Dahlia Blue Book for 1957

This is not a pulp magazine but a commercial catalog for Rocky River Dahlia Gardens (now operating from Columbia Station, Ohio), their twenty-seventh annual "Blue Book." The catalog contains horticultural information rather than fiction. It includes the nursery's greeting and relocation notice to customers, discussion of experimental pest-control developments by Dr. R. B. Neiswander of Ohio Experiment Station using systemic poisons on dahlias, ordering policies regarding deposits and shipping, detailed descriptions of the nursery's dahlia plant offerings (green plants, rooted cuttings, pot roots, and clumps), and specifications for dahlia classification by size, flower type, and color. The catalog concludes with a dahlia variety listing, including descriptions of Rocky River introductions like "Barbara Jean," a ten-inch pink cactus dahlia that won certificates of merit at trial grounds in 1955-1956.