VI 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE— ADVERTISEMENTS 



A Justifiable Pride. 

 The J. R. Johnson Taxi Service of 

 Greenwich, Connecticut, have been ad- 

 vertising in some other Greenwich pub- 

 lications that in the heavy snowstorms 

 of December they did not increase their 

 rates. Though the advertisement for 

 some unaccountable reason was not 

 sent to us, we feel that there is so much 

 of public merit in the announcement 

 as to make it worth while for us to 

 give the company a free advertisement, 

 if these commendatory words may be 

 so considered. The fact that the com- 

 pany kept their rates unchanged dur- 

 ing one snowstorm is not in itself a 

 thing to boast of except when one com- 

 pares it with the conduct of other taxi 

 companies in Greenwich. The John- 

 son Company did what they should 

 have done. Praise to that company is 

 only an indirect reprimand to those 

 that, in the humble opinion of the edi- 

 tor of this magazine, did an unjustifi- 

 able thing. As a matter of public ser- 

 vice there is no doubt that the storm 

 was a trial to the machines, it may have 

 called for a little more gasoline and 

 have increased the expense, but that is 

 one of the exigencies of a public service 

 business. A taxi company is in the 

 class of public carriers and is no more 

 entitled to double their rates when a 

 snowstorm happens to come along than 

 is a trolley car company or a railroad 

 company or Uncle Sam in his postage 

 rates. The editor of this magazine 

 called another company with which he 

 had been accustomed to deal, supposing 

 the rate would be fifty cents. Imagine 

 his astonishment when he was in- 

 formed, after it was too late to change 

 the order, that the charge would be just 

 double that amount. If so pernicious 

 a principle were put into general prac- 

 tice, we might expect our grocer to 

 charge in a snowstorm six cents for a 



yeast cake instead of three. And if 

 we should call the doctor he would say, 

 "I will come for ten dollars instead of 

 five dollars." On the same principle 

 the clothier, the butcher, the baker, the 

 candle-stick maker might all announce 

 that they had doubled their price be- 

 cause the snow was falling and the of- 

 fice boy had difficulty in getting in to 

 light the fires. It is neither right nor 

 expedient to increase rates because of 

 every little difficulty that occurs. We 

 have not increased the price of sub- 

 scription nor the price of advertising, 

 because we believe the present emer- 

 gencies of a war to be only trans- 

 cient, that paper and cuts and 

 photographs will sometime — we hope 

 in the near future — drop back to the 

 normal. But the increase to cover 

 several months' difficulty is surely more 

 justifiable than an increase in only a 

 temporary trouble. The world war 

 seems to be making matters unsteady 

 enough without having every little 

 snowstorm increase our anxieties. We 

 say therefore that the J. R. Johnson 

 Taxi Company did only what it was 

 their duty to do, but when compared 

 with what some of their competitors 

 did the company deserve praise. 



Where to Buy Seeds. 



There are many good places at which 

 seeds may be obtained, but one of the 

 best, as we have found by experience, 

 is the house of Henry A. Dreer, Phila- 

 delphia, Pennsylvania. Attention at 

 Dreer's is always prompt and courte- 

 ous, and the seeds are always of good 

 quality. Doesn't this embody every 

 desirable quality in a good seed house? 

 No, not quite. An important factor is 

 a beautiful catalogue. Such a book be- 

 comes a horticultural and agricultural 

 textbook. Nothing of the kind is more 

 attractive than Dreer's. We suggest 



