40 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Jl'NE 



19011. 



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TROUBLES 



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Conducted by 



LEONARD 

 LAWTON 



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Of Interest to You. 



Have you troubles? Of course you 

 have, for it is a world of trouljle. 



Can your troubles be lessened? 

 Yes,. many can be avoided entirely by 

 benefiting from the experience of 

 others who have ''been through the 

 mill." 



If each reader of The Review pos- 

 sessed the experience of all olher read- 

 ers combined, he would make tew mis- 

 takes and consequently have few 

 troubles. 



It is the purpose of this department 

 to help >ou in lessening your troubles. 

 Tell us about them, no matter what 

 they may be. A postal card costs but 

 one cent and can convey a world of 

 trouble. Out of the experience of 

 many comes vi-ise counsel. No names 

 will be used, though they must be 

 signed to the communications. 



If you could have a useful reply to 

 any question on any subject, what 

 would you ask? 



Competition. 



"Competition is the life of trade, 

 but the death of prosperity." is a re- 

 vised version of the old saw. And 

 there's a good deal of truth in the 

 added words. Fair and honest com- 

 petition is really the life of trade, but 

 there are other kinds that kill the 

 prosperity of all. How may we meet 

 the last kind? There certainly musL 

 be a good way. for every poison has 

 its antidote. 



We remember a harness maker who 

 met a bad case of price cutting in an 

 effective way. A new man started up 

 near him with the avowed purpose of 

 "running him out" of the business. 

 Old customers came and said. "I dan t 

 want to trade with the new man, but 

 I can't afford to pay you $20 tor a new 

 harness when I can get just as good 

 a one from him for $15. '' "Don't do 

 it," was the reply; "save all the 

 money you can, and I will help you. 

 Go back and tell him that you can 

 get it of me for $15, too, and he will 

 probably make another reduction, 

 which you can accept." The plan was 

 followed up and the new man kept sell- 

 ing below cost until he could stand 

 the strain no longer and the sheriff 

 put up the shutters for him. It was 

 a drastic remedy and both suffered, 

 but the harness maker felt it was the 

 quickest way. 



But there are other and better ways 

 to meet unfair competition. Many in 

 the trade have had such a problem to 

 meet. Let us all have the benefit of 

 their experience. Send us a postal 

 card report, telling us in a tew words 

 how you have won. 



The Man Who Never Pays, 



Undoubtedly the worst sort of com- 

 petition to meet is that of the man 

 who succeeds in buying his stock on 

 credit and never intends to pay for 

 it. He can undersell you and still 

 make a fat profit. Of course he can't 

 keep this up long, but he makes things 

 mighty unpleasant while he lasts, and 

 when he has milked one city dry he 

 generally finds little difficulty in work- 

 ing the same game in some other city 

 or neighborhood. 



How can he be prevented from caus- 

 ing you trouble? By giving the widest 

 publicity to his methods through this 

 department, that all others in the 

 trade may be duly warned, thus pre- 

 venting him from obtaining new credit 

 in some other city. The interests of 

 both wholesaler and retailer are iden- 

 tical in this riiatter. Both lose money 

 by the operations of these gentry. 



Gray Hairs. 



Gray hairs are not always a sign of 

 wisdom, though many gray haired 

 men have profited by experience. 

 What is wisdom but acquired experi- 

 ence and the power to make an effect- 

 ive application of it? Gray hairs are 

 as often the result of worry as of age, 

 and all worry is perfectly useless. 

 Analyze your troubles, study on plans 

 to avoid them, but don't worry about 

 them. Don't cultivate gray hairs. 

 Grow good roses and carnations and 

 let some one else grow the gray hairs. 



Hail Stones. 



Be philosophical. We once drove 

 up to a greenhouse establishment that 

 had just been riddled by hail. The 

 proprietor wasn't a bit flustered. He 

 remarked: "We have just had a dis- 

 pensation of Providence and I have 

 sent to town for 20 boxes of glass." 

 Instead of wasting time in lamenta- 

 tions, he had at once put forth all his 

 effort to repair the unpreventable 

 damage. 



But don't take things too easy. We 

 lecall another florist who had re- 

 cently purchased a $400 delivery 

 wagon. On the morning of the "Glori- 

 ous Fourth" this wagon was attached 

 to a spirited horse, and while it was 

 standing in the yard one of the men 

 set off a cannon cracker within twenty 

 feet of the outfit. The horse backed 

 through a pile of pots into a green- 

 house, wrecking the wagon and caus- 

 ing several hundred dollars' damage. 

 The florist walked into the house and 

 calmly remarked, "Well, we've cele- 

 brated." 



Now, this catastrophe was the re- 

 sult of pure thoughtlessness and crim- 



inal carelessness. And while language 

 wouldn't remedy the matter, there was 

 a real necessity for a few words to 

 the man who set oft the cracker, and, 

 we think, they should have been about 

 like this; "We shall not require your 

 services longer. A man who will be 

 so foolish and thoughtless as you have 

 been has no place in this establsh- 

 ment. You may do something still 

 worse to-morrow." But what is your 

 rule tor discharging help? Send it to 

 us on a postal card. 



Pots. 



That pile of pots reminds us that 

 there is a better way of keeping po.s 

 than strewing them all over the place. 

 One florist we know of keeps all his 

 pots in old soap boxes. These are 

 never filled quite level full and they 

 can therefore be readily piled one 

 upon the other. He can never get all 

 of one size together, but can always 

 pick up enough to fill a box. A big 

 chalk mark on the end of the box tells 

 the size of pot it contains. At the 

 end of the season the boxes can b3 . 

 sorted to the sizes they contain. Do 

 you know of a better way? 



That haste makes waste is well ilUi-- 

 trated bv the broken pots that gather 

 around greenhouses. The pots broken 

 through carelessness represent a fair 

 share of the season's profits on m ;ny 

 places. And this is a serious sort of 

 trouble. How do you keep yours? 



Pick Up a Few. 



Pick up a few points as you go 

 along. To do it you will have to keep 

 your eyes open and cultivate your 

 powers of observation, but it pays. 

 We once visited a greenhouse estab- 

 lishment with two companions. On 

 comparing notes afterward we found 

 that one of the party hadn't seen any- 

 thing of special interest, while the 

 other had picked up a dozen prac- 

 tical points. When number two men- 

 tioned these to number one, he re- 

 membered in a vague way of having 

 seen the things described, but they 

 had made no impression on him. The 

 sum of success is made up of small 

 units. Pick them up as you go aloug 

 and you will soon have a valuable 

 collection. Make yourself as sensi- 

 tive to impressions as a photographic 

 negative is to light. Let nothing es- 

 cape. You will find your troubles 

 growing fewer in number. 



"One thought written means an- 

 other thought born." Observe and 

 learn and send a sentence of wisdom 

 on a postal to us. You will be sure 

 to think of sonuthng new and useful 

 if you become a postal card friend of 

 this page. 



Entertainment Tickets. 



What do you do when one of your 

 customers asks you to buy from six to 

 a dozen tickets to an entertainment 

 to be given for the benefit of the home 

 for toothless dogs, or some other 

 worthy charity? O^ne of our readers 

 desires light. He says he has reached 

 his limit. Don't want to lose the cus- 



