The Weekly Florists' Review, 



447 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



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The Careful Buyer. 



No man is more valuable to himself 

 or his employer than the careful buyer, 

 especially at a time when very little 

 is coming in. It is his special duty to 

 see that as little as possible goes out in 

 the way of money, and yet manage to 

 keep the store in a businesslike condi- 

 tion. With orders on the books or not 

 a presentable stock of flowers must be 

 kept, and on his selection and ideas of 

 value most often depends a great deal of 

 t)ie success of a store. Of course we can 

 never put him on the same pedestal as 

 the artist, but the artist depends more 

 or less on him for material. 



It is gettin<; to be the custom in a few 

 of tlie st<u-es\if New York to luivc two 



vers. () 



(he tlr 



and tlie inside buyer, getting all this 

 stufl' together, selects the best and re- 

 turns the rest. This mode of doing busi- 

 ness may be acutely astute, but it is 

 bad and injurious to the general trade, 

 and depends alike on men and markets. 

 But that is yearly becoming less impor- 

 tant in the whirlpools of over-produc- 

 tion. It is good, whether we buy or not, 

 to keep posted. To know the condition 

 of the market is of the utmost value. 

 Prices will go up and down, and they 

 usually go up on the indifferent buyer. 



Adaptability of material is another 

 important feature and one that requires 

 considerable training to be wise on. The 

 retailer very often finds himself strug- 

 gling between feelings of generosity and 

 the reverse, especially when the market 

 is low. He in most cases imagines that 

 it only spoils customers to give them 

 the benefit of his bargains, that if he 

 were to give a large wreath now for 

 .$5 he would be expected to do so in 

 December when flowers are much higher. 

 There is a good deal of truth in this, and 

 one needs be very careful not to spoil 

 a jj.mhI rii-t.iiiMr. yet on the other hand, 

 in llir ^icji 111,1 jority of cases it is best 

 ami wi-c-i tu L;ive people the benefit of 

 tile rnjhiii inn . . f tlic market. 



< ii!ii|i. I iiinii i-i liable to steal away 

 at :iii\ iinii ill,' customer who will pay 

 a lri'.;li iniri' fur anything at any time, 

 but it requires more than competition to 

 steal the customer with whom you deal 

 in a generous way. One cannot catch 

 new trade withnut ofTrring some special 

 inilin iniiiil : muc .iiiiii.it keep old trade 

 witlhiiii ■jniii- -111 i-Liclion. There are 

 liiiici- uhc'u llici-<' «li., Licnerally look for 

 quality uiiuld be better satisfied with 

 quantity, and the majority of people 

 nowadays look for both. You cannot 

 blame them; don't get angry; it is the 

 way of the times. Diplomacy is one 

 of the greatest, if not the most valuable, 

 accomplishment a man of today can 

 acquire. 



rsut let us saunter through the market 

 witli the buyer. It is a notable fact that 

 the wholesaler adopts the same attitude 

 toward the average buyer that the re- 

 tailer does to his best paying customer — 



he prefers to give the Greek fakir or 

 street peddler a bargain in preference 

 to the legitimate storekeeper. It is a 

 matter of common everyday occurrence 

 in New Y'ork that a street fakir can go 

 into any wholesale place and buy roses 

 for one-half, most often one-quarter, the 

 price charged to the stores. This is 

 what most often demoralizes the market, 

 and will ultimately end in a thorough 

 revolution in the mode of marketing 

 cut flowers in our large cities 



IVER.\. 



WREATHS. 



In funeral arrangements the wreath 

 is still the most pleasing and it can be 

 arranged in a great variety of ways. 

 \\i' hiliivi' that a collection of wreaths 

 111 i.iiiLjcil h\ lloral artists in widely sep- 

 iiniiiil -..iidiis of the country would be 

 iiitru-t ing and educational to every 

 reader of the Review and we invite all 

 to send us photographs of wreaths which 

 they consider worthy of illustration in 

 the Review. We would like to include 

 in the collection simple arrangements as 

 well as elaborate ones. Will you con- 

 tribute an example of vour work for the 

 benefit of all? 



known fact that the most common one 

 of the two (Rhizoctonia, or wet fungus) 

 will do little harm as long as no moist- 

 ure comes in contact with it, and that 

 is why you so often find that during a 

 moderately dry summer none of "the 

 plants die with it in the field, but as 

 soon as they are housed and kept damp 

 a few days the disease begins to develop 

 and the plants soon begin to die ofT. 



So the best, and, in fact, the first, 

 thing to do as soon asthe disease is dis- 

 covered is to keep the plants as dry as 

 possible and water the soil ju«t enough 

 to keep the plants growing and try to 

 water in the morning of a clear day, so 

 the surface of the soil will, dry off again 

 before night. Stirring the soil will al- 

 low the air to get into it, which is also 

 very beneficial. Y'ou will always find 

 more stem-rot in benches that are not 

 stirred than you will where the surface 

 of the soil is kept loosened up. Dusting 

 lime over the plants and the soil is 

 very beneficial, and in fact most grow- 

 ers mix about as much lime wilh the 

 soil as they do of bone, and it all helps 

 to keep the disease down. Sulphur is 

 said to be good, but as it is much more 

 expensive than lime it is not likely to 

 be used as freely. 



In a great many cases the disea>!e is 

 brought on through too deep planting 

 and Mr. G. S. would do well to exam- 

 ine his plants and see whether they are 

 not set into the soil deeper than they 

 were out in the field. If such is the 

 case, he should take enough soil off the 

 bench to expose the stem as much as it 

 was outside. Merely scraping the soil 

 away from around the stem will do little 

 good, as it will wash right back again 

 after a few heavy waterings. 



Bed of Blue Asters at the Pan-American Exposition. Exhibit of Henry A, Drecr. 



CARNATION NOTES. 



Stem Rot. 



If I could see Mr. G. S.'s carnations 

 it might be possible that I could deter- 

 mine the immediate cause of the stem- 

 rot which is giving him so much trou- 

 ble. There are many ways in which it 

 may be brought on, or aggravated, as 

 the case may be. It has been proven 

 conclusively that the spores of the dis- 

 ease are in most eases either in the soil 

 en the benches or else it is brought in 

 from the field with the plants, perhaps 

 most often the latter. It is also a well- 



We have always advocated leaving a 

 slight depression around the plants to 

 hold water when they are watered the 

 first time, but it should not be a deep 

 hole and the plant should not be planted 

 a* though the bottom of the hole were 

 the level of the soil. If we notice any 

 signs of stem-rot we water this way only 

 once, and before we water again we 

 make a furrow between each row of 

 plants and water only in that furrow, 

 leaving the soil near the plants rather 

 dry. This keeps the stems dry and the 

 disease remains inactive and at the same 

 time the roots below have plenty of wa- 



