Decembeb 10, 1903. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



127 



ter decorations. They were full of sug- 

 gestions and much admired. 



The Lorraine begonias were complained 

 of as being a little soft for a rough and 

 ready Christmas trade, and that they 

 don't last long in dwellings. Mr. Meyer, 

 of Robert Craig & Son, Philadelphia, was 

 present and told us that in his town the 

 growers pack the Lorraines, ready for 

 retail delivery, so that there is no time 

 lost in the stores in this work. A tele- 

 phone message brings in the plants, all 

 clean and packed as fast as a horse can 

 trot into town. And thev should be 

 grown cool for some time before ship- 

 ment. 



Mr. Meyer brought on a lot of sample 

 palms, ferns, crotons and other plants 

 with him from Craig 's and had them 

 spread out in the room in his hotel. 

 When he saw what kind of meetings the 

 florists here have he felt like kicking 

 himself because he hadn 't brought his 

 plants into the meeting room, and we, 

 too, felt like kicking him because he 

 hadn't told us in time about them. 



Geddis & Blind, a firm of retail flor- 

 ists, were very much wrought up about 

 the way the funeral directors have of 

 squeezing discounts out of the florists 

 and how tardy they are in paying their 

 bills. A committee of three, namely Mr. 

 Geddis, Ernest Ludwig and E. C. Eeine- 

 man, was appointed to look into the mat- 

 ter and report with recommendations at 

 the next meeting. 



Four new members were elected and 

 one proposed. 



The subject for our January meeting 

 is to be roses. W. F. 



ONiTHE BASIS OF QUALITY. 



The following article from Printers' 

 Ink, the journal for advertisers, is worthy 

 the careful consideration of every florist, 

 for the truths embodied are as applicable 

 to our trade as any other: 



This much can be said in behalf of ad- 

 vertising which seeks to win the trade of 

 those who will pay reasonable prices for 

 the better grades of goods, as against ad- 

 vertising based upon cheap goods and 

 low prices. When a customer has once 

 been educated to quality he will seldom 

 return to the masses who seek shoddy and 

 sham goods at split-penny prices. Teach 

 a man to wear good clothes, to drink pure 

 liquors and wines, to register at a high- 

 class hotel; teach a woman to buy solid 

 furniture, to demand the best grades of 

 food and to patronize a dressmaker who 

 is an artist; teach them both to spend 

 money with a reasonably open hand for 

 necessities or pleasures, and their spend- 

 ing capacity has been permanently in- 

 creased. Eather than revert to the bar- 

 gain-hunters, they will increase their 

 earning capacity, and the store that ap- 

 peals merely to the desire to save pen- 

 nies will seldom win them away from the 

 store that makes worth the first consid- 

 eration and pennies the last. 



It must be admitted, of course, that 

 hundreds of retail advertisers are located 

 in communities where quality arguments 

 would be out of the question — ruinous in 

 fact. Tet there are many depending 

 wholly upon price arguments in communi- 

 ties that would respond quickly to n 

 campaign of education in the buying of 

 quality commodities. The great force be- 

 hind the advertiser who preaches quality 

 is the capacity of every sort of good mer- 

 chandise to win its way after introduc- 

 tion. 



Quality advertising is sometimes a slow 



trade-builder, but it builds exceedingly 

 strong. The retailer advertising on a 

 quality basis has several lines of argu- 

 ment. He can show, by plain reasoning-, 

 that quality goods are better than bar- 

 gain commodities, and he can also dem- 

 onstrate the points wherein cheap goods 

 fail, and how costly they are in the long 

 run. He can show readers that notwith- 

 standing the apparent saving of twentv- 

 five or fifty cents or a dollar, it is im- 

 possible to get something for nothing in 

 the world of business — that all merchan- 

 dise is sold by a hard and fast business 

 system that makes it impossible for :i 

 merchant to give five dollajrs for three — 

 that there is evermore a decided hole in 

 a bargain. He can demonstrate that tin- 

 difference between two grades of a 

 commodity is accurately determined by 

 experts long before they are offered to 

 consumers. 



Arguments of this sort -will hardly fill 

 a store with people the day after the adv. 

 is printed, but they lay a permanent 

 foundation for lasting trade. Quality 

 has been behind nearly every business 

 house that has built up a soUd reputa- 

 tion and is behind some of the great- 

 est advertising campaigns — if not behind 

 those that make the most noise, at least 

 behind those that will go farthest. Many 

 a retailer who is now using publicity on 

 a price-cutting, competitive basis, would 

 find through systematic experiment that 

 his community is far more susceptible 

 to quality arguments and prices than he 

 has ever suspected. 



FROM OUR ENGLISH EXCHANGES. 



The Gardeners' Magarine. 



The Royal Horticultural Society has 

 given an award of merit for Dracaena 

 Pere Charon to L. J. Draps-Dorn, 

 Laeken, Brussels. It is so well propor- 

 tioned and so brilUantly colored that it 

 is likely to become extremely popular. 

 The leaves are about five inches across 

 at their broadest and from a foot to 

 eighteen inches long. The younger cen- 

 tra! leaves are brilliant scarlet and pink, 

 and the scarlet coloring is also very 

 pronounced on the older leaves, accom- 

 panied by dark green. 



Asparagus plumosus cristata received 

 an award of merit from the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society July 21. This is a 

 dwarf-growing variety with the tips of 

 the frond-like growths both divided and 

 crested in a manner well knovm to fern- 

 lovers, and as seen in gymnogrammcs 

 and pterises. It has lost the climbing 

 habit, and makes a handsome pot plant 

 about eighteen inches or two feet high. 



The beautiful double white stock. 

 White Christmas, can be had in bloom 

 for Christmas by planting the seed about 

 the middle of April, 



Hollyhocks. — As yet no means of ef- 

 fectually preventing the spread of the 

 puccinia by which the disease is caused 

 when it has become established upon the 

 plant has been discovered, but plants 

 raised from seeds are practically free 

 from the attack of the puccinia until 

 after they have produced their first flower 

 spikes, and with care in saving the seed 

 the several varieties reproduce themselves 

 quite true, both in form and color. 

 Where so many people err in hollyhock 

 culture is being far too niggardly in giv- 

 ing space to the plants, and manure to 

 the roots. Abundance of air about them, 

 and a freedom of growth which can only 



be obtained by liberal cultivation, are 

 the secrets of success. 



Direct fertilizers contain elements 

 which, added to the soil, are at once 

 available as food for plants; such, for 

 example, is nitrate of soda. Indirect 

 fertilizers may be material of which the 

 soil is not destitute, and which is not 

 in itself a plant-food, but which acts on 

 the matters already in the land, and 

 changes some of them from the unavail- 

 able to the available form; lime and 

 marl may be classed among these sub- 

 stances. 



If it were necessary for a manure to 

 contain all the food needed for plant 

 growth, fourteen elements would have 

 to be present to make it complete. But 

 most fertile soils contain an abundance 

 of at least ten of these elements; the 

 only ones often deficient being nitrogen, 

 potash, and phosphoric acid, and, some- 

 times, lime. 



It has been fully demonstrated that 

 all of these essential elements must be 

 present in the soil in sufficient quantity, 

 and in suitable form, to ensure fertility 

 and the successful growth of plants. 

 A deficiency of any one of them wUl 

 diminish production and prevent a profit- 

 able crop, causing the soil to appear ex- 

 hausted when in reality it lacks but a 

 single substance. This partial, or one- 

 sided, exhaustion is the common condition 

 of what is caUed ' ' worn-out soUs. ' ' 



Carbon comprises about one-half of 

 the soUd constitutents of plants, and is 

 wholly derived from the carbonic acid of 

 the air; this is absorbed by the leaves, 

 aud decomposed in their green cells by 

 the action of light, the carbon being re- 

 tained in the plant tissues for bmlding 

 up the structure, while the oxygen is 

 again set free. Of the element carbon 

 nature always provides an abundant sup- 

 ply in an available lorm for all the 

 necessities of the plant. But the growing 

 crop, of whatever its character, cannot 

 absorb and make use of this carbon un- 

 less there is an available supply of min- 

 eral substances, potash, lime, and phos- 

 phoric acid in the soil. 



Water is by far the most abundant 

 constituent of all gro-wing plants. This 

 element is nearly all derived from the 

 soil, being absorbed by the roots, and 

 carries with it into the tissues of the 

 plant, in solution, all the ash constituents, 

 and most of the nitrogen which the plant 

 contains. It serves also as a carrier by 

 •n-hieh the products assimilated are trans- 

 ferred to the places in the plant where 

 they are needed; and finally by its de- 

 composition supplies nearly all of the 

 gaseous elements of oxygen and hydrogen 

 to the plant. It is thus evident that suc- 

 cessful gardening is more dependent upon 

 a proper supply of moisture in the soil 

 than to any other factor. Water has, 

 therefore, been called by an eminent 

 ■svriter "the paramount fertilizer." 



I -WISH to state that I am well pleased 

 with Scott's Manual, -which I got last 

 year. It is very helpful. No florist 

 should be without one. John L. Mjeteb, 

 Devon, Pa. 



"The classified advs. are worth, in 

 time saved to the reader, more than the 

 price of subscription." — George Ellison, 

 Fort Worth, Tex. 



You -WOULD find a copy of the Flor- 

 ists' Manual, by William Scott, the 

 greatest money saver you can add to 

 your equipment. 



