211 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



January 1, 1903. 



a record breaker, but was well up to the 

 standard, wliich means an exchange of 

 a huge amount of property. Prices ran 

 fully as high as ever, wliicli seems nec- 

 essary with the coal man 500 miles 

 ahead and gaining a foot a minute! 

 There were just about roses enough to 

 go around, with possibly a shortage of 

 pink ones. Carnations had been scarce, 

 for a week, with figures bounding high 

 and growers claiming a sure shortage 

 for Thursday. But Wednesday so many 

 were landed that prices upon them took 

 a tumble. It was also somewhat the 

 same way with violets, except that the 

 surplus was much smaller than with the 

 carnations. Narcissus and Roman hya- 

 cinths began with plenty at 3 cents and 

 got scarce enough to demand 4 cents 

 later, with no surplus remaining. Tliere 

 were not enough Easter lilies to fill the 

 bill, but callas were plentiful enough to 

 prove themselves really not a Christ- 

 mas flower. There were also enough 

 chiyanthemums around to affect busi- 

 ness, as they were sold at a very reason- 

 able price. 



Friday and Saturday were very quiet 

 days and prices slid down to normal very 

 rapidly, fresh carnations holding up best 

 of anything, as they seemed to come out 

 rather slowly. 



There were several ca.ses of severe 

 sickness among the floral workers at 

 Christmas, and a fatal termination in 

 one case, that of Joseph Malian, em- 

 ployed at Galvin's for the past two or 

 three years. He was well and favorably 

 known among the florists, having lK«n 

 employed at different places in the city 

 for tlie past fifteen or eighteen years, 

 and was also much respected in social 

 life at the West End. where be resided. 

 His death was caused by typhoid pneu- 

 monia. J. S. Manter. 



BUFFALO. 



Christmas Trade. 



It is not easy without conferring with 

 my brother florists to say with any cer- 

 tainty whether tlie business of the great 

 holiday just passed was more or less 

 than any preceding year. And another 

 uncertainty is that a large proportion of 

 our business, and so it is with most 

 florists, is charged, and I don't care 

 how miethodically you run your busi- 

 ness, few have had time to go over all 

 the charges up to date. Lucky if you 

 have not missed doing this most impor- 

 tant part of the business in some few 

 cases. Some have had several large dec- 

 orations which would increase their in- 

 dividual business, but what one or two 

 firms have done is not of general inter- 

 est. It's the state of the trade we are 

 concerned in, and from all I can judge 

 the volume of business was just about 

 equal to last year. 



The demand for all the leading cut 

 flowers was good, but at the last moment 

 (he supply was equal to the demand. 

 American Beauties brnught .$24 per 

 dozen; good teas. .$4.50 to $5; carna- 

 tions, $1 to .$-2.50; violets. $5 per 100: 

 narcissus and Romans sold very well at 

 $1. It appeared to me that flower buy- 

 ing was largel.v confined to that class 

 who can buy regardless of price, and the 

 persons of moderate means denied them- 

 selves the hixury of flowers. I don't 

 blame them, for they have had years of 

 experience to teach them that their bum- 

 ble dollar gets little or nothing, and no 

 doubt the holly wreatli in the window 



takes the place of the bouquet on the 

 table in many an unpretentious home. 



The trade with many and with the 

 majority of buyers was a plant. Sev- 

 enty-five per cent of all the plants sold 

 were for presents, and that has grown 

 to be a very big business. It could scarce- 

 ly increase over what it has been for 

 the past five or six years, and I don't 

 know a.s it did this year, but it was 

 enough to keep all hands on the jump. 

 It is a good but laborious business, and 

 the wrapping and delivering when the 

 thermometer is down to 18 degrees, and 

 on Christmas morning to 12 and a snow 

 storm thro^vn in, is liable to make you 

 anxious. A few handsome heaths were 

 handled, but not many. The principal 

 plants were Begonia Lorraine, azaleas, 

 pans of poinsettias, cyclamens, and pans 

 and baskets of various combinations. 

 Araucarias with a scarlet mat sold very 

 well, and there was a very good demand 

 for nice plants of Boston ' fern, but 

 scarcely any demand for palms. How- 

 ever, the .stock of plants was fairly well 

 balanced. It has, I am sure, been pretty 

 well cleaned up. 



How many car-loads of holly came to 

 town I don't know, but there were a 

 great many, and by Chirstraas eve it 

 was all cleaned up. Ground pine came 

 in moderate quantities and that also was 

 all cleaned up. The Christmas tree trade 

 is not in the hands of the florists, at 

 least not in big cities, but thousands 

 were sold. There was no Christmas tree 

 in the White House this year, yet thou- 

 sands went into smaller white, red, green 

 and drab colored domiciles where the 

 head of the family had time to help 

 trim and did not have the perplexing 

 Venezuelian questian on his mind. This 

 German institution has taken a firm 

 hold of our people and threatens to de- 

 nude our hills of all the young spruce 

 and hemlock that is striving to clothe 

 them. The holly that came to town was 

 good, bad and indifferent. That which 

 had the most X's on it was the w-orst. 

 Remember who treated you best and 

 gave you the best holly and stick to him 

 another year. They are not all hum- 

 bugs who deal in this now important 

 Christmas decoration. We have been fav- 

 ored many times at Christmas with 

 mild weather so that we could deliver the 

 most tender plants in an open wagon. 

 This year it was a baby blizzard, which 

 the native born calls good Christmas 

 weather. Yet it is all over and the 

 worry, anxiety, fret, fume and trials 

 of the few days are forgotten. 



Items. 



We are to have another new firm in 

 town. Another of Mr. Thorley's artistic 

 young men, in company with a young 

 Buffaionian. is to start at New Years in 

 a commodious store on Jlain street op- 

 posite Dr. Pierce's world famous dis- 

 pensary. The more the merrier, and I 

 rejoice to see the business come up town. 

 The more the trend of business inclines 

 in the direction of the Xorth Pole, the 

 better it suits us. 



There may be many florists who feel 

 comfortable over the fuel question, yet I 

 fear many more are sadly worried over 

 their supply and are keeping their houses 

 warm in a hand-to-mouth style. Buffalo 

 is a great coal depot and we should lie 

 much better off than cities more remote 

 from the anthracite fields, yet the famine 

 of coal is as much felt now'as six weeks 

 ago: and while three months ago you 

 could buy bituminous coal at a moderate 

 price, it is now scarcely procurable at 



any price. I, for one, shall never think 

 of or remember these times as prosperous 

 while such abominable and wretchedly 

 unjust conditions exist. 



I should have brought in earlier in 

 these notes a freak feature of this holi- 

 day trade, and that was the call for 

 camellias, and we had to get them. We 

 were requested to make some "old fash- 

 ioned bouquets with papers, don't you 

 know," and several hundred camellias 

 were used. Gardenias were also wanted. 

 The latter is a beautiful flower and the 

 liking for it is quite excusable, as it is 

 a native of our sunny South and sweet 

 with all : but it is retrogression to work 

 up a fad for the cold, stifl', odorless ca- 

 mellias, which are beautiful only when 

 cut with a considerable piece of growth 

 and its shining leaves, and what grower 

 of these will cut his trees in this way. 

 If they can be got from the South in 

 good order, well and good, but don't let 

 any florist think it worth while to get 

 up a stock of these to supply his trade, 

 for before he has plants large enough to 

 give him any supply of flowers this fad 

 will have flown. The displacement of 

 the camellias twenty-five years ago by 

 the beautiful roses and carnations which 

 came to the front was trulv a survival of 

 the fittest. 



One more item. Of all the carnations 

 that sold at sight and at almost any 

 ]uii'e you liked. Prosperity took the lead; 

 although almost condemned two years 

 ago it is now on the pinnacle of popu- 

 larity. W. S. 



BALTIMORE. 



The Christmas Trade. 



Our Christmas weather here was sim- 

 ply ])erfect. For several days preceding 

 the great festival day the skies were 

 bright and the atmosphere stimulating, 

 and if the temperature was low, it was 

 only an incentive to brisk moving. As 

 a consequence, the whole population 

 turned out into the shopping districts 

 and the florists' stores as well as the 

 general mercliants felt the influence of 

 the seasonable clear and vivifying win- 

 ter sunshine. The A-olume of business 

 done was above the normal and few 

 complaints have been heard. In practi- 

 cally every instance sales have been 

 quite up to and often beyond the aver- 

 age. This, too, was with the disad- 

 vantage of scanty supplies of good flow- 

 ers and of the difficulty in moving 

 plants. On early Chri.stmas morning a 

 fall of two inches of snow made the day 

 an ideal one, and with general good feel- 

 ing, good weather, and good times, the 

 trade done was satisfactory all around. 



There was a gi-eat scarcity of red and 

 white carnations and of violets. Good 

 .\merican Beauties were also wanting. 

 Roses of second and third grades were 

 in plentiful supply, but all rating No. 

 1 and extra were decidedly short. Vio- 

 lets are in the vocative, and only hun- 

 dreds were marketed where thousands 

 were needed. 



In some sections of the city dried flow- 

 ers, immortelles and galax leaves were in 

 gieat request. 



The mistletoe and holl}" business was 

 largely overdone. The tendency to raise 

 prices inordinately at this season has 

 the eflTect of stopping the dealing in 

 natural and .stimulating the employ- 

 ment of these other materials — a result 

 much to be regretted on the score of 

 taste. 



Larger quantities of evergreen wreath- 



