184d 



HORTICULTUEE 



February 8. 19i:! 



THE FLORI&T AND HIS MARKET. 



i\ paiier read liefore tUe FUuists" Club nf 



riiiladelpMn. Feb. 5, lUlS. by 



Wallace R. Pierson.) 



In taking a subject for my talk to 

 you this evening tliat is as broad as 

 tliis, 1 have a reason lor so doing and 

 that reason I wish to express in just as 

 plain Enslish as the law allows. We 

 are all in the same boat — retailer, 

 wholesaler, large grower, small grow- 

 er — whoever is dependent upon the 

 florist business tor a living. What I 

 have to say tonight deals with not 

 one market or another as the term is 

 commonly understood but largely with 

 the great market that is everywhere — 

 "the people." We may raise what we 

 will, buy and sell among ourselves, but 

 that is not our market nor our ulti- 

 mate end. We must reach out and 

 bring money into our business from 

 outside just as outside industries are 

 dependent on us to support them. We 

 have been considered a luxury in years 

 past, and we want to be considered a 

 necessity, and when the flower busi- 

 ness is once settled on that basis it 

 will continue to grow in proportion to 

 the population. 

 Production Growing IVlost Rapidly. 



For some years past it has been 

 growing out of proportion to the pop- 

 ulation and anticipated demand has 

 caused a building boom that has added 

 much to the glass area and very little 

 to the organization of the flower indus- 

 try. The public has caught some of the 

 spirit and would catch more were we, 

 as real business men, doing our part 

 to teach them that our product has 

 become to them a necessity rather 

 than a luxury and that, as a necessity, 

 at almost all times in the year flowers 

 are within reach of the average pocket- 

 book. 



The statement that I have made and 

 which will, in my opinion, bear re- 

 peating although perhaps in different 

 language is that the selling end of the 

 greehouse game has not kept up with 

 the building end and this I firmly be- 

 lieve. Our energy has gone into pro- 

 duction leaving the product to take 

 care of itself or to be taken care of 

 by those who have a customer in sight, 

 but no selling organization has been 

 perfected that aids in moving the out- 

 put at all times to the best advantage. 

 We have a business no one can corner. 

 Our goods are produced from the soil; 

 our products are perishable. Our qual- 

 ity is a personal matter. Were all the 

 glass built in the last ten years con- 

 structed by a florist trust it would be 

 no small concern. Do you believe for 

 one minute that such an organization 

 would sit idly by and allow the pro- 

 duct to sell itself? I doubt it. Now, 

 I'm not here knocking the wholesaler 

 for he does his best to sell to advant- 

 age and the retailer no doubt tries in 

 his way to reach the people, but I 

 am trying to impress on you the one 

 fact that we are all in one boat and 

 that boat is drifting for lack of some 

 power that is not gasoline. 



The Retailer's "Snap." 



The retail florist without glass in 

 any city is perhaps the most indepen- 

 dent one of our fraternity. All he 

 has to do is to stop buying and he is 

 out of business. All his assets — usual- 

 ly the case should he fail — are an un- 

 expired lease, some poor accounts and 

 an ice-box. I wager that nine out of 

 ten of these men are above realizing 

 that they are with us in the boat, that 



our success is theirs although we all 

 know how much of their failures is 

 ours. The retail florist so situated 

 with relation to what he sells is not 

 independent, for the source of supply 

 rules, but he will continue to rule so 

 long as the producers allow it and no 

 longer. The retailer who realizes that 

 he is in the boat and that the welfare 

 of the one is the welfare of all is 

 usually the man with the busy store 

 who is trying to help move stock, and 

 who by so doing has increased his 

 business. These men are the salvation 

 of the grower. 



The Lucky Man. 

 Then there is the retailer who grows 

 his own product. I could almost defy 

 you to name one who is not successful. 

 I can name many that are and some 

 of them are among our best known 

 men in the profession, and why are 



W.\T.LA(E R. PiF.liSOX 



they? Because they grow the goods 

 and must sell it. There is business in- 

 stinct there. They cannot sign over 

 the ice-box and leave the janitor to 

 wash their name from the window. 

 The spirit of self-preservation keeps 

 them at the task and I would be al- 

 most willing to state that they enjoy 

 being business men in the modern 

 sense of the word. You will flnd the 

 advertisements of these men in the 

 daily papers of their home towns and 

 people with moderate means in their 

 stores buying flowers. Some of these 

 men were growers first who took up 

 the retail end. because of the failure 

 of existing flower stores to move thai- 

 output at paying prices to them p- 

 producers, and others are growers to 

 maintain a supply they must have. 

 But, however they got into it doesn't 

 alter the tact that they have invested 

 capital and brains and are keeping 

 both working to get to the one market 

 we all want to reach — "the people." 

 The small .grower who plices his 

 product direct is fortunate. He is in 

 a class by himself and yet in this 

 paper is considered one of the crowd 

 in the boat, for his welfare is depen- 

 dent on us all. Unless the retailers 

 with whom he deals directly are above 

 par he is getting below par for his 

 stock. That is the way I've found it. 

 When the market drops they drop him 

 but they stick to him hard and f:?: 



v.hen it goes up. This grower ends by 

 becoming one of the class who ship 

 their product to the wholesale market 

 to share the honor of shipping to the 

 big city with a lot of others to get 

 less than he got before his product, 

 and finally he stays out in the suburbs 

 and advertises his carnations and 

 roses "at the greenhouse." The next 

 season he has a new show-house in 

 front and a delivery car, and so tar 

 as the market is concerned he becomes 

 a buyer rather than a shipper, ad- 

 vertising in the local papers having 

 brought business to him and made him 

 independent to a large extent. 



Be a Specialist. 

 The small florist out in the country 

 is not located so that this is practical. 

 How can he better himself? By being 

 a specialist. Grow the one crop that 

 you can do well — maybe roses, maybe 

 snapdragons — only grow it well. Keep 

 up the supply and the business is 

 vours for the specialist eets to be 

 known and his goods in demand. 

 There is no place today in the big 

 cities for job lots and this the small 

 florist must realize or be the loser. 

 The odds-and-ends of stock from a 

 small grower, although perhaps of 

 good quality, are in the same class 

 with a few odd roses of unusual excel- 

 lence. They don't bring what they 

 are worth and the competition of the 

 specialist and of the large concerns is 

 too strenuous for a mixed lot from the 

 country. That takes in all of them, 

 for the large grower specializes in 

 more than one line but each depart- 

 ment is capable of holding its own as 

 a rule, and the big places by holding 

 1 steady supply can maintain a sale 

 for their goods and can, as a rule, pro- 

 duce better goods for the money than 

 the small places that do not specialize. 

 The wholesale house is between them 

 all — a clearing house, a necessary evil 

 — but a link in the chain that binds 

 every man dependent on flowers for a 

 livelihood with a common bond, and 

 we must realize that this chain is no 

 stronger than its weakest link. 

 A Common Bond of Fellowship. 

 That bond is the cause for which we 

 should work. To strengthen it should 

 be our mission; the assimilating of the 

 idea of common fellowship in the 

 trade will be the tie that binds. Some 

 of that spirit has been in the air this 

 season and that spirit, we may hope, 

 will be the yeast that will leaven the 

 whole but the working is slow, though 

 if successful it will not be in vain. One 

 of the strong links in the chain is the 

 S. A. F. and this must be the founda- 

 iion upon which to build. 



( To be ionttntted. / 



DETROIT NOTES. 



Mr. and .Mrs. E. A. Fetters visited 

 their old hunting grounds in Toledo, 

 making the new Stoddard Hotel their 

 headquarters. 



W'm. Barthell, for several years with 

 Mr. Theo. Michell, has opened a store 

 at Gratiot and Mt. Elliott streets, a 

 naturally busy corner, besides being 

 an important transfer point. 



The Michigan Cut Flower Exchange 

 receives occasionally a nice lot vif 

 Philadelphia carnations which ar^ 

 quickly bought up and retailed as high 

 as $2 per dozen. 



Visitors — Chas. Schwacke and Jos. 

 E. Rolker. New York; Martin Reu- 

 kauf. Philadelphia, Pa.; Adolph Bo- 

 oh: Inc. r, Bay City, Mich. 



