Scplember 28, 1918 



HORTICULTUBK 



!1. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF ADVERTIS- 

 ING TO BUSINESS. 



No doubt many of you read the ad- 

 dress of Mr. Val Fisher, the London 

 publisher, in regard to the importance 

 of building good-will through advertis- 

 ing, of which more has been done in 

 the past four years than was done in 

 forty years previous to the war. He 

 said that over five million British 

 women who never worked before 

 have voluntarily gone to work to fill 

 the places of men at the front. 

 Hundreds of our women are working 

 in factories making T. N. T. — a work 

 that ruins the hair and turns the skin 

 yellow, thus sacrificing their beauty 

 for the rest of their lives for the sake 

 of Britain and Freedom. We have 

 only one business in England and 

 that is to win the war. We are all 

 concentrated on that one thing, even 

 to our boys and girls. 



You would think under such condi^ 

 tions with as many men in active 

 service in proportion to the popula- 

 tion as you would have here if you 

 had eighteen million men in uniform 

 that retail business would be bound 

 to be bad, and yet business is won- 

 derfully good. You American busi- 

 ness men are now in much the same 

 position as were the British men at 

 the end of their first year of the war. 

 You are wondering what will be the 

 effect of increasing selective service, 

 you are anticipating restrictions on 

 your business, and I want to tell you 

 some of our experiences so you may 

 profit by them. The department 

 stores usually refiect the state of 

 trade, and during the period of the 

 war, the differences in sales as be- 

 tween the first year and the fourth 

 year show an increase of over 100 

 per cent. Many of the stores lost 

 business as shown by comparison. 

 Those who curtailed their advertising 

 slumped badly, while Selfridge, who 

 did not skip a single day in their ad- 

 vertising during this entire period, 

 showed an increase of profit from 

 $573,000 the first year to $1,125,000 

 the third year. "Also," says Mr. 

 Fisher, "manufacturers who have not 

 a dollar's worth of merchandise to 

 sell and whose entire plants are work- 

 ing on Government work are keeping 

 their advertising before the public so 

 as not to forfeit or sacrifice their 

 good-will, or have their products for- 

 gotten. And so they continue their 

 advertising, continue building good- 

 will, so that when the war does end, 

 their .products will still remain a 

 fixture in the people's mind. 



Just so with our florists who have 

 the vision of the three P's. Push, 

 Perseverance and Progressiveness to 

 keep right on until Uncle Sam calls 



you, doing all possible to create good- 

 will by the quality of your products 

 and making new customers by the 

 tone of your advertising thereby 

 taking all advantages of the new con- 

 ditions occasioned by the increased 

 earnings of the new classes of flower 

 buyers. 



Those who were leaders in the past 

 may be surpassed by others in the 

 future, due to the new methods now 

 necessary owing to such changing 

 conditions as are now being met by 

 us all. And the florists as well as all 

 others concerned who are quick and 

 keen to note these changes and who 

 will fit themselves to the times, will 

 be the benefitors when it is all over 

 and the boys come marching home. 



So don't think of curtailing your 

 advertising appropriation or lower 

 your standards of business ethics, 

 but keep it right up to 100 per cent 

 efficiency, and it will work for you 

 until you shall have retired, and 

 when we have won the war, and win 

 we will, the benefits accrued during 

 this entire trying period will repay 

 you for the efforts given. 



Yours for the Fourth Liberty Loan. 

 Henry Penn, 

 Chairman. National Publicity 

 Campaign. 



FERTILIZER AND MANURE FOR 

 1919. 

 Everything indicates that fertilizer, 

 manure and labor next year will be 

 scarcer than ever. The farmers of 

 Camden County, N. J., will sow eight 

 tons of Vetch seed this season for 

 cover crop soil improvement. They 

 use 20 pounds of Hairy Vetch seed 

 and one bushel of rye per acre. Crim- 

 son Clover Is good, but it frequently 

 falls. Rye and Vetch are reliable, the 

 mixture may be sowed during the next 

 two weeks, and. If it Is allowed to 

 stand until the first of May, it will 

 wonderfully improve the soil by add- 

 ing immense quantities of nitrogen 

 and green material. In October and 

 November, the rye alone may be 

 sowed at every opportunity, using 6 

 to 8 pecks of seed per acre. The fer- 

 tilizing value of the seed Itself is 

 worth half the cost of the seed. The 

 resulting soil improvement value from 

 cover crops will aid in greater produc- 

 tion per acre next season. — Market 

 Orowers' Journal. 



Hackensack, N. J. — August Wuff- 

 man, a prominent fiorist and well 

 known resident of Hackensack, has 

 been arrested by federal agents. Mr. 

 Wuffman's arrest has caused wide- 

 spread discussion in Hackensack. The 

 federal agents did not make known 

 the cause of the arrest. 



A SWEET ODOR IN FRANCE. 



While waiting at a Fl-ench railway 

 station for a detachment of troops to 

 arrive, Lt. Robert H. Weitknect had a 

 delightful little adventure. After 

 walking through the dimly-lighted 

 waiting room, he caught suddenly a 

 sweet and fragrant odor. 



"Unconscious," he writes, "I 

 stopped and looked for the flowers 

 that were the source of this rare 

 fragrance. The woman holding the 

 bouquet noticed my action, and held 

 the flowers up for me to see and 

 smell. I said: 'Tres joli, madam!' 

 and started away, but she stopped me 

 and pressed the bouquet upon me. 

 Then, immediately I got it into my 

 hands, man-like, I felt foolish walk- 

 ing about with a bouquet of flowers. 

 But I wouldn't have disappointed that 

 simple but friendly FVench woman 

 for anything, so I carried it around a 

 corner and put it in a safe place until 

 my work of the evening should be 

 done — all the time being very thank- 

 ful for the dim light of the waiting 

 room. 



"A half-hour later, close to mid- 

 night, when I was ready to go home, I 

 recovered my flowers and now they 

 are on my mantlepiece. It is a bou- 

 quet of old-fashioned garden flowers, 

 and in it are peonies, wall flowers, 

 pinks, forget-me-nots and pansies — 

 the little, long-stemmed kind. The 

 colors are pink, white and purple 

 mostly, with little touches of dark- 

 lined velvet of the pansies and scat- 

 tered dots of sky-blue of the forget- 

 me-nots. 



"It is the pinks that give off the se- 

 ductive and satisfying odor — pinks, 

 you know them, don't you? old-fash- 

 ioned carnations, they are white." 



Lovers of flowers are not surprised 

 at the number of stories that come 

 to us from the front describing the 

 part played by flowers in brightening 

 the lives of those who are so close to 

 death. The beauty and fragrance of 

 the flowers seem to give new life to 

 those who are heavy-laden and weary. 

 Another soldier wrote: "I saw a 

 few wind-flowers the other day, and a 

 vast meadow full of kingcops, and 

 that was enough to make me happy 

 for weeks." 



In the face of all this it is hard to 

 understand how anyone can say those 

 engaged in the raising and distribut- 

 ing of flowers are in a non-essential 

 industry. 



The beauty and fragrance of flow- 

 ers give strength to the spirit, lighten 

 the heavy hand of sorrow, and those 

 who supply the world with them at 

 this time are benefactors and deserve 

 the praise of their fellows. — Boston 

 Traveller. Sept. 24, 1918. 



