September 7. 1918 



HORTICULTURE 



2io 



Cost production Is a subject to 

 which the florists has hitherto 

 paid little or no attention but 

 which present-day conditions will 

 force him to seriously consider if lie is 

 going to keep in business. Since the 

 great war has started, all materials 

 that the florists use such as fertilizers, 

 glass and every other item has gone up 

 from 50 to 500 per cent in price., but 

 the florists in many cases still sell 

 their standard plants at the same old 

 price they did ten or fifteen years ago. 

 The average grower detests book- 

 keeping, and consequently his expense 

 account just contains items of so 

 much received, and so much paid out, 

 without considering its relations to the 

 cost of any crop. How many growers 

 who sell field-grown carnations at $oO 

 per thousand for instance, ever stop 

 to figure out the cost of that crop? The 

 grower in this respect is handicapped 

 in comparison with any manufacturing 

 concern, who can take a certain 

 amount of raw material and after two 

 or three runs on the machine can tell 

 how many yards of cloth it will pro- 

 duce and also just how much the labor 

 cost was on the same. A grower deal- 

 ing with live plants cannot have such 

 a definite understanding, as so many 

 other things have to enter into his cal- 

 culations. In the case of a plant prop- 

 agator, fungus in the cutting bench 

 or any one of a dozen unlooked-for cir- 

 cumstances may cause the loss of the 

 entire crop of cuttings. Still, there is 

 no way of ascertaining the definite cost 

 of a crop except by means of a time 

 card showing the cost per thousand of 

 making cuttings; putting them in the 

 sand: potting them and bringing them 

 _ along to the point where they can be 

 sold. To this of course must be added 

 a proportionate ratio of overhead ex- 

 pense, interest on capital invested in 

 the greenhouses, advertising and a 

 dozen other items. The average 

 grower says it can't be done, yet all 

 business experts tell us we must 

 eventually get down to it or go out of 

 business, since no man can do busi- 

 ness at a loss nor can he do business 

 on a blind basis unless he has a tre- 

 mendous margin of profit and no fli:rist 

 today of my acquaintance is getting 

 that. One thing is sure — the govern- 

 ment these days is not interested In 

 any business that is not making 

 money, since money must be made in 

 order to give the government revenue 

 to carry on the war to a successful con- 

 clusion. As a cold business proposi- 

 tion they are much more liable to di- 

 vert our coal to some other business 

 that is paying good dividends than to 

 consider the florist because he did not 

 make any money last winter. 



The grower is the cornerstone of the 

 florists' business as without the grower 

 it is obvious to the most primitive in- 

 tellect that neither the wholesaler or 

 retailer can exist. The retailer in the 



larger cities is the man who is the 

 medium of communication between the 

 grower and the consumer. In most 

 cases he is a very much better business 

 mafi than the grower but too often 

 uses this advantage solely for his own 

 benefit, and considers the grower the 

 cow to be milked indefinitely. The 

 retailer in some cases is more inter- 

 ested in putting his fellow-retailer out 

 of business than elevating the profes- 

 sion up to the point where everyone 

 can make money and live as men and 

 women should live in this favored land 

 of ours. The retailer must charge a 

 price that is high enough to not only 

 'recompense him for his time and 

 money invested, rental, help, etc., but 

 to enable him to pay a price to the 

 grower that he in turn can live and 

 move and have his being. In too many 

 cases-the retailer instead of helping all 

 he can in a congested market and co- 

 operating with the wholesaler to move 

 the stock, uses all his energies to buy 

 stock as cheaply as he can and sell it 

 as high a price as possible. 



At the present time, very little team- 

 work is manifested between the three 

 branches of the business. I consider 

 the wholesaler has the worst position 

 of the lot since the retailer pounds 

 him from the front-line trenches be- 

 cause he charges "too high a price." 

 and the grower pounds him from the 

 rear because the price returned is not 

 high enough. 



No matter what one purchases to- 

 day the price is tremendously ad- 

 vanced and the public can be readily 

 instructed that they have to pay an 

 increased price for flowers also. There 

 are cases, to my knowledge, where in 

 some cities geraniums, for instance, 

 sold at one time for $1.50 per dozen, 

 and sometimes were planted in addi- 

 tion, at this price. This year the same 

 quality plants sold for $3.00 per dozen, 

 plus the cost of planting, with no ar- 

 gument and just as much satisfaction 

 to the customer. 



In cases where a grower retails his 

 own stock he is apt to be a detriment 

 to the market because he figures so 

 long as he did not have to go into the 

 open market to buy flowers, he can 

 sell cheaper than his neighbor who 

 does not have growing facilities. A 

 greater mistake was never made, yet 

 how many grower-retailers have ever 

 studied out what their crop cost them 

 in order to arrive at an aggregate idea 

 of what they should charge their cus- 

 tomer. I know many men in the grow- 

 ing business who do not seem to think 

 their own time is worth anything. Tf 

 they were engaged in some other oc- 

 cupation with the work of their hands 

 they would get from $3.00 to $7.00 per 

 day, and yet the labor they put into 

 their own business is not figured as 

 being worth anything. Then again 

 there are men owning their own stores 

 who do not estimate the rental, which 

 they would have to pay if they did not 

 own it as it would be part of their 

 expense account. 



If there are any members of the 

 Society that have records of expense 

 of cost-production I think it would be 

 an excellent idea if they could or would 

 get together and work out something 

 along these lines. One thing is cer- 

 tain — many florists who never kept a 

 record in their life, will be compelled 

 to keep it this year on account of the 

 income tax regulations which require 

 that all persons engaged in commercial 

 pursuits including florists must keep a 

 record of all their transactions. With 

 this as a basis, and the exercise of 

 common-sense, many growers will be 

 in a much better position after this 

 year to know definitely whether or not 

 they have made any money. 



There is another type of grower- 

 florist who does the business a great 

 deal of harm. I refer to the man who 

 uses all of his family in his business, 

 thereby, employing very little outside 

 labor. He pays his own children a 

 minimum of wage — in many cases 

 gives them nothing but board and 

 lodging and is thereby enabled to op- 

 erate cheaply and sell at a price that 

 another man, trying to bring up his 

 family as any American family should 

 be brought up, is unable to compete 

 with. This kind of grower must be 

 educated to the possibilities of his 

 business before we can hope to have 

 the florists' business attain its proper 

 dignity. 



These remarks contain nothing 

 about actual cost production but they 

 may perhaps start a discussion so we 

 may hear from someone who may have 

 proceeded farther along with this sub- 

 ject than I have. 



NATIONAL PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN. 



The cordiality with which our slo- 

 gan "Say it with Flowers" has been 

 accepted by the general public is, to 

 say the least, most remarkable. The 

 20.000 paper signs embodying the slo- 

 gan which our Promotion Bureau 

 supplied to the National League for 

 Woman's Service were speedily ex- 

 hausted through its seven hundred or 

 more branches throughout the coun- 

 try, and. like Oliver Twist, the league 

 is back for more. Chapter houses of 

 the league which received a quota of 

 twenty-five signs complain that the 

 "ration" was too small to meet the op- 

 portunities for local publicity, and 

 their motor cars have been obliged to 

 operate with "just one sign." The 

 Promotion Bureau, therefore, is ar- 

 ranging for another large output of 

 these signs, not only tor purposes of 

 the league, but to supply a great de- 

 mand coming from other organizations 

 engaged in similar work. Does any- 

 one give a thought to the vast amount 

 of direct publicity for flowers which 

 is accomplished in this direction — 

 and it is only a single feature of our 

 campaign, maturing because we are 

 organizeil sufficiently to be able to 

 influence it? 



There are many ways of obtaining 



