HORTICULTUPE 



December 9, 1905. 



horticulture: 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE. BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephone, Oxford 292, 



WM. J. STEWART, Editor and Manager. 



We acknowledge with hearty appreci- 

 How can ation the occasional suggestions and 

 we Improve? land, counsel which good friends have 

 contributed during the past year, to 

 wliich we are indebted in no small degree for the meas- 

 ure of success attained thus far. We would welcome 

 much more of it and our readers are all cordially invited 

 to suggest how in their judgment Horticulture may 

 be made more valuable to them in any department. 



The results of advertising 

 Something for based superficially on gross 



advertisers to consider circulation often upset all 

 theories. The reason for 

 the very gratifying returns realized by many of Horti- 

 culture's advertisers from the very beginning is easily 

 explained when the class of readers this paper appeals 

 to and reaches is taken into consideration. A magazine 

 which bases its claims to confidence and support on the 

 high quality of its reading matter cannot fail to attract 

 the attention of discriminating and enterprising men 

 and this is the clientage that advertising dealers will 

 always find most profitable. OfEer the right goods in 

 the right way in these columns and you will have no 

 reason to find fault with the returns. 



An unfortunate characteristic of the 

 Regulating flower trade is the suddenness with 

 flower prices which values advance or recede and 

 the extreme limits to which these 

 fluctuations so often extend. Wlien a close cut is fol- 

 lowed by storm and a sharp fall in temijerature as was 

 the case Thanksgiving week and customers learn that 

 they must pay double the price they anticipated for 

 their flowers, dissatisfaction is sure to crop out and 

 hostile criticism of the dealer and his business is bound 

 to ensue. The sudden demoralization of values conse- 

 quent upon a combination of full crop and a few warm 

 sunny days is equally deplorable in its results, although 

 the injury comes through very different channels. It 

 is not easy to suggest a remedy in either case; most 

 people with any adequate knowledge of the situation 

 will agree that there is no remedy. The old notion that 



any individual or combination of individuals can dic- 

 tate prices has no standing, in present conditions. A 

 slight measure of control might, however, be exercised 

 by the large growers who, by a judicious restraint on 

 the cutting and shipping of stock might make the sup- 

 ply more elastic and the prices somewhat more uniform. 

 Wisdom in this particular can only be acquired through 

 a knowledge of the market and the influences affecting 

 it and an implicit confidential understanding with the 

 commission dealer through whose agency the goods are 

 sold. Greater stability in prices with more gradual 

 changes when such do occur, would be a vast benefit to 

 the flower trade, from all standpoints, and every possi- 

 ble step in that direction should be taken. 



Many florists' clubs and horticultural 

 Choose societies will elect their officers this 



your officers month and it will be well to bear in 

 with discretion niind when exercising this function 

 that the quantity and quality of the 

 success of the coming year depends largely on the men 

 selected as standard bearers. Much is, of course, con- 

 ditional upon the spirit pervading the membership, for 

 little of any real value can be accomplished without 

 unity of purpose and general loyalty to the organization 

 but these essential qualifications can be either fostered 

 or discouraged at the option of those holding oflicial 

 position and the amount of really unselfish effort which 

 its officers are disposed to make on behalf of an organ- 

 ization are, as a rule, the best gauge of its prosperity. 

 Men of pugnacious propensities whose business careers 

 are punctuated with contentions are dangerous men to 

 hold official positions in these semi-social bodies and 

 they very seldom leave their charge at the end of their 

 term in as good shape as they found it. 



It has been frequently asserted 

 Where Horticulture diat florists take no interest in 

 stands the serious literature of their 



profession and that trivial small 

 talk of the village gossip type is all they care to peruse 

 in a paper devoted to their craft. Horticulture 

 started business with the belief that this idea was a 

 fiction and, to the credit of the great and growing floral 

 profession, the outcome of the year's trial shows that 

 Horticulture was right. That this journal has fairly 

 leaped into the affections of the craft and already 

 attained a standing which might reasonably have taken 

 years to reach is a remarkable record the happiest 

 feature of which is its vindication of the intelligence of 

 the American florist and gardener. In the light of this 

 experience Horticulture enters upon the second year 

 of its existence with eager confidence and with well- 

 considered plans for advancement on the lines originally 

 laid down. We have no ambition for mere bigness, hop- 

 ing rather that our name and fame may spread solely 

 on the intrinsic, permanent value of our contents to the 

 great, influential body of intelligent readers whose 

 tastes we hope to meet and whose business interests we 

 wish to serve. On ihcso grounds Horticulture seeks 

 the rig] it of way. 



