August 30, 1919 



H R T ICIIl.TURE 



19] 



The cost of successful advertising 

 on a national scale is not large. For 

 instance, if you were to spend one 

 cent per family per year for adver- 

 tising, your expenditure for the year 

 would be about $220,000.00. The aver- 

 age total expenditure for advertising 

 space in fifty-six leading magazines Is 

 less than one quarter of this sum. In 

 other words, the average national ad- 

 vertiser buys less than $50,000.00 

 worth of space per year or less than 

 one-quarter of a cent per family in 

 the United States. 



A Good Advertisement. 

 What is a good advertisement? 

 Should we make it brief and to the 

 point? Most people will tell you so 

 and most people believe they know 

 all about how good advertisements 

 should be written. Or should it tell 

 all in one letter as the classified boys 

 put it. 



"People haven't time to read — 

 make the ad short and snappy." 

 is what nearly everyone will say. Mail 

 order houses that receive direct orders 

 in answer to their advertisements 

 know what pays and what doesn't, 

 what people read and what they don't 

 read. 



And yet strangely enough, all mall 

 order advertisements are often very 

 long. There was one successful ad- 

 vertisement that proved very profit- 

 able that had 2,200 words in it. Peo- 

 ple must therefore read long ads or 

 those many worded ads would not 

 pay. 



On the other hand, Cream of Wheat 

 advertisements often have no text at 

 all, just the picture. With no other 

 means of sales promotion, a great 

 business has been created by this 

 pretty picture advertising alone. 

 Another great business uses pictures 

 that are not pretty ones and quite 

 subservient to the text and makes a 

 tremendous success from that form of 

 advertising. 



It doesn't after all matter very much 

 you see, just how you convey your 

 ideas to the public. The public doesn't 

 stop to worry over sentences. It stops, 

 it looks, it listens and goes on its way. 

 They've got your meaning no matter 

 how you tell it to them but they judge 

 you according to your own standard. 

 Are you sincere, do you mean it? If 

 you are, if you do, the public knows 

 and acts as you want them to. 



I believe that closer co-operation and 

 a greater use should be made of our 

 Promotion Bureau which acts as a 

 clearing house for ideas in the florists' 

 trade; where all new schemes for 

 promoting the sale of flowers are col- 

 lected for the benefit of all the mem- 

 bers of the association. In a number 



of cities throughout the country there 

 are well organized movements for en- 

 couraging the use of flowers as win- 

 dow decorations at homes and even in 

 office buildings and factories. In 

 others there exists co-operative 

 schemes for the use of flowers as win- 

 dow decoration by shoe stores and 

 department stores. I cite these as 

 suggestions which might be fully de- 

 veloped through the efforts of the as- 

 sociation. As I have already said, I 

 believe the coming year will be one 

 of exceptional prosperity. Prophets 

 of evil we will have with us. You will 

 continue to hear a grumbler here and 

 there predict the early tolling of the 

 funeral knell for business and a cheer- 

 full idiot recognizing the future only 

 as a tinkle of bells. 



WARM QUARANTINE DISCUSSION. 

 One of the most interesting features 

 of the convention was the discussion 

 which followed the address of Dr. 

 Marlatt of the Federal Horticultural 

 Board in which he defended Quaran- 

 tine No. 37. Dr. Marlatt took full re- 

 sponsibility for this measure and said 

 that he believed the people of the 

 country were not so strongly opposed 

 to it as had been represented. He had 

 found no opposition in California, he 

 said, or in the Middle West. He 

 thought that when growers found 

 they could make greater profits as a 

 result of the quarantine they would 

 be pleased that it had been imposed. 



Prof. Dorner of Urbana, 111., then 

 arose and speaking for himself de- 

 clared that the quarantine was a 

 severe blow to the gardening interests 

 of this country and that the danger 

 from pests has been greatly exagger- 

 ated by Dr. Marlatt. He felt that the 

 florists of the country had been greatly 

 misled. Prof. Dorner was most em- 

 phatic in his remarks. 



Mr. Washburn of California form- 

 erly an Eastern rose grower, but now 

 growing palms on the Pacific coast, 

 approved the quarantine, said he was 

 glad that Belgium palms had been ex- 

 cluded and that he had received the 

 best seed he had ever seen from Amer- 

 ican sources. 



Mr. Farquhar of Boston was the 

 next speaker and attacked the quaran- 

 tine vigorously, saying there was no 

 reason for excluding a great number of 

 small bulbs and admitting those like 

 the hyacinths which are most likely to 

 transmit disease or pests. He declared 

 that while the florists would suffer 

 greatly, the blow would be felt most 

 keenly by the amateur gardeners who 

 were now making great progress since 

 the beginning of the Garden Club 

 movement. Mr. Farquhar declared that 



he did not appear to forward Dreer 

 propaganda but felt one of the most 

 unfair things that Dr. Marlatt's board 

 had done was its attack on the Dreer 

 house. This statement was warmly 

 applauded. 



Mr. E. G. Hill then arose and said 

 that he was surprised at the stand 

 taken by Mr. Farquhar and Mr. 

 Dorner. He believed that it would be 

 far better to have the Eastern inter- 

 ests suffer and perhaps much of the 

 stock wiped out than that any of the 

 foreign pests should gain admittance 

 to the fields of the West. 



AMERICAN ROSE SOCIETY. 

 In the absence of President Pyle, 

 Mr. E. G. Hill acted as chairman 

 of the meeting of the American 

 Rose Society, at Detroit, Mich., with 

 Mr. Benjamin Hammond acting sec- 

 retary. A number of communications 

 were read bearing upon the advance- 

 ment of the society. Mr. Mulford ex- 

 plained the attitude of the Department 

 of Agriculture in relation to the origi- 

 nation and distribution of the new 

 roses upon which Dr. Van Fleet is 

 working and suggested that the Ameri- 

 can Rose Society assist in some way 

 in getting into the hands of a few 

 careful growers this stuff for further 

 distribution, with the idea that it 

 should continue to be known as the 

 product of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and further with the idea of 

 working out some scheme whereby 

 these roses may be distributed in a 

 fair manner to the public and to the 

 trade in general. It is intended to 

 avoid an excessive price being put on 

 the public and also to avoid any criti- 

 cism that some favored one or few 

 could get on the inside and get unfair 

 advantage. The entire matter after 

 general discussion was referred to the 

 executive committee for further con- 

 sideration that they might develop 

 proper machinery for a just and equit- 

 able distribution of these good prod- 

 ucts. 



NEW BEDFORD SHOW. 

 The first annual gladiolus show at 

 New Bedford, Mass., last week was so 

 well attended that it was kept open an 

 extra day. Besides the fine display of 

 gladioli, there were many seedling 

 dahlias. 



Joseph A. Nolet was the largest ex- 

 hibitor of seedling dahlias. Among 

 the blossoms he showed were some of 

 the dahlias of Thomas J. Murphy of 

 Peabody and Miss Nellie Jllson of 

 Lakewood, R. I. A. J. Fish, Thomas 

 Hughes, George Gibbs and George 

 Reynolds also had dahlias at the show. 

 Mr. Nolet was given a special award 

 of merit. 



