52 I 



HORTICULTURE 



December 1M, l'Jl'.t 



HORTICULTURE 



Established by William J. Stewart in 1004 



VOL. XXX 



DECEMBER 20, 1919 



No. 25 



PUBLISHED MEEKLY BY 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

 78 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass. 



EDWARD I. FARRINGTON, Editor. 

 Telephone Fort Hill 3694 



ADVERTISING RATES: 



Per Inch, 30 incheH to page $1.26 



Discount on Contracts for consecutive insertions, as follows: 



One month (4 times), 5 per cent.; three months (13 times), 10 

 per cent.; six months (26 times), 20 per cent.; one year (52 times), 

 30 per cent. 



Page and half page space, not consecutive, rates on application. 



Entered as second-class matter December 8, 1004, at the Post Office 

 at Boston, Mass., under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1897. 



Our compliments to Secretary John Young, who was 

 51 on Wednesday and really just settling down to his 

 life work. The New York Florists' Club would hardly 

 know what to do without him, and few men even in the 

 trade realize how well he is handling a prodigious task 

 at headquarters. So with all the trade we wish him a 

 Merry Christmas this year and for many years to come. 



In few lines of endeavor are people so 

 Christmas closely associated with the business side of 

 Christmas as the florists. There is a 

 measure of satisfaction in this, too. It is pleasant to 

 look in upon lives of the great human throng, to have an 

 active part in making these lives happier and brighter 

 for even a few days, and to feel that the holidays have 

 been made more cheerful and more joyous by our efforts. 

 This is mere sentiment, no doubt. When in the midst 

 of seemingly endless work, with delays to test our pa- 

 tience and problems to vex our souls, we say to ourselves 

 that if there is any merriment in the Christinas holiday 

 making it is outside the florist's ken. But when it is 

 over, and when we see the beaming faces, the happy 

 throngs, and everywhere plants and flowers as the most 

 potent emblems of the day, we feel a glow of pride and 

 satisfaction such as comes to few. 



If, incidentally, we can pat a fat purse and tell our- 

 selves that the holiday season has brought us ample 

 means for indulging in a little joy making on our own 

 account, are we to be censured? By no means. If we 

 can make other people happy and ourselves happy at the 

 same time, we ought to congratulate ourselves on having 

 a calling which makes such things possible. 



And it has been a good season for the trade. It has 

 not been just like past seasons. We have found our- 

 selves without some kinds of material which we had 

 come to count on in the past, but still we have worried 

 along fairly well. We have seen flowers sold for more 

 money than we ever dreamed that the public would pay. 

 And we have seen a tremendously growing demand for 

 potted plants, marking a tendency not to be overlooked 

 another year. 



If the retail florist is wise, he will take his note book 

 in hand before the details of the season's business leaves 

 his memory, and make careful entries concerning several 

 points. He will make a note of the material which has 

 sold best, and the amount which he has handled. He 



will note down, too, the names of the growers or whole- 

 salers from whom lie has purchased material, with the 

 condition of the stock and any useful comments which 

 :,,i i ome to him. Almost invariably ideas which might 

 have been adopted to advantage if they had been thought 

 of in time wall come to the dealer even in the busiest 

 I re. If possible let them be cherished until the op- 

 portunity arrives to jot them down, in order that they 

 may be utilized next season. In this way one year may 

 be made to serve another. To be sure, the brilliant 

 thought of today may seem to lose its brilliancy after it 

 has lain dormant until tomorrow, yet it sometimes hap- 

 pens that a vagrant idea when acted upon brings results 

 not attained by hours of strained thinking. It must be 

 ai ted upon at once, however, or else put down in black 

 and white. It seldom lasts. 



And so to the florist the Christmas season is one of 

 toil and often of anxiety, a season when his business 

 acumen is taxed to the limit, and yet it has its gentler 

 side, its tender associations. To the trade in all sin- 

 cerity, therefore, we wish a happy and a prosperous if 

 not a merry Christmas. 



Florists of a generation ago would have 

 Advertising stood aghast at the thought of using an 

 entire page in one of the daily papers 

 for advertising flowers. Yet such a proceeding no longer 

 excites amazement. The other day Gude Bros. Co. of 

 Washington bought a page in the Washington Post and 

 used it to display one of the most effective advertise- 

 ments which has come to our notice in a long time. The 

 page was surrounded with copies of telegrams sent to 

 other cities with orders for flowers and helped to bring 

 home the value of the Florists Telegraph Delivery Asso- 

 ciation. The center of the page was filled with large 

 type carrying the message of the Gudes themselves to a 

 waiting public. The text in part was as follows: 



'"From every nook and corner of the world 

 come the flower messages. 

 " — from every country, from every state these 

 messages come in. By cable, by wireless, by 

 telegraph : messages instructing us to remem- 

 ber 'them' to 'some one' with flowers. 



"Thoughts — memories — know no distance — 

 and when flowers are so easily telegraphed it 

 isn't hard to express these thoughts in the lan- 

 guage that every one understands. 



"It has been our privilege to receive these 

 messages from foreign countries and from every 

 State in the Union. Hundreds and hundreds 

 of Washington people have known through 

 Oude Bros, what pleasure it is to be Tiemem- 

 bered With Flowers' by some one far away. 



"When your truest and deepest emotions 

 for some one leave you dumb for words, remem- 

 ber how expressive and how easy it is to 'Say 

 It With Flowers.' 



"If there is 'some one" you want this message 

 flashed to, just stop in, or phone the address. 

 We have connections in every important city 

 in America and in foreign countries." 



We wonder if florists in general realize that while this 

 form of advertising is paid for by Gude Bros., they reap 

 much of its benefit. In this work what helps one helps 

 all. The public learns that not Gude Bros, alone, but 

 hundreds of others are telegraph florists. And so the 

 great "Say It With Flowers" campaign gets another 

 valuable boost. 



