April 26, 1919 



HORTICULTURE 



401 



SEED TRADE 



AMERICAN SBBD TRADE ASSOCIATION 



Officers — President, F. W. Bolilaaa, 

 Washington, D. C. ; First Vice-President, 

 Wbl G. Scarlett, Baltimore, Md,; H*-cond 

 Vice-President, David Burpee, Philadel- 

 phia, Pa.; Secretary-Treasurer, O. K. 

 Keadel, CleTeland. O. 



POTATO DISEASES PREVALENT. 



May Be Controlled by Treatment and 



Selection of Seed. 



A number of specimens of seed po- 

 tatoes with Rhizoctonia or black scurf 

 have recently been sent in to the Ohio 

 College of Agriculture for identifica- 

 tion. These potatoes are nearly cov- 

 ered with dark brown or blackish bod- 

 ies up to a quarter of an inch in size 

 which at first appear as adhering soil 

 particles but will not wash off. When 

 such tubers are planted the fungous 

 parasite in these bodies grows out and 

 attacks the young shoots, resulting in 

 lowered yield and a diseased crop. 

 The parasite also gains a foothold in 

 the soil so that future crops will be 

 diseased. 



Such diseased tubers should not be 

 planted. Seed treatment with corro- 

 sive sublimate, however, will greatly 

 reduce the disease. Four ounces of 

 corrosive sublimate are dissolved in 

 30 gallons of water and the tubers 

 soaked in the solution for an hour and 

 a half. This chemical is a deadly 

 poison and must be handled according- 

 ly. The solution should be used in 

 wooden vessels, as it corrodes metals. 

 This same treatment may also be used 

 to treat for potato scab. 



Only clear, sound, healthy tubers 

 with an unbroken skin and of fairly 

 uniform size and regular shape should 

 be selected as seed potatoes. 



SEAWEED FURNISHES POTASH 

 FERTILIZER. 



Since the war stopped the suppl.v of 

 potash from Germany the Bureau of 

 Soils of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture has been experimenting 

 with various processes for recovering 

 potash from kelp, a seaweed. One of 

 the experimental plants has been in 

 successful operation for several 

 months. 



One of the by-products is kelp ash, 

 which contains a potash content of 



more than 33 per cent. Several car- 

 loads of this product have been placed 

 upon the eastern markets for fertilizer 

 purposes. A carload was recently sold 

 to a farmers' co-operative association 

 in New York and was found so satis- 

 factory that another carload was 

 bought later. A third carload of kelp 

 ash will reach Baltimore about May 1. 

 Anyone interested in buying kelp ash 

 in carload lots for fertilizer purposes 

 may secure further information from 

 the Bureau of Soils. 



SALES AND PROFITS 



Taper by Hodgson Jolly, read at a meeting 

 of the Chicago Florists' Club April 10, 1919. 



Isaiah, the prophet, in directing the 

 attention of the Hebrews to the road 

 to success said: "And though the Lord 

 give you the bread of adversity and 

 the water of affliction, yet shall not 

 thy teachers be hidden any more." 



How about it in these days? Truly 

 these are days of adversity, but the 

 teachers are not hidden and no man 

 need say that there is no place he can 

 go for knowledge. Knowledge is on 

 every hand. Is it appreciated or made 

 use of? It does not look like it, for 

 statistics show the average life of 

 business less than five years and 97 

 out of every 100 businesses, failures. 

 Interposing here a touch of levity, one 

 might say that there was considerable 

 truth in the slang epic that "Life is a 

 doughnut. The problem is to separate 

 the nuts from the dough." Our prob- 

 lem tonight is to endeavor to separate 

 facts from fancies, as regards sales 

 and their profits. Let us, therefore, 

 ask ourselves — What is a sale? 



According to the dictionary, a sale 

 is "an exchange of a commodity for an 

 agreed price." However, in modern 

 business, a sale means quite a good 

 deal more — "an exchange of a com- 

 modity for an agreed price" at a profit 

 to the seller. In fact, generally speak- 

 ing, the sooner it is realized by busi- 

 ness men that there is no sale where 

 there is no profit, the better it will be 

 for them individually and collectively. 

 Such a realization is not based on any- 

 thing merely theoretical or academic, 

 for only when we realize, and admit, 

 that we are in business to make profit 

 — profit, legitimate, profit — are we 

 going to properly succeed. Outside of 

 a benevolent or charitable institution, 

 every business has to make profits, if 

 it is going to remain in business or 

 develop and grow as it should. We, 

 therefore, are forced to inquire what 

 is profit on a sale? The answer, in 

 everyday business language, would be 

 that profit is "the difference between 

 the sale price and the cost price of 



the article sold." This urges us to 

 further information on the "cost 

 price." "Cost price" or, in accounting 

 lingo, "cost of sale," usually covers 

 the "delivered" cost of the article or 

 commodity sold, which would include 

 the list price (less trade discount), 

 plus delivery, freight and express 

 charges. This, however, is not all of 

 the "costs" of sale, for to the "de- 

 livered cost," has to be added the ad- 

 ministrative or "general," as well as 

 the "selling" expenses of the individ- 

 ual, partnership or corporation making 

 the sale. Of course, it is understood 

 that these extras to the original "de- 

 livery cost," usually termed "on 

 costs," "burdens" or "overheads" — In 

 other words, the cost of doing busi- 

 ness or mark-up, cannot usually be 

 directly applied, but are added on a 

 percentage fractional or some such 

 similar basis. This method or plan of 

 distribution of the additional over- 

 head costs or costs of doing business, 

 does not, however, in any way, invali- 

 date or deny the existence of these 

 same additional classes of expense 

 that have got to be added to the origi- 

 nal prime "delivered" cost, before it 

 can be said that all the items in the 

 cost of sale have been covered. 

 Neither does the use of any other 

 basis of distribution alter the case, or 

 afford any grounds to any one who 

 wants to be honest with himself, for 

 ignoring or disregarding such "over- 

 head" expenses in the total of costs of 

 sale. 



To sum: up, then, 



(1) A sale is not a sale, unless 

 there is profit in it. 



(2) The profit in the sale is the 

 difference between the sale price and 

 the total of the costs in the same. 



(3) The factors in the costs of sale 

 are: (a) "Delivered" cost of article, 

 (b) Administrative or "general" over- 

 head, (c) Selling expense or over- 

 head. B and C being usually termed 

 "cost of doing business," or, "make- 

 up." 



Quoting Walter W. Hoops, a well- 

 known advertising man: "With rare 

 exceptions the big problem is not 

 bigger business, but better business 

 methods — more careful thinking and 

 less guessing." Why is it, that 90 per 

 cent of American merchants overbuy? 

 Because they do not know their in- 

 ventories or cost of doing business. 

 Is it not about time you florists took 

 this to heart, and got rid of your con- 

 ceit in old-time ways and means of 

 conducting business? How many of 

 you can tell the percentage of sales, 

 or cost of sales or your cost of doing 

 business on your sales as a whole — 

 much less on the different classes of 



