26 



The Florists^ Review 



'•J': 



,,^> April 27, 1916. 



ErtabUshed. 1887. by Q. L. GRANT. 



PabllBhed every Thursday by 

 The Florists' Pdblishinq Co., 



630-660 Oaxton Building, 



008 South Dearborn St., Ohlcaco. 



Tele., Wabash 8196. 



Reflrlstered cable address, 



Florvlew. Chlca«ro. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897, at the post-office at Chi- 

 cago, IlL, under the Act of March 

 8, 1879. 



Subscription price, fl.OO a year. 

 To Canada, $2.00; to Europe, $3.00. 



Advertlslnir rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 Tertlsing accepted. 



NOTJCE. 



It is impossible to ipiarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



altei^tlen ef any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BY 6 P. M. TUESDAY. 



80CIETT OF AXE&ICAS IXORISTB. 

 Incorporated by Act of Congress, March 4, 1901. 



Officers for 1916: President, Daniel MacRorle, 

 San Francisco; Tlce-presldent, R. C. Kerr, Hons- 

 ton, Tex.; secretary, John Yonng, 63 W. 28th 

 St., New York City; treasurer, W. F. Hasting, 

 Baffalo. 



mrty-second annnal conTention, Houston, 

 Texas, August 15 to 18, 1916. 



Results bring advertising. 

 The Eeview brings resulte. 



Eastee developed nothing in the line 

 of rambler roses to contest the leadership 

 of Tausendschon. It is the best pot plant 

 I of the generation. 



Many carnation growers now are busy 

 planting young stock in the field, the 

 first time within memory that this task 

 has been begun the week after Easter. 



There never was a year in which the 

 departure of the Easter plants was more 

 wdcome. To finish a crop of bedding 

 plants in less than a month from the 

 Easter stock requires genius of a high 

 order. 



The retailer wants lilies with two or 

 three blooms per stalk — the customer who 

 orders a dozen lilies does not want them 

 on two stems but on four or five. The 

 grower meets this condition by using 

 small bulbs and planting out in benches, 

 or two bulbs to the pot. 



As an Easter remembrance from Sec- 

 retary A. F. J. Baur, members of the 

 American Carnation Society received the 

 annual volume, this time containing the 

 proceedings of the twenty-fifth conven- 

 tion, list of members and several illus- 

 trations. The frontispiece is a portrait 

 of President Joseph H. Hill. 



Retail florists have been slow to take 

 hold of boxwood plants this season, per- 

 haps because many found them slow sale 

 last spring and perhaps only waiting, as 

 usual, for the passing of Easter. The 

 boxwood is one of the safest buys a re- 

 tail florist can. Make; if he does not sell 

 the plants he can cut them up and make 

 wreaths for Memorial Day. 



Fob pot plant purposes Crimson Ram- 

 bler is down and out; its sport, Ema 

 Teschendorff, has taken its place. 



Yvonne Easier, while one of the finest 

 of polyantha roses, is not acceptable to 

 the retail trade; it drops its petals too 

 quickly to be satisfactory either to the 

 retailer or his customers. 



One of the best azaJeas noted this 

 Easter was Daybreak, a variety found in 

 few of the catalogues, but one of ex- 

 ceptional merit for late work; the retail 

 stores that had it found it sold at sight. 

 The variety is what the French describe 

 as tardif, so that the great size of the 

 semi-double flowers and the even color of 

 le point du jour do not count in its favor 

 except where time is no object. 



HONORABLE MENTION. 



Not a few subscribers save them- 

 selves the bother of annual renewal by 

 sending The Review $2, $3, or some- 

 times $5, instead of the dollar bill that 

 insures fifty-two visits of the paper. 

 Among those who have this week en- 

 rolled themselves for more than one 

 year in advance are: 



FIVE years. 



Buck, G. P., Collingswood, N. J. 



three years. 



Bower, C. A., Dayton, O. 



TWO YEARS. 



Pegler, John, Charles City, la. 

 Ring, J. P., Helena, Mont. 

 Schlesinger, L., Mendota, 111. 

 Masson, J. P., Kansas City, Kan. 

 Watson, F. T., Moorestown, N. J. 

 Kramer, A. J., Mankato, Kan. 



The Review stops coming when the 

 subscription runs out. The green no- 

 tice with the last copy tells the story; 

 no bills are run up; no duns are sent. 



A SPLENDID EASTEB. 



One who reads the city news-letters 

 in this issue of The Review will come 

 to the conclusion that probably this has 

 been the most generally satisfactory 

 Easter in the history of the flower busi- 

 ness. Weather conditions, while not 

 ideal, were much better than a year 

 ago, contributing not only to the vol- 

 ume of business but to the facility with 

 which it was handled. 



It is human nature for the man who 

 did a record business to make a noise 

 about it, and for the fellow whose sales 

 showed a falling off to keep quiet, but 

 there can be no doubt that last week 

 the trade as a whole sold more plants 

 and cut flowers than at any previous 

 Easter. 



Plants have come to occupy first 

 place in the Easter consideration. Of 

 course there are exceptions, but in a 

 general way the plant grower^ had their 

 banner season, being prepared with 

 larger stocks than ever before and sell- 

 ing out almost to the last plant. Hav- 

 ing bought heavily, naturally the re- 

 tailers pushed plant sales. Nearly all 

 of them cleaned up in a fairly satisfac- 

 tory manner. Where so large a stock is 

 laid in, it is too much to hope that 

 every plant will be sold, so that little 

 is heard of the moderate numbers of 

 plants left on hand. In general the 

 plants left were azaleas and hydrangeas 

 in the larger and more expensive sizes; 

 the small plants cleaned up completely. 

 There seems to have been an abun- 

 dance of lilies almost everywhere, with 

 the result that wholesale prices, both 

 for pot plants and cut flowers, did not 

 run quite so high as in earlier seasons. 

 While the lily is still the big seller, the 

 better class of stores used more rose 



plants than ever before. Bulbous stock- 

 was less plentiful than at earlier East- 

 ers. 



The strength of the Easter demand is 

 best shown by the quantities of cut 

 flowers sold. In most cases retailers put 

 off ordering cut stock until they had 

 made sure of the disposal of their pot 

 plants. That such great quantities of 

 stock should be sold under these condi 

 tions speaks eloquently for the total 

 volume of business done. In a general 

 way cut flowers were everywhere in 

 good supply. Lilies were abundant, 

 rose crops were large and of fine qual- 

 ity and carnations were better than 

 usual at the end of April because of the 

 cool spring. The lateness of Easter re- 

 sulted in violets taking a much less con- 

 spicuous part than usual, the demand 

 being turned to sweet peas, which every- 

 where sold better than ever before for 

 Easter corsage use. In many cases it is 

 reported that sweet peas were much 

 more satisfactory than violets ever have 

 been and it is predicted next year's 

 earlier Easter will see less call for 

 violets and more call for sweet peas 

 than has been the case in other years. 

 Orchids were unaccountably scarce in 

 all the principal markets. 



It is the general report the trade was 

 late in starting and that the immense 

 volume of business was done in a tre- 

 mendous rush at the last moment. The 

 problem confronting the trade, for fu- 

 ture holidays, is to get the buyers 

 started earlier. How can it be done? 



CHICAGO. 



Tbe Market. 



Throughout the Chicago market there 

 is but one verdict on the question of 

 Eastern business, and that is that it 

 was the best in the history of the 

 trade. 



There were several causes contribut- 

 ing to the big business. One of them 

 was the lateness of Easter this year, 

 which enabled every grower to bring 

 his crop in at the right time. Of 

 course, this would not have been possi- 

 ble if the weather had been warm, 

 but it was not. Nor is the great im- 

 provement in general business condi- 

 tions to be ignored as an element in 

 the holiday's success. The buying pub- 

 lic had more money to spend for flow- 

 ers. Yet, with all this, prices were no 

 higher than in former years; in fact, 

 they were a little lower. There was 

 at no time a slump, but everything 

 cleared with the exception of short 

 lilies and a few white flowers. 



The early part of last week opened 

 with a heavy supply of stock and little 

 evidence of a correspondingly heavy 

 demand. As a result, wholesalers were 

 beginniifg to feel apprehensive. But 

 Thursday, April 20, shipping orders 

 from distant points began to arrive. 

 By April 21 shipping orders without 

 end were pouring into the market from 

 every point of the compass. The day 

 following, true to nature, the local 

 trade's scramble for stock began. And, 

 as usual, a large proportion of the city 

 buyers found the market absolutely 

 cleared of several important it6ms of 

 Easter stock. 



Beauties were extremely scarce and 

 the quality of most of the small supply 

 was distinctly inferior, but in spite of 

 this, all stock, if even passable, sold 

 at good prices. The rose and carnation 

 situation of a year ago was practically 



