22 



',C7,,«- ;;■?■■;■'%*,.. 





The Florists' Review 



October 26, 1916. 



ErtabUshed, 1B97, by Q. L. GRAlTr. 



Pabllahed every Tharaday by 

 Thk Florists' PusLisHiNa Co» 



8S0-660 Oaxton Buildlngr. 



SOS South Dearborn St., Cfalcaga 



Tele., Wabash 8196. 



Befrlstered cable addreaSi 



Florview. Chicago. 



lEntered as second class matter 

 Dec. 8. 1891 , at the poet-offlce at Ohl- 

 oa«o. 111., under the Act of March 

 •,1879. 



Subscription price, 11.00 a year. 

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



Advertising rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 ▼ertlalnc accepted. 



n 



NOTICE. 



It is iaposaible to i^arantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any adVertiaement 



anless inatmetions are received 



BY 6 P. M. TUSSDAT. 



SOCIETY OF AMEKICAH FLORISTS. 

 Inoorporated by Act of Confreaa, March 4, 1901. 



Officers for 1916: President. Daniel MacBorle, 



■an Francisco; vice-president, R. O. Kerr, Hooa- 



. tea, Tex. ; secretary, John xounc. 63 W. 28th 



Bt., New York City; treasurer, J. J. Hess, 



Omaha. 



Officers for 1917: President, Robert 0. Kerr, 

 Honaton, Tex.; vice-president, A. L. Miller, Ja- 

 Bialca, N. T. ; secretary, John Young, 63 W. 28th 

 Bt., Mevr Yeik City; treasurer, 1. J. Heaa, 

 Omaha, Neb. 



Thirty-third annual convention. New York. 

 H. Y., Ausuflt 21 to 24, 1917. 



Results brine advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Often the spirit of perseverance strikes 

 a florist hardest when he is in the wrong. 



There are some florists who can see 

 the other fellow 's side, but too many call 

 it a square deal only when they get fifty- 

 one per cent or better. 



A PRELIMINARY premium list has been 

 issued for the St. Louis flower show of 

 1917, March 15 to 18. Copies may be 

 obtained by addressing W. W. Ohlweiler, 

 secretary of the committee, care Missouri 

 Botanical Garden, St. Louis. 



Is it a coincidence that most' of the 

 many complaints of the depredations of 

 the rose midge that have come to hand 

 this season speak of Ophelia as being 

 the variety principally affected f Or 

 has this rose some special attraction for 

 this unmitigated pestf 



The supply of Boston ferns is not so 

 large as usual this autumn, but still 

 many growers who look only to their local 

 market find their houses crowded and are 

 pushing the stock out at prices that are 

 below the real value of the goods. It is 

 ever thus: pressure to sell in the autumn 

 and a hunt for stock in the summer. 



Thus far the chrysanthemum season 

 has been most excellent, marketwise. 

 While not all the stock has been of first- 

 class quality, the wholesale prices for all 

 grades have been decidedly better than 

 were realized in any of the last several 

 years. The best blooms have brought 

 close to record figures thus far and the 

 prospect is good. 



WHAT HAVE YOU? 



No usable second-hand material 



should be permitted to go to waste 



when it easily can be turned into cash. 



Like this: 



Please cut out the little liner offering a Wilks 

 boiler for sale. I got four buyers for it and can 

 only sell it once. The Review certainly is a busi- 

 ness-getting paper for its advertisers, but the 

 boiler was a bargain; we only sold it because it 

 was too small to heat our enlarged place. 



When you hear a man complain of 



the cost of advertising you can be 



pretty sure he spends a good bit of 



money elsewhere than in The Review. 



HOW TO RAISE PRICES. 



Wherever fiorists get together now- 

 adays there is discussion as to how the 

 trade can work prices up in a way that 

 will compensate for the greatly in- 

 creased cost of doing business. It is 

 everywhere conceded that the public is 

 not payiiig more for plants and flowers 

 in anything like the proportion it is pay- 

 ing more for other articles. 



But the raising of prices for flow- 

 ers should be the easiest thing imagin- 

 able. Let the retailers begin by adding 

 a little something to prices right down 

 the line. Scarcely any customers will 

 know the difference, or care. Then, 

 with a better margin of profit, the 

 retailers will not have to fight the 

 wholesalers' prices so hard and every- 

 body will be prosperous and happy! 



THE COST OF CASES. 



Bulb importers are getting a taste 

 of the high cost of living in an ad- 

 vance in the charges for packing cases. 

 In previous years the practice of charg- 

 ing for cases was not general, but it 

 usually was felt by the buyer that if 

 the cases were not invoiced, or were 

 invoiced and deducted, still the buyer 

 paid for them in another way. Last 

 spring, however, the Dutch Bulb Ex- 

 porters' Association took action to 

 make the charges uniform and univer- 

 sal this season, with the result that 

 cases that were charged at $1 last sea- 

 son appear at $1.50 on this year's in- 

 voices. There has been no report of 

 concerted action on the part of the 

 French exporters, but cases that were 

 2 francs before the war and 3 francs 

 last season were charged for at 4 francs 

 this year. When it is considered that 

 the season's arrivals now total nearly 

 40,000 cases of Dutch and over 34,000 

 cases of French, it will be seen that 

 the advance of nearly 50 cents per case 

 represents nearly $37,0(^0 of extra ex- 

 pense. 



WHY BUSINESS IS OOOD. 



It is the almost unanimous report 

 that business is unusually good this 

 autumn, but especially in a wholesale 

 way. The reason for it lies partly in 

 a high degree of general prosperity, re- 

 sulting in many persons having a 

 greater purchasing power than ordi- 

 narily is the case, but this is offset to 

 a certain degree by the high cost of 

 necessities of life, which leaves persons 

 of fixed income with less surplus than 

 usual. Consequently, it can be figured 

 out that the heavy demand for cut 

 flowers, plants and bulbs is due prin- 

 cipally to the unusual weather condi- 

 tions and the difficulty of importing, 

 both of which have operated to reduce 

 the supply of usable stock below what 

 it otherwise would be at this date. The 

 weather has been the chief factor — a bad 



growing season, too wet or too hot and 

 dry, followed by remarkably early 

 frosts. Outdoor flowers were less 

 abundant and less good than usual and 

 their season was cut off earlier than 

 many persons ever knew before. An 

 early frost always makes an active fall 

 market for indoor cut flowers and this 

 season carnations and late stocks of 

 palms, etc., are lower than usual, partly 

 due to the difficulty of importing dur- 

 ing the last two years; there has been 

 uncertainty about the arrival of this 

 year's shipments from across the water 

 and there are many empty spaces in 

 greenhouses that are being filled with 

 bulbs and other substitute crops, all 

 adding to the activities of the early 

 autumn season. r< 



It is the general oelief that this will 

 be an exceptionally good season for 

 those who have something to sell, but 

 that ,niany powers are caught in a 

 position wher^ they will have, for some 

 time, less than the usual quSiUtity of 

 stock to offen' 



IN SPITE OF HIMSEU'. 



How the man who doesn't advertise 

 pays the advertising bill of the man 

 who does: 



A grower from down Missouri way 

 dropped into The Review office one day 

 last week. Some of the things he said 

 interested the publishers and probably 

 will interest quit6 a few others. Inci- 

 dentally, the man from Missouri told 

 how the man who doesn 't advertise pays 

 the advertising bill of the man who 

 does. 



, It seems that in the earlier days this 

 grower was accustomed to send his or- 

 ders to a certain house in New York. 

 "But," he said, "I did not find their 

 ads in The Review and I gradually got 

 to sending my orders to another New 

 York concern that every week was 

 printing ads of the things I wanted." 



Desiring to know how much this non- 

 advertiser was paying of the advertis- 

 ing bill of his competitor, the Mis- 

 sourian was questioned: 



"The seed orders every now and then 

 were $12 or $15 each time," he said, 

 "but the bulb bill was more; this year 

 it was over $500." 



As a half-page advertisement can be 

 carried in The Review each week for a 

 full year for only $546, it appears that 

 in this one account a house that doesn 't 

 advertise is paying quite a good propor- 

 tion of the advertising bill of the man 

 who does. 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



The cold, dark weather of last week 

 ■caused a sharp reduction in supply and 

 temporarily placed a damper on city 

 demand. Shipping demand, however, 

 steadily gains strength. The chief dif- 

 ficulty seems to be to find stock of a 

 suitable nature to fill orders. This is 

 not an easy task, for the shortening in 

 supply did not affect all kinds of stock 

 in the same degree. This is not to be 

 understood as implying that market 

 conditions are altogether unsatisfactory, 

 for this they are not. Stock is clearing, 

 and though it requires no small degree 

 of activity and alertness to fill orders 

 satisfactorily, little complaint is heard. 



To begin with, carnations are again 

 so scarce that they are, in a way of 

 speaking, almost out of the question. 

 To be sure one can find them, but not 



■ *«— -♦-'^'^f- 



