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The Florists' Review 



Mabch 15, 1917. 



Established, 1897, by G. L. GRANT. 



Publlshecl every Thursday by 

 The Florists' Publishing Co., 



620-660 Oaxton BulldinK, 



608 South Dearborn St., Chlcat^o. 



Tele., Wabash 8195. 



Registered cable address, 



Florvlew, Chicago. 



Kntercd as second class matter 

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

 cago, 111., under the Act of March 

 3 1879. 



Subscription price, $1.50 a year. 

 To Canada, $2.50; to Europe, $3.00. 



Advertlslnsr rat«>8 quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



' NOTICE. 



It is impoaaible to guarantee 



the insertion, diacontinuanee or 



alteration of any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BY 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



800IETT OF AXEBIOAN FL0SI8T8. 

 Incorporated bj Act of Conrreas, March 4, 1901. 



Offlcera for 1917: Preaidant, Robert 0. Kerr, 

 Honaton, Tex.; Tlce-preaident, A. L. Miller, Ja- 

 maica, N. Y. ; aecretarj, John Toun;, 58 W. 28th 

 ■t., NoTT Tork 01 tj; treaaorer, J. J. Heaa, 

 Omaha, Neb. 



Thlrt7-thlrd annual convention. New York, 

 N. Y., An^st 21 to 24, 1917. 



Result! bring advertiBing. 

 The Beview brings results. 



The ground hog is due to make his 

 second appearance of the season this 

 week. We will agree he w;is right in his 

 forecast February 2 and will bid him 

 welcome now. 



IN printing this edition of The Re- 

 view 9,480 pounds of paper were con- 

 sumed, not counting that in the colored 

 insert. And this is not a special edi- 

 tion, only a regular, all in-the-week's- 

 work issue. There will be a Special 

 Flower Show Number next week and the 

 Annual Easter Number the week follow- 

 ing, calling for nearly six tons of paper 

 for each edition. 



Music, vaudeville, fashions and living 

 pictures have been "cards" at some of 

 the big-city flower shows during the last 

 few years, "cards" having a tendency 

 to swell gate receipts, but at this week's 

 St. Louis flower .show, not to be outdone 

 in originality by any other exhibition, 

 the entertainment committee proposed to 

 set loose thousands of butterflies and 

 birds in the Armory. 



The houses that had gladiolus bulbs 

 and nursery stock on the Dutch steamer 

 Nieuw Amsterdam, which was recalled to 

 Rotterdam February 1, after having sailed 

 for New York, have had no word since 

 cable advices stated the freight was being 

 transhipped to a lees valuable boat. The 

 censorship does not permit cable informa- 

 tion of sailings, but it is presumed that 

 the boat has proceeded to England as us- 

 ual for the examination of its cargo, 

 which sometimes requires several days, and 

 that it will soon be reported as approach- 

 ing New York, Against thia. supposi- 

 tion, however, is the possibility thelbWit 

 is among the nnmere^is ones still find in 

 Holland rather than risk the submarines. 



WHAT HAVE YOU? 



When they have something to sell 

 they advertise in The Review and The 

 Review sells it for them. Then they 

 write like this: 



As all good sayings go — here goes to The Re- 

 view. "Let The Review do the advertising. We 

 florists win do the shipping." — W. Bezdek, Cedar 

 Kaplds, la., February 27, 1917. 



Enclosed find check for 50 cents to pay for my 

 little two-line ad. This is the best spent of any 

 50 cents I ever spent. The only way I can see 

 to do is to build more glass. The trade wants 

 good geraniums and vincas; they go at sight. — 

 Charles Taynor, New Carlisle, C, March 2, 1917. 



When you hear a man complain of the 



cost of advertising you can be pretty 



certain he spends a good bit of money 



elsewhere than in The Review. 



WHO TALKED TO THE REPORTER? 



The subjoined, under the heading of 



"Flower Prices Unaffected," appeared 



in the leading evening paper at Chicago 



March 8, the day of the Florists' Club's 



exhibition and dinner: 



The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra, la, 

 have everything to do with the case. They are 

 the center of interest today at the New Morrison 

 hotel, where members of the Chicago Florists' 

 Club are gathered to admire, discuss and arrange 

 the coming flower styles of Easter and the suc- 

 ceeding seasons. As the florists, wholesale and 

 retail, assembled, gradually it became apparent 

 that neither the war nor the tariff nor the tides 

 in the Caribbean have affected the cost of flow- 

 ers. This Easter flowers will be the same as 

 they were last year, will cost no more than they 

 did before the war. 



The tides of the Caribbean, or the 



war, or the tariff, may not have affected 



prices of flowers, but the reporter says 



nothing about the higher cost of coal, 



labor, glass, wrapping paper and so on, 



ad infinitum. 



THE COST OF BUILDING. 



Growers contemplating new houses 

 this spring will find that the costs of 

 materials have made substantial ad- 

 vances since March, 191(i. Compara- 

 tive quotations for March, 1917, and 

 the corresponding month a year ago, 

 show that the increases range from 

 fourteen to sixty-five per cent, with an 

 average of thirty per cent. 



The chief blow to growers will bo the 

 steadily upward trend in the price of 

 glass. This material made an advance 

 of fifteen per cent the first part of the 

 month and will undoubtedly go higher, 

 as practically one-half of the manufac- 

 turers of the country have closed down 

 their plants because of inability to ob- 

 tain fuel. 



Comparative prices on eight materials 

 necessary to the construction of a green- 

 house and the percentage of advance of 

 each are given in the following table: 



% ad- 

 Commodity March, 1910 March, 1917 vance 



Brick $8.7.5 $10.00 14 



Cement 1.67 1.97 18 



Glass 90 & 10 off list 86% oft list .56 



Gravel .85 1.00 18 



Sand .40 ..50 25 



Lumber 44.00 51.00 16 



Nails 2.30 .3.00 30 



Iron 20.00 33.00 65 



Average per cent of increase 30 



NEW YORK FEDERATION. 



There will be a meeting of the New 

 York Federation of Horticultural Socie- 

 ties and Floral Clubs in the secretary's 

 office at the New York flower show. 

 Grand Central Palace, af 4' p. m., Mon- 

 day, March 19. The various affiliated 

 societies are requested to appoint dele- 

 gates to attend this meeting, as impor- 

 tant matters concerning legislation for 

 a horticultural building at the state fair 

 grounds at Syracuse are to be consid- 

 ered. E. A. White, Sec'y. 



FLOWER BOOK WITH PILL ADS. 



No greater recognition has been 

 given the universal home interest in 

 flowers and gardening than that of a 

 patent medicine company which is dis- 

 tributing throughout the country book- 

 lets entitle-i "Flowers for the Home." 

 Incorporated in the booklet, of course, 

 are advertisements of the medicine. A 

 book on floriculture was chosen because 

 it is certain that no other subject would 

 so positively insure the booklets being 

 retained in the home. Copies of the 

 booklet were recently circulated in 

 Coldwater, Mich., and one of them was 

 forwarded to The Review by D. Vogt, 

 of that city, with the comment: "Not 

 half bad for us, I should say." 



PROSPERITY AND PROFIT. 



This has been a season of unequaled 

 prosperity in the United States, but it 

 has been a season during which profits 

 have not been easy to make. 



The big business, highly organized 

 and equipped to take advantage of its 

 opportunities, undoubtedly has made 

 more money than ever before, but the 

 small business, which includes most flo- 

 rists, has been oppressed by the high 

 prices of nearly everything that is used 

 in the business; the small business-men 

 are the ones who meet the keenest com- 

 petition and they have not been able to 

 advance their selling prices sufficiently 

 to offset the increased expenses. 



In our own trade the margin of profits 

 is the narrowest ever known. A few 

 men in each branch of the business have 

 been able to meet the conditions and 

 profit by them, but the majority are not 

 so well off in the height of so-called 

 general prosperity as they were under 

 what might be referred to as normal 

 conditions. 



But a fact to be faced is, not for 

 a long time, if ever, will the cost of 

 doing business return to the levels con- 

 sidered normal before the war. 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



Shipping trade maintained its even 

 pace last week, at no time being note- 

 worthily heavy, but still coming in 

 steadily, keeping stock moving to a fair 

 degree. City trade lulled through the 

 week, but toward March 10 seemed to 

 feel a little impetus and March 12 busi- 

 ness was fairly active. There has been 

 a general shortening of stock in almost 

 all lines, but the supply still is more 

 than ample to meet the demand and 

 prices remain about the same as the 

 week previous. 



American Beauties are maintaining 

 their enviable position of unshaken 

 strength. The supply remains about the 

 same and prices hold up so strongly that 

 eastern Beauties are being imported in 

 small quantity. Other varieties of roses 

 are fairly easy, with the supply a little 

 shorter and a demand augmented by a 

 stiffening of the carnation market. Al- 

 though roses appeared to move well dur- 

 ing the entire week, the market seemed 

 to be lacking in vigor until the after- 

 noon of March 9, when a change set in 

 and demand became more active. This 

 was due, probably, to the carnation mar- 

 ket, which began to shorten at the end 

 of the week. White varieties, espe- 

 cially, became scarce and growers wjre 

 evidently holding back for St. Patri«i's 

 day. On the whole, white, deep colored 



