NOVEMBEB 16, 1916. 



The Florists^ Review 



33 



ing them under a glass sash protection. 

 It may sound ridiculous, but I have had 

 better results in summering them under 

 glass than in any other way. In the 

 extreme southern states it does not pay 



to try to hold them over. In July and 

 August they will begin to throw scat- 

 tering flowers, so that when the time 

 arrives when they should be forced the 

 flowers are gone. In these states it is 



also impossible to hold the plants for 

 Easter, unless on an extra early date, 

 and to have an evenly flowered plant 

 some fire heat is necessary to push them 

 a little. L. 



RETAIL STORE MANAGEMENT 



WHAT THE LEADERS IN THE TRADE ARE DOING 



TWO POINTS OF VIEW. 



There is an old saying to the efifect 

 that it takes quite a variety of people 

 to make a world, so we should not mar- 

 vel at some divergencies in views. For 

 instance, here is what an editorial 

 writer on the Detroit Times thought of 

 Hugo Schroeter's Halloween window; 



These Autumn Leaves, So Arranged,' Spell Truth, 



Most of us cannot get into the October woods, 

 feel the dried leaves beneath our feet, breathe 

 the pungent air, with a slight edge of frost in 

 It, and look through the haze in a clearing 

 toward the dreamy horizon. 



Moat of us are grinding out matters of small 

 moment individually, but tremendously big in 

 the aggregate, in order to keep our form of 

 civilization in the grooves into which we have 

 fitted it. 



There is n window of a florist on Woodward 

 avenue which gives one a feeling that wlioever 

 arranged it must have had the same longing for 

 a touch of the autumn woods as many of us 

 have. 



The background is a little clump of birch 

 trees, shining white and silvery against a gray 

 setting; there is a bitter-sweet in the fore- 

 ground and gray moss on the ground. 



No vestige of the florists' trade is in this 

 window to mar the harmony of the little scene; 

 no bunches of rosps or hothouse lilies break the 

 serene beauty of this sylvan bit of art. 



Whoever did it was full of a desire for truth, 

 a desire greater than his wish to sell his wares, 

 or perhaps he had made the great discovery 

 that the very fact that he made no attempt at 

 advertising his flowers would attract more peo- 

 ple than if he had spoiled his effect with baskets 

 of various shapes and sizes tied with huge rib- 

 bons and filled with gorgeous blossoms. 



Whoever this artist may be, we congratulate 

 him twice. First for his artistic skill and sec- 

 ond for his ability to divorce himself, for tlie 

 time being, from the mercenary point of view 

 held by the majority. 



"The mercenary view held by the 

 majority" is a hot shot; a hot shot be- 

 cause it strikes home; the shoe fits; we 

 put it on; we must be mercenary. Por 

 we are obsessed with the idea that a 

 florist's window might as well be empty 

 as devoid of flowers. 



What is the purpose of a window dec- 

 oration in a flower store? Is it to edify 

 some poor wight pining for his native 

 woods? No, verily, its purpose only is 

 to sell him flowers; we have no woods 

 for sale. 



The average florist falls down utterly 

 on his window decoration. He makes a 

 pretty picture, but he completely wastes 

 its sales force. The Greek, who makes 

 no pretense of art, actually is the bet- 

 ter merchant, for he puts a price ticket 

 on the roses in the window — he may 

 not draw an editorial in a paper that 

 can't mention his name because that 

 would be giving him an ad, but he 

 draws the money out of the pocket of 

 the man who wants -the roses at the 

 price. 



Not that every florist should put price 

 tickets on the stock in his windows — 

 far be it from such — but the man whose 

 mercenary nature causes him to mix a 

 little merchandising matter with his 

 art will sell a lot more flowers than 

 will the man whose art is pure and un- 

 defiled by contact with the commercial. 



PENN'S APPEAL TO SENTIMENT. 



There are only a few florists who can 

 combine sentiment with the merchan- 

 dising of flowers. In a majority of 

 cases either the appeal is wholly to the 

 appreciation of art or wholly to the 

 appreciation of price; in only rare in- 

 stances is the appeal to sentiment and 

 it is still more rare that the appeal to 

 sentiment is made in such a way that 

 it has a sales value. Penn, of Boston, 

 who for some years has advertised flow- 

 ers more extensively than anyone else, 

 presents an unusual contrast in his pub- 

 licity. Some of his advertising is of 

 the department store type, offering spe- 

 cial values and low prices, but occa- 

 sionally an advertisement appears that 

 makes an adroit appeal to sentiment, 

 such as the one reproduced herewith. 

 Such advertising might well be handled 

 on the cooperative basis, paid for by 

 subscription and published without sig- 

 nature, for it is well calculated to in- 



crease the number of flower buyers in 

 the community. 



HOLLYWOOD'S CHEF D'OEUVRE. 



No wedding out of an Italian ro- 

 mance could have had a more profuse 

 and more artistic floral setting than that 

 furnished by the Hollywood Gardens, of 

 Seattle, Wash., for the fashionable 

 Stimson- Moore nuptials last month. The 

 Pacific coast boasts some of the deftest 

 and most clever decorators in the busi- 

 ness, and as time rolls on it may be- 

 come necessary for the east-coasters to 

 look sharply to their achievements: 



The illustration on page 35 clearly 

 shows the Hollywood Gardens decora- 

 tion in the Church of the Immaculate 

 Conception, at Seattle. In the estimation 

 of decorators, social veterans and grand 

 dames, the completed work eclipsed 

 anything of its kind ever seen along 

 the Pacific coast line. The effect as a 

 whole may seem a trifle crowded, but 



11 



HE pretty sentiment 

 which accompanies a 

 gift of flowers — admiration, 

 love, tender regard — these 

 things make a flower as greatly 

 prized as a jewel. 



^ So take even a single rose 

 home to some dear one, not for 

 its intrinsic value, but for your 

 inner feelings which it manifests. 



If 



124 TREMONT ST. 



FLOWERPHONE BEACH 6900 



How a Skillful Boston Advertiser Makes the Appeal to Sentiment. 



