22 



The Florists^ Review 



Januauy 18, 1917. 



Eatabllshed, 1897. by O. L. GRANT 



Published every Thursday by 

 The Flokists' Publishing Co., 



520-660 Oaxtoa BulldlnR, 



608 South Dearborn St., Chicago. 



Tele.. Wabash 8196. 



Refrlstered cable address, 



Florvlew, Chlcai^o. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897, at the post-omee at Chl- 

 cagn. 111., under the Act of Mar h 

 3. 1879. 



Subscription price, $1.50 a year. 

 To Canada. $2.50; to Kuro|)e, $3.00. 



AdvertislnK rat<»s quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



NOTICE. 



It ia impoasible to (guarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any adTertieement 



nnlesa instructions are received 



BY 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



SOCIETY OF AHEEICAN FLORISTS. 



Incorporated by Act of Congress, March 4, 1901. 



Officers for 1917: President, Robert C. Kerr, 

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

 maica, N. y. ; secretary, John Young. 53 W. 28th 

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

 Omaha, Neb. 



Thirty-third nnnunl convention, New Yorlc, 

 N. Y.. August 21 to 24, 1917. 



Besultfl bring advertising. 

 The Review brings resulcs. 



Fr.OKlsTS must not stretch the truth 

 too far, or the recoil may knock them out. 



Fully nine-tentlis of the so called 

 toufjh luck in this trade is due to a eoiii- 

 bination of poor judgment and laziness. 



Although some growers do not en- 

 thuse over Nebraska carnation, others, 

 and in widely separated jiarts of the coun- 

 try, call it "the best red to date." 



KiLi.AKNKV 's days apjiear to ])e num- 

 bercfl. Although it is the most j)rolific 

 of all roses in the hamls of certiiin grow 

 ers, there are many who can do little with 

 it. And the buyers have come to jirefer 

 almost auy other i)ink rose. 



Some of the wh(desale jilantsmen are 

 so discouraged over the losses incurred 

 in cxjiress shipments at Christmas that 

 they have given up the attempt to do 

 business for the jiresent, although there 

 no longer is a congestion of freight in 

 exjiress offices. 



TiiK anemone-f1ower«'d (dnysanthemums 

 are like the so-called singles in that they 

 are not well adapted to the rough han- 

 dling of the wholesale markets and the 

 shipping trade, but they are making a 

 tremen'dous success with the man who 

 grows for his home letail trade and can 

 deliver without disarranging the outer 

 jietals of the flowers. 



The S. A. F. has made a number of at- 

 tempts, through committees, to devise 

 standard grades for pot jdants, or young 

 stock out of ]iots, but has given uj) in 

 despair. But all will agree that "from" 

 a certain size of pot does not mean a few 

 •lays' residence tliere; the plant must be 

 well rooted around, how "well"' is left 

 to agreement between .seller and buver. 



HOW MANY? 



The regular weekly ])ress room order 



now is to jirint 12,50U coj)ies of The 



Review. Uow many florists do you 



think there are in the United States 



who do not get it ? And it is where a 



l)ai)er is read, not where it is printed, 



that counts. Like this: 



Knclosod find chcclv for Dccciiibcr ndvcrtising 

 in Tlu' Review. The ad brought fine results and 

 I thank you. — \. R. Uluxton, "Willis, Tex., Jan- 

 uary ."). 1017. 



When you hear a man complain of 



the cost of advertising you can be 



])retty sure he spends a good bit of 



moiiev elsewhere than in The Review. 



PITY THE POOR PRINTER. 



The Keview has a great many friends 

 — subscribers and advertisers who wel- 

 come an opi)ortunity to do the paper a 

 good turn. And here is a way they can 

 hel|) a lot: 



The Review goes to i)ress each Wednes- 

 day. It undertakes to attend to every 

 advertising order that is received by 

 4 J), m. Tuesday, but it does not guar- 

 antee attention to orders received later 

 than that. The result is, so many ads 

 come in the last day (Tuesday) tho office 

 is swamped — the printers work long 

 hours overtime Tuesday night in the ef- 

 fort to get the paper out on time Wednes- 

 day. 



There is a specially friendly regard 

 for the man who gets his copy in early. 



ANOTHER BOOST IN GLASS. 



Not yet, but soon another boost is due 

 in the price of glass, so it will be in line 

 to cover one's requirements now, if pos- 

 sible. 



The glass factories have been moving 

 prices up gradually, so that jobbers as a 

 rule have been absorbing the small in- 

 creases, l)ut it has gone so far now that 

 another general advance in jobbers' 

 jirices will lie necessary or business will 

 l)e conducted at a loss. As there seems 

 no early prosjiect of imjiroved con<litions 

 in the manufacturing end, where labor 

 and fuel both are scarce, the rise is sure 

 to come at no distant day. 



The ])rices of window glass already are 

 high, but not so high as in the case 

 of many other commodities. For in- 

 stance, steel is up TJ.") per cent, while 

 the ])rice of single thick A glass is in- 

 creased only about forty-two j)er cent, 

 although double thick A is up about 

 sixty-two per cent from what might be 

 called normal jirices. 



Incidentally, The Review is jiaying 

 ]'2') \)vv cent advance on the before-the- 

 war jirice of the paper it uses. 



CALL WARD PLANT WIZARD. 



Not in years has anything happened 

 in trade circles that has attracted the 

 public attention that is being given to 

 the work of Charles W. Ward. It may 

 be that Mr. Ward is not so j>oor a pub- 

 licity man as some, but the idea of de- 

 velojdng a Pacific coast siip]dy of such 

 j)lants and bulbs as have been impoited 

 aj)i)eals strongly to those who believe in 

 "home folks first." The San Francisco 

 ]>ai)ers have devoted whole jiages to Mr. 

 Ward and his Kureka establishment. 

 Some of these special feature ])ages have 

 been syndicated to other newsi)apers 

 throughout the country. Two su(di have 

 come out in .lanuary. The reporters call 

 Mr. Ward "the ]dant wizard and try 

 to make of him a second Burbank, much 

 to Mr. Ward's discomfiture, for there is 



nothing of the "wizard" in his makeup. 

 But the Eureka enterprise has gripped 

 his interest as nothing else has done in 

 years — he is in it heart and soul as well 

 as money and those who know the man 

 and his methods know that no effort 

 will be spared to make a success of the 

 undertaking, which, after all, is only a 

 plain business enterprise. 



WILL THE TRADE PAY? 



The Review has received several re- 

 quests that it gather and publish detailed 

 information with regard to the losses 

 which have occurred to express ship- 

 ments this season. Some of the paper's 

 subscribers believe that a compilation 

 and publication of the complaints, losses 

 and claims will have the effect of im- 

 proving the service given by the express 

 companies, just as the publication of 

 lists of liabilities in failures had the 

 effect of causing closer scrutiny of credit 

 risks. 



The columns of The Review are at the 

 service of the trade, in this or any other 

 matter of general benefit, but it seems 

 almost certain that a compilation of 

 losses accompanied by a demand for bet- 

 ter service will be met, on the part of the 

 express companies, by a proposal to give 

 that better service if rates are increased 

 to a sufficient degree. 



Cut flowers pay only the first-class 

 rate, the same as nonperishable articles, 

 while plants, if properly packed, go as 

 second class, at rates considerably 

 cheaper than those applying to most non- 

 [yerishable freight. But the demand is 

 made for special service, for which the 

 only special compensation is a consid- 

 erable volume of business. The express 

 comj)anies, considering both the claims 

 for losses and the special service de- 

 manded, find the florists' business un- 

 jirofitable at certain times and a demand 

 for still more costly attention to the 

 shipments of this trade is almost sure 

 to be met by a prompt counterproposal to 

 raise rates. Without any question the 

 trade would be willing that rates should 

 be raise<l during holiday rush seasons, 

 when most of the losses occur, but a rais^ 

 in rates will apply the whole year 

 around. How far is the trade willing to 

 go in the matter? 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



With the close of last week came a 

 greatly imjnoved condition in the whole- 

 sale cut flower market. The colder 

 weather shortened the sui)ply of all 

 stock considerably anil good prices were 

 aske<l and received. The general busi- 

 ness tone of the market seemed to have 

 improved and January lo the consensus 

 was that business was good, although 

 some complaiiu'd because of the shortage 

 of stock, which prevented them from 

 meeting the demands made upon them. 

 The usual January funeral demand has 

 now set in and, although it is ])robably 

 not so heavy as last year, it is quickly 

 clearing ati the short and medium length 

 roses. In fact, it is often only ])Ossible 

 to partly fill early orders for these 

 grades, while late orders cannot be filled 

 at all. 



American Beauties are extremely 

 scarce and are considered good j>roperty 

 by those who are fortunate enough to 

 be supjdied. Prices hold up to quota- 

 tions in every instance. Russells, 

 Ophelias, Sunbursts and pink roses in 



