

THE 



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"A FRIEND IN NEED 



IS A FRIEND INDEED" 



At Washington, D. C, a custom has grown up in the trade, of helping 

 out the man who is in need, even if he he a competitor. The theory is that 

 it tends to increase the consumption of flowers — the fact that a Washington 

 florist takes orders with the hacking of all the stock in the city. 



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O you ever find yourself ab- 

 solutely at the end of your 

 rope, with an order from a 

 good customer and posi- 

 tively no means of filling 

 it? In such a case there 

 is only one thing to do, 

 which is to seek such re- 

 lief as comes from a frank 

 expression of one's feel- 

 ings — but stop! How about the fellow 

 around the corner? Perhaps he can help 

 us out — only we haven't the "face" to 

 ask him after the way we chuckled at 

 his discomfiture that day his shipment 

 failed to get in on time and he fell down 

 on the wedding order he took away from 

 us. 



To the florist in one of the big cities, 

 New York, Chicago, Philadelphia or 

 Boston, it is unbeliev- 

 able that there ever 

 :§iiould come a time 

 when flowers of some 

 sort would not be ob- 

 tainable, when it would 

 be impossible to substi- 

 tute and fill an order 

 after a fashion, at the 

 cost of no greater effort 

 than a visit to the 

 wholesale markets. 



A Tight Place. 



But manj' a florist in 

 a small city and, in- 

 deed, in some of the 

 important ones, knows 

 from bitter experience 

 'What it means to be 

 caught in a position 

 where the florist's rep- 

 "tation suffers through 

 a guiltless inability to 

 <'ome up to what is ex- 

 pected of him. 



It is, perhaps, more 

 Jikely to happen during 

 tlie dark, cold days of 

 January than 

 other time. 



Even in as 

 Jiarket as 

 Washingt 

 ^-•, there are times 

 ;ylien the retailer is 



up against it"— 

 ^hen he can not make 

 a creditable showing on 

 jiis own resources, 

 jheso times are less 

 irequent now than in 

 ; tf" gone by, because 

 wholesale houses and 

 automobiles are more 

 numerous now than 



they used to be — but still it happens. 

 And this is what has come to pass: 



The man who is stuck wastes no time 

 in blasphemy or vain regrets; he simply 

 runs around the corner to a competitor 

 or resorts to the telephone until he finds, 

 if not the precise stock he needs, some- 

 thing that will make it possible for him 

 to fill the order in some sort of satisfac- 

 tory fashion — to save his face and his 

 customer, as it were. 



Splitting the Difference. 



The price to be paid for accommoda- 

 tion is thoroughly established — it is a 

 custom, not a courtesy. If valley is 4 

 cents wholesale and $1 per dozen refail, 

 then the accommodation price is 6 cents, 

 halfway between. 



It was W, F. Gude, of Gude Bros. Co., 



at any 



large a 

 that at 

 on, D. 



The Magnolia Leaf Is an Ever-present FrJend in the Hour of Need. 



who first applied the practice of lending 

 the helping hand and charging enough 

 for it so the applicant could retain his 

 self-respect and at the same time not 

 feel that his necessities were taken ad- 

 vantage of, but now the custom is so 

 well established, that any florist can get 

 any unsold flow^er in any other florist's 

 icebox any time he needs it — and he 

 knows just what it will cost him to get 

 it, the accommodation price, with no 

 obligation except to treat with equal 

 fairness the next man who comes. He is 

 in duty bound to make the same price 

 under the same circumstances. 



The accommodation custom, where all 

 the stock in town practically is pooled 

 and at the command of all who abide by 

 the rules of gentlemanly conduct, makes 

 it possible to increase the sales of flow- 

 ers in cities where there 

 are several florists; it 

 gives both parties a 

 profit oil the sales in 

 which "accommoda- 

 tion" figures and it 

 keeps the customers 

 coming. 



CaJi Order Be Filled? 



But out in the coun- 

 try what is one to do 

 when the train is late, 

 when the messenger 

 fails to put the box off, 

 when the stock is froz- 

 en or asleep or when the 

 call is at such short no- 

 tice that there is no 

 time to send to the city 

 and nothing to cut in 

 the local greenhouses? 



The times of actual 

 scarcity of stock now 

 are few and far be- 

 tween. In the cut flow- 

 er markets of the large 

 cities there are only a 

 few days in the year 

 when it is diflScult to 

 find just the seasonable 

 flowers one wants, and 

 even when short nses 

 for work are scarce and 

 high in price there like- 

 ly are plenty of carna- 

 tions, Paper Whites or 

 other substitutes. Even 

 the traditional short- 

 age of roses in January 

 is more or less a thing 

 of the past, as growers 

 no longer crop all their 

 houses for Christmas. 



Consequently the flo- 

 rist who is in need usu- 



