22 



The Florists^ Review 



August 2, 1917. 



Established, 1897, by G. L. GRANT. 



Published every Thursday by 

 The Flokists' Puhllshing Co., 



520-560 Oaxton BuUdlnfir, 



508 South Dearborn St., Chicago. 



Tele., Wabash 8195. 



Registered cable address, 



Florvlew. Chicago. 



*Cntor«'d as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 18U7, at the poet-ottice at Chi- 

 cago. 111., under the Act of March 

 3 IHTJ. 



Subscription price, $1.50 a year. 

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



Advertising rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



NOTICE. 



It is impossible to g^uarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BY 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



BOOIETT OF AMERICAN FLORISTS. 

 Incorporated by Act of Congreas, March 4, 1901. 

 Offlcera for 1917: President, Robert 0. Kerr, 

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

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

 St., New York Olty; treasurer, J. J. Hesa, 

 Omaha, Neb. 



Tklrtj-third annual convention. New York, 

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



Eesults bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Where Mrs. Russell is available there 

 is little need for any other summer rose. 



It never has paid to advertise so well 

 as it will pay tlie trade from this time on. 



The end-of-July heat wave was general 

 over almost all tlie Ignited States. Flo- 

 rists who eoiii|ilaiii would do well to 

 remember that in the apparel trade bath- 

 ing suits are the only ones that sell in 

 such weatlicr. We could expect nothing 

 else tiian that the soiling end of the 

 flower business would be dull. 



Charles W. Johnson, secretary of the 

 Chrysanthemum Society of America, has 

 just mailed to tlic members the proceed- 

 ings of tiio fiftcentli annual meeting, hold 

 at Philadoii)liia last November. It is a 

 pamj)hlot of thirty-two pages, with a 

 portrait of President Vert as a frontis- 

 piece, and contains lists of varieties dis- 

 seminated last year and a review of the- 

 work of the examining committees, which 

 was published from week to week in The 

 Review last autumn. The list of mem- 

 bers shows 109 names. 



The Florists' Hail Association never 

 has advertised its advantages in such 

 a way as to bring them to the attention 

 of the entire body of the trade; instead, 

 it has relied largely on word-of-mouth 

 advertising. The Review, therefore, reg- 

 ularly receives, from persons not thor- 

 oughly informed about the Hail Associa- 

 tion, inquiries regarding such insurance 

 as the association offers. That there is 

 room for much growth is shown by the 

 fact that these inquiries have been con- 

 siderably more numerous this summer 

 than ever before. 



IS COAL CHEAPER? 



When F. S. Peabody, chairman of the 

 Committee on Coal Production in the 

 Council of National Defense, wrote to 

 The Review about its article on the fix- 

 ing of coal prices, this'paper replied to 

 the effect that the only result of the 

 widely heralded "reduction" of prices 

 had been to affirm previously existing 

 high prices. The letters appeared in 

 The Review of July 26. 



In reply Mr. Peabody wrote: 



I shall appreciate very much your giving me 

 the names of any operators or wholesale com- 

 panies asking prices in excess of those estab- 

 lished as tentative, a list of which I sent you 

 with my previous letter. 



The Review, in reply to the above, in- 

 sisted: 



That is not the point. The agreement, widely 

 heralded as a reduction in fuel prices, afforded 

 our subscribers no reduction at all. Responsible 

 florists had been buying prior to the agree- 

 ment at not more than the agreement prices. 

 The agreement has served only to affirm prices 

 this trade regards as extortionate. 



Large Chicago growers in the spring 

 made eontracts for Pocahontas coal for 

 the year at $3 per ton at the mine. 

 Smaller buyers have had to pay middle- 

 men 's profits. The condition today is 

 illustrated by the following paragraph 

 from the Coal Trade Journal, New 

 York: 



Trading in the local bituminous market has 

 been at low ebb during the week, because there 

 has been little to trade with. Practically all of 

 the soft coal coming to tidewater is being applied 

 on contracts or is being held, usually in boats, 

 for bunker orders in the offshore trade, there 

 being no price restrictions on this business. Some 

 middle houses are getting a small tonnage from 

 their regular connections on the basis of $3 net 

 at the mines, but to go into the open market and 

 buy freely at that price is impossible, and to 

 I)ay more would be a violation of the Washington 

 agreement. 



The government 's war committees are 



composed of men from the industries 



with which they deal. The Review 



hopes to see the consumers represented 



the next time an agreement is made to 



reduce coal prices, or other prices. 



FLORISTS' CREDIT. 



On another page of The Review this 

 week appears a letter from the secre- 

 tary of the Florists' Telegraph Delivery 

 Association which calls for comment. 



' ' A goodly number of retail florists 

 are absolutely unreliable," says Mr. 

 Pochelon, "and never intend to pay a 

 bill thoy contract." 



Tiie Review believes the statement 

 overdrawn and in no way justified by 

 the facts. 



In an experience of some twenty 

 years dealing exclusively with florists 

 the publishers of The Review have come 

 in contact with only one man whom 

 they believe to have been deliberately 

 dishonest. Against that man The Re- 

 view supplied the evidence that put 

 him in the penitentiary, but against the 

 rest of those who failed to meet their 

 obligations, nothing worse can be said 

 than that they failed to find the i)ot of 

 jiold when thev reached the end of their 

 rainbow. They would have paid if they 

 could. 



There is danger that ]\Ir. Pochelon 

 will give the impression that the 

 florists' trade is a trade of dead beats, 

 only a minute fraction of the total 

 number engaged in it having placed 

 themselves where they are held to the 

 straight path by the firm hand of the 

 F. T. D. That is a wrong impression. 

 Florists in this respect are no worse 

 than the rest of humanity; indeed, it is 

 the belief of The Review that they are 

 distinctly above the average of man- 

 kind. 



Nor does The Review believe that 

 the business methods of florists are less 

 exact than those of other people, al- 

 though this paper freely admits that 

 there is room for great improvement. 

 But ther« are extenuations. Book- 

 keeping is drudgery for the man who 

 works all day at more urgent tasks; the 

 importance of finaneial management is 

 little appreciated by those accustomed 

 to carrying most of the details of their 

 business in their heads; the present-day 

 need for prompt settlement of bills is 

 not realized by those who always have 

 got along the other way, paying when 

 they can. But there is progress. As 

 the trade grows beyond the one-man 

 stage the personal element becomes less 

 and less a factor and the business must 

 be conducted by and be judged by the 

 rules of merchandising that apply in 

 larger trades. 



Only we hope we of the trade will not 

 handicap our own progress by spreading 

 the idea that we are bad people to 

 trust. 



WHAT HAVE YOU? 



Note the Wanted and For Sale depart- 

 ment in The Review; the number of ads 

 and their diversified character show 

 how well other people must be reading 

 them. And here is the evidence the 

 readers have money and the desire to 

 buy good used articles: 



I sold my used tubular boiler the same day the 

 T)aper came out, thanks to The Review. — W. F. 

 Dintleman, Bensenville, 111., July 28, 1917. 



And then this from an advertiser who 

 offered new apparatus: 



Please discontinue our ad for the Detroit re- 

 turn trap, as it has been sold through The Re- 

 view, which certainly gave us prompt and sat- 

 isfactory results. — Rollins Supply Co., Chicago, 

 July 30, 1917. 



Wonder if the maker of the Detroit 



return traps has anv of them he would 



like to sell? 



THE RIGHT IDEA. 



Lloyd C. Stark, the new president of 

 the American Association of Nursery- 

 men, apparently appreciates that the 

 national organizations representing the 

 various branches of the trade have not 

 done good team work, as he writes: 

 ' ' The nursery, florist and seed associa- 

 tions should work in closer cooperation, 

 because, when all is said and done, their 

 interests are very similar; indeed, 

 many concerns are engaged in all three 

 branches. " 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



That there is no complaint to be 

 found about the general condition of the 

 wholesale cut flower market, is the con- 

 sensus among the wholesalers. Al- 

 though business may perhaps be con- 

 sidered to be at its midsummer dullest, 

 there is a fairly strong and insistent 

 demand from out of town, which keeps 

 shippers moderately busy. The end of 

 last week may be said to have been un- 

 usually good for this season, wdth July 

 29 as the outstanding day. Business 

 held up fairly well July 30, but a notice- 

 able decrease was felt July 31. The 

 heat for the last few days has been 

 terrific and this has had its effect on 

 buying as well as on the quality of the 

 flowers. Really good stock is not 

 abundant and it finds a ready sale, but 

 there is a considerable quantity of in- 

 ferior quality stock arriving which it 



