24 



The Florists' Review 



Sbptbmbbb 13, 1917. 



Established, 1897, by G. L. ORA.NT. 



Published every Thursday by 

 The Florists' Pubhshino Co., 



620-660 Oaxtoa Bulldlnfir, 



608 South Dearborn St., Ohlca^ro. 



Tele., Wabash 8195. 



Registered cable address, 



Florylew, Chicago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897. at the post-office at Chi- 

 cago, 111., under the Act of March 

 3 1879. 



Subscription price, $1.60 a year. 

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



Advertlalnf; rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertlslnir accepted. 



n 



"■ ' ■ "TT — r 



NOTICE. 



It is impossible to g^uarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BY 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



SOCIETY OF AMEBICAir FLOBISTS. 

 Incorporated by Act of Congress, March 4, 1901. 

 Officers for 1917: President, Robert 0. Kerr. 

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

 maica, N. Y.; secretary, John Toung, 63 W, 28th 

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

 Omaha, Neb. 



Officers for 1918: President. Charles H. Totty. 

 Madison, N. J.; vice-president, Jules Bourdet. 

 St. Louis; secretary and treasurer as before. 



Thirty-fourth annual convention and Fifth Na- 

 tional Flower Show, St. Louis, Mo., April 8 to 

 16, 1918^ 



Results bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Vacation time is past, and the busy 

 time is near. 



The price of cuts again has been 

 advanced. On the new scale even the 

 smallest halftone is $2.50 and the smallest 

 line etching is $1.25. 



Not in many years have the stocks of 

 palms been so small as they are today, 

 but there is every reason to think they 

 will be still smaller before they are 

 larger. 



"Refuse to accept the prices fixed by 

 the government, or admit you have been 

 lying about the increased cost of pro- 

 duction," a leading coal trade paper 

 warns the operators. Well, most of them 

 liave accepted the prices. 



Apparently the supply of cyclamens 

 will not be reduced by cutting ofiE the 

 supply of German seeds. The necessity 

 for a change in the source of seeds was 

 so generally foreseen that nearly every 

 large grower of cyclamens appears to 

 have provided against it; indeed, many 

 growers have larger batches than usual 

 of young stock. 



Large numbers of retail florists found 

 the summer business this year better than 

 ever before, the demand being made up 

 of increased calls for funeral work and 

 increased calls for wedding flowers. The 

 number of wedding bouquets called for 

 has greatly increased since the govern- 

 ment began mobilizing the army. Few 

 of the many soldier weddings are elab- 

 orate, but practically all of them call for 

 flowers. ' 



IT LIASES BUSINESS OOOD. 



The business-making influence of the 



leading articles in The Review long has 



been recognized — for instance, the 



trade took hold of Mothers' day and 



made it what it is because of one of 



these articles — but here is a letter from 



a reader who puts the matter plainly: 



I wish to congratulate you on the write-up 

 on Darwin tulips in this week's issue of The 

 Review; something to create business, to make 

 money, as I see it. To show you that Just such 

 write-ups stimulate things, I have this day 

 placed an order with the Henry F. Michell Co., 

 of Philadelphia, for 5,000 bulbs, as I never grew 

 Darwlns before. — Harry C. Huesman, Reading, 

 Pa., September 10, 1017. 



The Review has two prime objects in 

 view, to show to the trade new or un- 

 thought-of ways of increasing profits 

 and to lead the way to a higher stand- 

 ard of business methods and business 

 ethics. 



OAMOUFIiAOE. 



Like pacifist, the war has added the 

 word camouflage to our language, but, 

 unlike the pacifist, who seeks peace at 

 any price, the one who practices camou- 

 flage seeks to attain his ends by decep- 

 tion. Literally, camouflage means fak- 

 ing. 



There is one species of camouflage 

 that merits hearty condemnation by 

 the trade. It is the practice of adver- 

 tising a desirable and scarce article as 

 a means of attracting orders for things 

 that are common and plentiful, the of- 

 fense lying in the lack of ability or in- 

 tention of filling orders on the ** pull- 

 er" item. For instance, in a gardening 

 publication a recent small ad offered a 

 certain scarce variety of peony in a list 

 of plentiful sorts. Another peony dealer 

 wrote asking a trade price on all the ad- 

 vertiser could supply. The naive an- 

 swer came: "I haven't any; that is 

 just to pull orders for other varieties 

 in the list; I either return the money 

 for that one or substitute some other 

 good variety." 



Of course any man who resorts to 

 such methods cuts his own business 

 throat, because he never can get a sec- 

 ond order from a buyer so deceived, but 

 this slow process of elimination does 

 not fill the need; there should be some 

 means of quickly discouraging those 

 who practice such methods. 



A SOUTHERN BOON. 



Much interest is manifested in the new 

 military map of the United States, not 

 only by those who are in the business 

 of fighting, but also by those who are 

 in the business of making money. The 

 concentration of large numbers of men 

 at certain points and the vast expendi- 

 tures by the government for supplies 

 will, for obvious reasons, have a far- 

 reaching influence on the business con- 

 ditions of the favored sections. 



The reader of the military chart at 

 once is struck by the wonderful things 

 the government is doing for the south. 

 One or more cantonments or mobiliza- 

 tion camps are being located in nearly 

 every southern state. In addition to 

 the seven southern cantonments and 

 two officers' training camps, there are 

 twelve mobilization camps, or twenty- 

 one army posts in all. The soldiers of 

 all the New England states, as well as 

 those of New York and Pennsylvania, 

 instead of being mobilized and trained 

 within their own borders, are being sent 

 to the southern camps. 



No estimate can be made of the 



amount of money these camps will put. 

 into the pockets of southerners. It will 

 run into hundreds of miUions. The pay 

 of the soldiers in tbe,lievQ]i. southern 

 cantonments alone amounts to $14,000,- 

 000 per month, and if the training goes 

 on for a year it will be twelve times 

 that figure. Needless to say, much of 

 this money will be spent in the south. 

 The rations for the men in the seven 

 cantonments will cost the government 

 $112,000 per day, and most of this will 

 be expended in the southern markets, 

 according to the press. 



Even the building of the cantonments 

 themselves has been a source of large 

 profit to the southern people. Each 

 camp required twenty-one carloads of 

 nails and hardware, and from this item 

 one can form an idea as to the require- 

 ments of lumber and other building ma- 

 terials, besides cots and mattresses for 

 280,000 men, refrigerators, heaters, 

 stoves, electrical supplies and materials 

 necessary for the buUding of roads and 

 railroad tracks. 



Of course. Uncle Samuel does not buy 

 flowers for his "Sammies," and a pri- 

 vate soldier usually is not considered 

 a flower buyer, unless when a comrade 

 dies. But southern florists point out 

 that these martial activities have made 

 money more plentiful among all classes 

 of the south than ever before in history, 

 and that money, the individual's pos- 

 session of it, is the basis of good times 

 in the retail field. When the farmers 

 of the western states have money, busi- 

 ness booms in the towns. 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



As the days creep on toward fall, the 

 wholesale cut flower market feels the 

 awakening of demand incident to that 

 seaso.n of the year. The continued cool 

 weather has caused improved quality 

 in almost all lines, while the heavy rain, 

 which fell the latter part of last week 

 was instrumental in cleaning up the 

 excess of asters and bringing the mar- 

 ket into fine condition by September 10. 



There is little or no complaint to be 

 heard about the condition of the mar- 

 ket and the feeling in general is that 

 this should be a most successful season. 

 It is true that city trade has not yet 

 awakened to anywhere near the extent 

 of its possibilities, but much increased 

 activity among city buyers is looked 

 for any day. Shipping business, steady 

 all summer, continues brisk, with de- 

 mand steadily increasing. 



Roses are well in crop. The quality 

 is good and is getting better right 

 along. There has probably not been, 

 in many years, weather more favorable 

 to an excellent rose crop than the cool 

 August of this year. The supply of all 

 varieties has increased over last week 

 and there is plenty of stock to meet 

 all needs, but by no means too much. 

 Longer stems are more plentiful than 

 heretofore and are also in best demand, 

 short stock at times being not so easy 

 to dispose of advantageously. Amer- 

 ican Beauties, grown in considerably 

 less quantity than heretofore, arrive in 

 better supply and good quality stock 

 finds an eager market. Although the 

 experiences of wholesalers in regard to 

 Beauties have varied this summer, the 

 consensus of opinion seems to be that 

 no summer before have they sold better 

 or brought so good a priee. Russell 



