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The Florists' Review 



NOVBMBBR 1, 1917. 



1 



EstabllBhed, 1897, by G. L. GRANT. 



Pablished every Thursday by 

 The Florists' Publishing Co., 



620-660 Oaxton Building, 



606 South Dearborn St., Chicago. 



Tele., Wabash 8196. 



Registered cable address, 



Florvlew, 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, $2.60; to Europe. $3.00. 



Advertising rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertlslng accepted. 



n 



NOTICE. 



It is impossible to (Tuarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BT 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



SOOIETT OF AMEBIOAN FLORISTS. 

 Incorporated by Act of Congress, March 4. 1901. 

 Officers for 1917: President, Robert 0. Kerr, 

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

 maica, N. Y.; secretary, John Young, 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. 

 Bt. Louis; secretary and treasurer as before. 



Thirty-fourth annual convention and Fifth Na- 

 tional Flower Show, St. Louis, Mo., April 6 to 

 16, 1918. 



Eesults bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



A FISH never advertises; hence the ex- 

 pression, * * poor fish. ' ' 



Don 't forget that stamps are 3 cents 

 now. If you use the 2-eent variety your 

 order is likely to come back to you next 

 day. 



There is beginning to be public de- 

 mand that the government limit the fuel 

 supply of the nonessential industries; 

 but there is no industry not essential to 

 somebody. 



The cold storage stock of giganteuins 

 is pretty well cloaiKMi up and it is the 

 general belief that few l>ullis will pn into 

 storage this season, with the probability 

 that lilies will be a scarce article after 

 next Easter. 



There will be a large gathering of the 

 trade at Cleveland next week, the show 

 to be held there Novemlier S to 11 being 

 the only one in the United States which 

 will enlist the aid of florists east and 

 west this fall. 



Tf tlie southern florists, jiarticularly 

 those in the vicinity of army camps, will 

 let the soldiers know of the facilities for 

 delivering flowers to the folks at home 

 it will result in a ])oom for the telegraph 

 delivery department. 



Baltimore long has enjoyed the dis- 

 tinction of being the only large city in 

 the country which had only one F. T. D. 

 member, Samuel Feast & Sons. This dis- 

 tinction, however, has been lost, for Mary 

 Johnston has joined. 



Cut out the waste. There's probably 

 plenty of opportunity if you look around. 



Coal in your sheds won't keep you 

 awake nights next January; the absence 

 of it might. Better fill 'em up, if you 

 can. 



At all events, pot chrysanthemums are 

 more plentiful this season than ever be- 

 fore and if they sell as well as expected 

 there will be no difficulty in increasing 

 the supply again next fall. 



QXnCK DISTRIBUTION. 



Efficient distribution of merchandise 

 — bringing the product to demand's 

 door — -has ever been one of the perplex- 

 ing factors of business. 



In the florists' business, where the 

 merchandise is perishable, proper distri- 

 bution is considered of special impor- 

 tance because it must be anticipated. 

 The country's prosperity now is run- 

 ning in spots, causing a dearth of stock 

 in one section while the adjacent sec- 

 tion may have more than enough. 



The way out of the trouble is through 

 advertising, trade advertising, and the 

 florist who advertises his surplus stock 

 in The Review makes his sales easily, 

 quickly, and at low cost. He helps the 

 trade as a whole, and helps himself, like 

 this: 



stop our advertisement of geraniums, as we are 

 sold out. The Classified Section of The Review 

 certainly knows how to distribute surplus stocks. 

 — Coudersport Greenhouses, Coudersport, Pa., 

 October 19. 1917. 



"When you hear a man complain of 

 the cost of advertising you can be pret- 

 ty certain that he spends a good bit of 

 monev elsewhere than in The Review. 



DO YOUR MAILING EARLY. 



Congestion of express shipments al- 

 most everywhere has aroused florists, 

 who, because they deal in perishable 

 stock, suffer when the railroads do not 

 j)erform according to schedule. This 

 tie-up of express and freight is more or 

 less reflected in the postal service. Let- 

 ters and packages sent through the mails 

 are received now much later than the 

 sender or receiver expects, for the sim- 

 ple reason that neither the railroads nor 

 the postoffices are able to handle the 

 volume of business they are called upon 

 to transport. 



Under these conditions the postoffice 

 department, through local postmasters, 

 has begun a campaign, which might be 

 crisply cxjilained by parai)hrasing the 

 injunction," Do your Christmas shopping 

 early." "Do your mailing early" is 

 what the postoffice officials are driving 

 at. Many business houses, large and 

 small, allow mail to accumulate through 

 the day, and deposit it in the mailing 

 boxes the last thing before work is sus- 

 pended in the evening. This throws the 

 bulk of the day's work on clerks in the 

 jiostoffices at night. 



By doing their mailing early, or often, 

 or as fast as is ])ossihle, business con- 

 cerns will send a constant stream of 

 jiostal matter into the ]»ostofRces and 

 it can be handled much more efliciently. 

 It will relieve the congestion. 



But, what to the sender is the most 

 imj)()rtant, it will give him and his 

 business better service. Consequently, 

 it will pay to deposit mail as rapidly 

 during the day as possible. If a letter 

 or package mailed at a certain time 

 reached a certain destination at a certain 

 time six months ago, letters, and pack- 

 ages sent to the same address with the 



idea of reaching it at the same time, 

 should be mailed earlier — just as much 

 earlier as can be. It is specially im- 

 portant where ^^uick action is expected 

 of the man who receives the letter, as,, 

 for instance, in* the case of a cut flower 

 order to be shipped same day, or a news- 

 paper ad to be printed at 4 p. m. Tues- 

 day. 



A timelyJsuooestion. 



Fearing a shortage of sugar in thi» 

 country, the government has ordered 

 that only a limited amount shall be- 

 used in every American household. Nat- 

 urally, we all want to "do our bit" 

 and therefore must use as little sugar 

 as possible and give up candy eating^ 

 and giving ^s well. If we don't eat 

 and give so much candy, naturally the- 

 sweetmeat-makers will not need so much 

 sugar. That means a much larger sup- 

 ply for our homes, and above all re- 

 member ' * our boys ' ' both here andf 

 "over there" must have their share — 

 if necessary, first. 



Now we come to the part of our story 

 that is of special interest to the trade- 



You know that old phrase that is 

 used so much in the magazines, "Give 

 her candy." Well, why not change it? 

 Make it, "Give her flowers." Adver- 

 tise along the lines of this timely sug- 

 gestion. Make it your slogan. Make 

 it clear that we need to save the sugar^ 

 advertising in a patriotic way. 



The Romeo of today, who is so used 

 to "giving her candy," will just as 

 willingly "give her flowers" — but you 

 must show him why. Remember, he 

 won 't call empty-handed, so why 

 shouldn't it be flowers — "tonight"? 



CHICAGO, 



The Market. 



The market weakened under the in- 

 fluence of the unseasonable and highly 

 disagreeable weather that has prevailed 

 for several days. Where business had 

 been considered first-rate and the mar- 

 ket stiff, demand fell off, supplies in- 

 creased and prices suffered a sharp at- 

 tack from the local buyers. No one 

 knows better than the local wholesalers 

 the necessity of getting prices that will 

 enable the growers to make both end» 

 meet, but no one cares less about it than 

 the average city buyer; his one thought 

 is to get his stock as cheaply as he can 

 and, under such conditions as have pre- 

 vailed during the last few days, there 

 lias been much pressure to force price* 

 down. 



Shipping demand has been much bet- 

 ter than city trade. This was especially 

 true at the opening of the present week,, 

 when New (Orleans an<l other southern 

 cities were calling for large quantities 

 of stock for All Saints' day. The noon 

 train on the Illinois Central, October 

 29, carried one of the largest shipments 

 that have left this market in years, re- 

 lieving to a considerable extent the al- 

 ways lieavy shipment on the evening 

 train. But after these two trains had 

 gone the southern demand resumed nor- 

 mal proj)<)rtions and the market eased 

 still further. 



Under present conditions there is no 

 shortage of stock. It may be said that 

 chrysanthemums have almost reached 

 the top of their season. Bonnaffon has 

 arrived and is, as ever, the most popular 

 variety. Chieftain and White Chieftain 

 sell in the same class. The out-of-town 



