



■?>*»• THE ^ 



JLOMSTS 



Review:* 





lO in w m i ■jm BBii 



PLANTING, PATRIOTISM 

 <^ AND PROFITS i^ 



Last season it was the fortune of florists to be hailed as patriots when 

 they preached planting kitchen gardens. This year it is another story; we 

 must make our appeal to pleasure and profit, not patriotism, in urging the 

 purchase of our vegetable plants. It is time to make plans to push plants. 



T will not be many days 

 before the spring planting 

 season is on us and it be- 

 hooves us to do some heavy 

 thinking right away, be- 

 cause there are a good 

 many million vegetable 

 plants in the greenhouses 

 of this country which will, 

 quite soon, be entered on 

 the profit or loss side of the ledger, de- 

 pending, which side, on the way we 

 handle the situation. 



Up to within the last month the trade 

 has worked early and late, growing 

 vegetable seedlings in every spare cor- 

 ner, with the utmost confidence that 

 every plant represented just so many 

 pennies. But recently assurance has 

 been shaken. 



Will People Plant Gardens? 



The question has arisen, "Will there 

 be anything like last year's enthusiasm 

 for kitchen gardens?" The doubt has 

 come about through the quite general 

 report of the big mail-order seed houses 

 that the number and size of their or- 

 ders this season has not come up to 

 their expectations. It may mean much 

 or little to the man who has put in 

 weeks growing vegetable plants, but it 

 is disquieting. 



Last year planting a garden was the 

 patriotic thing to do; to be without a 

 ' ' patch ' ' was to be almost as unpopular 

 as to be without the latest Liberty loan 

 poster in one's window. Florists sold 

 Tegetable plants like the proverbial hot 

 oakes. 



Thus far the urge of patriotism is 

 missing this year, although the govern- 

 ment is making an attempt to revive 

 interest in school gardens and other 

 community undertakings of like char- 

 acter. It is to this most mail-order 

 seedsmen ascribe the 

 recession in their 

 business, but it is pos- 

 sible they are mistak- 

 en and that the ef- 

 fects they note are 



:^.i 



due to two other causes: the increased 

 number of places at which seeds are 

 sold and the home saving of seeds fol- 

 lowing last year's higher prices. 



At any rate, it looks as though the 

 florists who have big lots of vegetable 

 plants would do well to get busy. 



For Pleasure and Profit. 



There is ample reason for planting a 

 garden. If we can no longer urge plant- 

 ing as a patriotic act, a means by which 

 to "help win the war," we can in all 

 sincerity urge gardening as a source of 

 profit. Everybody knows vegetables, 

 fresh or canned, are costing more right 

 now than at any time while the war 

 was on. There always is pleasure in a 

 home garden; this season there will be 

 a saving in it greater than ever before. 



We can adver- 

 tise strongly 

 along those 

 lines. 



You never 

 can tell about 

 the call for veg- 

 etable plants. 

 It may be ligh^ 

 at the start 

 and extremely 

 strong at the 

 eldse; a big 

 shortage may 

 develop after 

 everybody has 

 made up his mind there is a surplus. 

 Or it may be there is a shortage in car- 

 tain localities and an abundance in 

 others. It often happens so because of 

 local late frosts. If a frost nips the 

 first planting, then the call i!br started 

 plants is several times as Targe as be- 

 fore. It has happened that way many 

 times, more frequently with tomato 

 plants than with others. 



But we cannot chance the late frosts; 

 they are almost certain to strike one or 

 another locality, but there is no cer- 

 tainty and if we do not sell our vege- 

 table plants early we may 

 not sell them at all. 

 Growers should arrange 



^^ r_ 



their retail 

 outlets at 

 once, large 

 outlets, as 

 numerous as 



possible. Every flower store which 

 sells bedding plants can sell vegetable 

 plants; even flower stores that do not 

 sell bedding stock can turn an easy 

 extra penny with a simple sign, "Or- 

 ders for tomato plants, etc., taken 

 here." 



Profit for Betail Florists. 



There is a nice bit of extra profit for 

 everybody who pushes vegetable plants 

 during May and a part of June. It will 

 pay the favorably located florists to 

 make a show of them and to advertise. 

 It can be done at retail stores as well 

 as at greenhouses. 



There are indications that the plant- 

 ing of flower beds is to be restricted 

 Somewhat by the higher prices that are 

 being asked for geraniums and other 

 bedding stock. These prices are due 

 as much to anticipated short supply as 

 to the extra cost of production and may 

 be justified, but it would be a mistake 

 to ask too much money for vegetable 

 seedlings at the opening of the season. 

 The supply is too large. A lot of green- 

 houses which were shut down during the 

 winter have produced vegetable plants 

 as a catch crop this spring. The safe 

 way is to start the stock moving as 

 early as the weather will 



permit. We *^^ can lose noth- 



ing by begin- ^ ning at the 



earliest possi- ^#y^>^ ble moment to 

 get these vege- L^i^Zl table plants 

 into the hands ^mDr of the public. 



v.f-'v 



