22 



The Florists^ Review 



August 14, 1919. 



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



Pabllahed every Ttanraday by 

 The Florists' Pcblishinq Co., 



620-560 Caxton BuUdlnir. 



GOe South Dearborn St., OhicaffO. 



Tele., Wubash 8196. 



R«8rintered cable address, 



Florylew, Cblca«;o. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897. at tlie post-odice at Chi- 

 cago, IlU. under the Act of llarch 

 3.1879. ■ 



Subscription price, $1.60 a year. 

 To Canada. $2.60; to Europe. $3.00. 



AdvertiBinf; rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 Tertlsin? accepted. 



RESULTS. 



We give them. You get them. 



We both have them. 



Grow while the getting 's good. 



Attendance prospects for the Detroit 

 convention grow every day. 



Getting stock is likely to be more dif- 

 ficult than getting orders next season. 



Does your coal supply insure you a 

 good season! Don't put off filling the 

 bins. 



It is hard work to break in an appren- 

 tice, but not so hard as to got along with- 

 out good help. 



Late comers are likely to lose out on 

 supplies or else receive deliveries too late 

 to be of bensflt. 



Courtesy is the oil that makes the ma- 

 chinery of business run easily. And oil 

 is just as necessary for an engine as 

 gasoline. 



Railroad conditions are worse on the 

 Atlantic seaboard than farther west. The 

 trade is fortunate that the difficulties come 

 at this season. 



It is worth while to keep an eye on the 

 Want and For Sale section of The Review. 

 There's nothing like it elsewhere in this 

 trade and it's full of opportunities. 



Plant exports from Holland to the 

 United States, by way of Amsterdam, rose 

 from $90,343 in 1915 to $122,989 in 1916, 

 and then dropped to $42,140 in 1917 and 

 $42,713 in 1918. 



Flower week is the latest publicity 

 idea. It comes from Washington, where 

 the florists propose to beat the automobile 

 industry at its own game October 5 to 11. 

 They will call it ' * Say It With Flowers ' ' 

 week. 



How extensive are the preparations for 

 greater business is indicated by the fact 

 that the unprecedented number of 1,000 

 firms filed incorporation paj>er8 during 

 July. The capitalization totaled $1,419,- 

 539,700. 



SoMK opinion is that present high prices 

 are the result of slackened production, 

 caused by buyers' postponing purchases 

 last winter in the hope of lower post-war 



S rices. If that argument is logical, it 

 068 not augur well for those who are put- 

 tiag off buying next season's supplies 

 now. 



CANADIAN CUSTOMS FORMS. 



Firms which ship plants to Canada 

 should be informed that the form issued 

 ■by the United States Treasury Depart- 

 ment for customs aprvice, headed "Ship- 

 per's Export Declaration," is useless 

 to Canadian consignees as an invoice 

 with which to pass the entries through 

 the Canadian customs house. The form 

 required is a blank approved by th« 

 Canadian Department of Customs and 

 sold by customs house brokers. Two of 

 the requisite invoices are required by 

 the Canadian customs. 



We might add that a number of 

 United States concerns enclose United 

 States stamps when they ask for re- 

 plies to letters. Of course, such stamps 

 are useless in Canada. 



Hall & Robinson. 



AMERICAN CARNATION SOCIETY. 



The board of directors of the Ameri- 

 can Carnation Society will hold a meet- 

 ing at Detroit at 9 o'clock on the 

 morning of August 21. Information re- 

 garding committee room, etc., may be 

 had at Secretary Young's desk in the 

 convention hall. 



A. F. J. Baur, Sec'y. 



FAILURES SHOW PROSPERITY. 



Remarkably favorable as the small 

 number of failures per month has ap- 

 peared for a long period, reflecting the 

 prosperous state of the country's busi- 

 ness, the July returns make a showing 

 that is wholly without parallel. From 

 an economic standpoint, the develop- 

 ments of 1919 have upset many calcu- 

 lations, and though it was some time ago 

 said in certain quarters that insolven- 

 cies had then probably reached the- abso- 

 lute minimum, there has been an almost 

 unbroken decline this year in the com- 

 mercial mortality. 



With only 452 commercial failures in 

 the United States, July set a mark that 

 id unmatched by the record of any for- 

 mer month whatever for more than a 

 quarter of a century, or since monthly 

 statistics were first compiled, and the 

 $5,507,010 of liabilities reported to R. 

 G. Dun & Co. for July are below those 

 of any preceding month in two decades. 



EXPORT DEMAND ADDS DANGER. 



What is happening in the leather in- 

 dustry now may be repeated in regard 

 to coal ere long. The shoe manufac- 

 turer who turned down an offer of 

 leather on account of the price one day, 

 but changed his mind shortly after, 

 found that he could not buy the hides 

 at any price. "If you do not wish to 

 take them at this figure, we shall sell 

 them for export," had written the 

 leather merchant, and he had kept his 

 word. Now that Italy cannot get its 

 full supply of coal from England, the 

 manufacturers of the country appeal to 

 the United States for fuel. A fleet of 

 100 vessels just purchased from the 

 government by a private concern are, it 

 is reported, to be laden with coal for 

 Italy at once. The coal producers, who 

 have been unable to get rid of their 

 stocks of coal because consumers would 

 not listen to the warnings to buy be- 

 forehand, will in all probability take 

 this means of moving their accumulation 

 to make room for more from the mines. 

 Though such action adds danger to the 

 already ominous prospect of famine next 

 winter, they are scarcely to be blamed 

 if they take it, for the only way to 



keep the mines working at capacity is 

 to move the supplies on hand to make 

 room for more. The storage yards and 

 distributing points cannot hold enough 

 to insure a season's supply without the 

 consumers' laying away a fair stock in 

 advance in their bins. With this in 

 mind, one sees justice in the coal men's 

 statement that the responsibility for a 

 fuel famine next winter lies upon the 

 consumers. 



WHO KNOWS THIS? 



I am writing to you in the hope that 

 you may be able to help me locate a 

 plant similar to one I had several years 

 ago. I lost the stock and have not 

 been able to replace it. 



The plant I have in mind was a beau- 

 tiful pink verbena, considerably larger 

 than any seedling verbena. It bloomed 

 profusely, but never seeded. It propa- 

 gated by runners. I would like to have 

 a stock of this plant again, as it always 

 was a good seller. G. H. — la. 



RESULTS LAST ALL SUMMER. 



In the Memorial Day Number, last 



spring, an advertiser offered poinsettias 



for delivery in late summer — it was a 



full-page ad and it looked good. Why 



not repeat it in the Convention Number, 



August 21, as this is planting time? 



Here is the answer: 



The only trouble is that the page ad in May 

 brought more orders than I have been able to 

 fill all summer. It paid big money. — F. B. Cre- 

 mer, Hanover, Pa., August 9, 1919. 



When you hear a florist complain of 



the cost of advertising you may be 



pretty certain he spends a good bit of 



money elsewhere than in The Review. 



CHICAGO. 



The Market. 



These are the days when the market 

 has chills and fever. The demand at 

 this time of the year is more erratic 

 than at any other season. There will 

 be an extremely good day, with those 

 just before and after decidedly quiet. 

 The reason apparently is that a large 

 part of the business in the good old sum- 

 mer time still is funeral work. One of 

 tlje local wholesalers, anxious to in- 

 crease his knowledge of the situation 

 and to move as much stock as possible, 

 spent a handful of dollars August 11 in 

 long distance telephone calls to his cus- 

 tomers in the principal cities for 500 

 miles around. He says that in each 

 case he was told that there is not much 

 doing except funeral work, which comes 

 spasmodically. His telephone calls did 

 not produce enough orders to aggregate 

 as much as the tolls, but later in the 

 day he heard by wire from several of 

 the customers who needed nothing in 

 the morning. Considering the week 

 ending August 11, it was not nearly so 

 good as the week ending August 4. 



Having time on his hands last week 

 another wholesaler employed it in figur- 

 ing the average price of roses for the 

 preceding week and for the correspond- 

 ing week a year ago. He found that 

 the prices obtained for roses in the 

 first week of August this year were six- 

 teen per cent higher than the prices ob- 

 tained a year ago. The method of figur- 

 ing was to ascertain the average price 

 of all the roses received in the house in 

 each of the weeks under consideration. 

 The conditions under which the compari- 

 son was made seemed to be in every way 

 equal, uninfluenced by factors which ap- 

 plied one year and not the other. It 



