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.Florists 



REVIEWS 



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TIME TO REVIVE 



.^ STEAMER TRADE 



Every steamship bound for Europe is booked full one to two months be- 

 fore sailing. Tourist travel will be permitted October i. The public is 

 buying flowers freely. Telegraph orders are increasingly popular. Surely 

 the time to revive the tremendous pre-war steamer trade is now. 



.?■ 



lEST of the blows struck 

 the florists' trade by the 

 war was the loss of the or- 

 ders for bon voyage tokens 

 to be delivered on board 

 vessels bound for foreign 

 ports. Tourists to Europe 

 created the largest part of 

 this trade, and when they 

 were forced to stay at 

 home, the retailers in the eastern ports 

 lost a tremendous business and the flo- 

 rists all over the country wlio had been 

 wiring the orders to those ports suffered 

 a reduction in telegraph business. In 

 the course of five years the florists' 

 trade has become used to the absence 

 of the steamer orders, particularly since 

 business in other lines has been extra- 

 ordinarily good. But the development 

 of the trade to greater levels demandn 

 the encouragement of all forms of flower 

 buying. Now, when ocean travel is so 

 strong that it crowds all the boats sail- 

 ing, when the ban on tourists is about 

 to be lifted by the government, when 

 flower buying is lib- 

 eral and wire orders 

 are popular, never 

 was a better time to 

 urge the public to re- 

 sume its former cus- 

 tom of sending flow- 

 ers to departing voy- 

 agers. 



Pre-War Trade. 



Before the war the 

 average number of 

 passengers per day 

 leaving for foreign 

 ports from New York 

 was about 500 per- 

 sons. These were all 

 cabin passengers. At 

 the height of the 

 tourist season the av- 

 erage per day ap- 

 proached 1,000 per- 

 sons. Sometimes the 

 figure ran as high as 

 5,000 for a single day. 

 These figures, it must 

 be remembered, are 

 only for New York, 

 Approximately half a 

 million cabin passen- 

 gers left this country 

 each year bound for 

 foreign ports, some 

 for pleasure, others 

 on business. And it 

 may be said ^without 

 equivocation that the 

 large majority of 



these half million tourists were patrons 

 of the retail florist in their home town. 



Flowers Said "Bon Voyage." 



April was the starting month of the 

 steamer trade and enough people left 

 New York each week to populate a 

 small town. Saturday, the favorite day 

 of sailing, the steamer lists of cabin 

 passengers ran well into the thousands. 

 The tourists came from all parts of the 

 United States and flowers were the ac- 

 cepted token of "bon voyage." Steam- 

 er sailings were published weekly in 

 The Review, which enabled the florists 

 to keep their patrons, as well as them- 

 selves, posted on the departure of the 

 various ocean liners. As. a result, the 

 retailers in the ocean ports had a steam- 

 er business during these months as im- 

 portant as any other department of their 

 trade. In fact, in some cases it was of 

 more importance. 



It wa%^not an uncommon sight to see 

 several truck loads of flowers drive up 

 to the docks just before sailing time. 



Steamship officials were soon forced to 

 make special provisions for the delivery 

 of flowers. The retailers exerted great 

 care in making up the orders and con- 

 stantly devised novel ways of prepar- 

 ing the floral tokens. Little touches 

 were added that attracted the recipi- 

 ent 's attention and inevitably led to 

 greater business. 



Then came the great war, that snuffed 

 out the steamer trade. Tourist travel 

 was completely cut off. Now the prob- 

 lem confronts the florist of building up 

 the trade again. The fact that hun- 

 dreds of thousands, yes millions, of 

 young men went abroad without any bon 

 voyage tokens and that hundreds of 

 government officials went to European 

 countries minus the cheering atmosphere 

 of flowers counts not at all. Bon voyage 

 flowers are chiefly for feminine travel- 

 ers, rarely for masculine, and now that 

 business men may take their wives and 

 tourists go with their families the old 

 habit should be regained quickly. 



"The fact that 

 many people went to 

 Europe for the gov- 

 ernment and on other 

 important businesses 

 when no permission 

 was granted to send 

 flowers on. board 



ship,' 



says 



Schling, the 



Max 



New 



Hundreds of Baskets Like This Used to be Delivered on Outgoing Steamers. 



York retailer, "gave 

 the public the idea 

 that their friends also 

 could go abroad with- 

 out flowers. This im- 

 |)ression is far more 

 damaging to the flo- 

 rists' business than 

 the htss in money. 



Must Tell Public. 



"The steamers are 

 now running quite 

 regularly and the 

 companies are per- 

 mitting us to deliver 

 to their passengers 

 any friendly gift that 

 may make their first 

 days on the steamer 

 more pleasant. What 

 we florists have to do 

 is to draw the atten- 

 tion of our patrons to 

 this fact and tell 

 them what we believe 

 ourselves, namely, 

 that there is nothing 

 which wilj give a 



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