22 



The Florists^ Review 



.SEI'TEMBBll 18. 1919. 



ff 



Estebllshed, 1897, by a. L. OBANT. 



Published ererf Thursday by 

 The Florists' Publishing Co., 



620-560 Caxton BulldlnR, 



608 South Dearboru St., Chicago. 



Tele., Wabash 8195. 



RAi;iHtered cable address, 



Florvlew, Chicago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897, at the post-otUce at Chl- 

 oaKO, IlL, under the Act of March 

 3,1879. ■ 



Subscription price, S1.60 a year. 

 To Canada, $2.S0; to Europe, $3.00. 



Adyertislng rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertlslntr accepted. 



ff 



RESULTS. 



We give them. You get them. 

 We both have them. 



There is a race on to flower the For- 

 mosa lilies, most markets being bare. 



It will be an item of real news to many 

 members of the trade that Sam Seligman 

 was married last week. 



Add scarcities : Carnation supports. It 

 is because manufacturers have difficulty 

 getting galvanized wire. The price is out 

 of sight. 



If the present scarcity of field-grown 

 carnation plants is any indication of what 

 may be expected in the winter, cut flowers 

 can not be cheaper than last season. 



Usually the approach of frost causes 

 large numbers of growers to seek a mar- 

 ket for Boston ferns which will ovcr- 

 orowd their houses. But this year it is a 

 different story. Instead of there being 

 pressure to sell, most cities report a 

 scarcity of Bostons. 



For some months medical and health 

 authorities have been sounding warnings 

 that there would be another epidemic of 

 influenza this autumn. Events of the last 

 week seem to indicate that they spoke with 

 a full knowledge of what they were talk- 

 ing about. From many correspondents 

 comes the report that the flu is with us 

 again. 



NoRBERT Levavasseur, whosc name is 

 known wherever roses are grown, has this 

 to say about this season's prices for 

 French stocks: "French producers in the 

 five years of the war lost their entire 

 working capital, with addition of other 

 funds, to keep their concerns going. 

 Cost of production is four times more 

 than pre-war. Therefore a crop of stocks 

 tjiving an average result, the price is 

 four times more; if the crop is nearly a 

 failure, then price may he eiglit times 

 more, and still such a crop may not pay 

 the expenses. The worst of all is the 

 small quantities of useful stocks avail- 

 able in the whole world, which are iiia«ty 

 per cent below the requirements. Every- 

 body in every country is going to make 

 extra efforts to come first with good 

 stocks in quantity in the market, and it 

 may happen that within another three 

 seasons the market will be overdone, and 

 then prices may again come down below 

 cost of production, but this is far from 

 being the case now and at least for the 

 next two years." 



The next trade event of general inter- 

 est will be the annual meeting of the Flo- 

 rists ' Telegraph Delivery Association, 

 next month, at Buffalo. 



The F. T, D. brought eighty-one new 

 members into the S. A. F. last year and in 

 return has been given liberal space in the 

 national publicity campaign advertise- 

 ments. The account seems even. 



The same system of rationing co&l 

 which was in force after last December in 

 Great Britain will prevail this autumn 

 and winter. Florists must apply through 

 the Board of Agriculture for extra sup- 

 plies. 



The Department of Import Restrictions 

 of the British government has informed 

 the trade that after September 1 Dutch 

 and other foreign bulbs, nursery stock, 

 etc., may be imjjorted into that country 

 without restriction. This will have an 

 effect on the prices of such items as still 

 are admitted to the United States. 



THE TOWER OF LONDON GIVES UP. 



Within the last few days the trade 

 has received, from German correspond- 

 ents, considerable mail captured by the 

 British and held since the early days 

 of the war. The Review received, Aug- 

 ust 22, 1919, a communication written 

 by Henry Mette, Quedlinburg, Germany, 

 June 3, 1915. It had been held in Eng- 

 land a little over four years. 



That the same thing is working the 

 other way around is shown "by the ar- 

 rival of a letter from Ferd. Fischer, 

 Wiesbaden, in which he says that Au- 

 gust 26, 1919, he received a bill for ad- 

 vertising in the Review posted in Chi- 

 cago July 1, 1916. Mr. Fischer, who 

 before the war had a large business with 

 American florists, says that the orders 

 for cyclamen seeds mailed to him in 

 June and July of 1916 are only now 

 reaching him. "I get them now, and 

 I can't fill them, because seeds are three 

 or four times as high in price," he says; 

 "also, I do not know if customers still 

 want now, or if they bought elsewhere 

 since the war." The letters into Ger- 

 many held up since 1916 are being for- 

 warded stamped "held up by the British 

 military authorities." 



SLOW MAILS. 



During the war we all suffered by rea- 

 son of delayed mails, but we made due 

 allowances and complaint was mostly in 

 the nature of warnings to avoid disap- 

 pointment wherever possible by acting 

 early. 



After Armistice day we expected and, 

 for a time, realized some improvement, 

 but in this tenth month of peace con- 

 ditions in the postoffice are worse than 

 at any time during the war. 



The Review permits no minor consid- 

 erations to interfere with the regular 

 mailing of the paper every Thursday. 

 No matter what happens, the entire 

 edition MUST go into the mails before 

 quitting time on the weekly publica- 

 tion day. It is purely and only due to 

 deterioration of the postal service that 

 delivery has become irregular. 



This paper has special arrangements 

 with the postoffice which, before the 

 war, insured the eastern edition going 

 on limited trains usually reserved for 

 extra fare passengers, but such arrange- 

 ments are unavailing now. "Red tag" 

 sacks taken to trains due at New York 

 at 4 p. m. Friday do not result in de- 

 livery until Monday or even, as on a 



recent occasion, until the following 

 Thursday! Indeed, a subscriber less 

 than 200 miles away in Michigan re- 

 ports that the paper, which formeVly 

 reached him regularly on Friday, now 

 rarely comes till Monday. 



Nor is it likely earlier mailing, which 

 could be accomplished only by closing 

 the forms on Monday instead of Tues- 

 day, would result in regular earlier de- 

 livery of the paper to its readers. For 

 instance, a subscriber in Iowa reports 

 the issue mailed to him on the evening 

 of September 4 was delivered Septem- 

 ber 6, while the copy mailed in Chicago 

 August 28 did not reach him until Sep- 

 tember 8. * ' Some postal service ! ' ' was 

 his comment. 



WHY BUSINESS IS GOOD. 



The Review has just had much the 

 largest summer business in its history — 

 because it has made business for those 

 who use its columns. Like this: 



The Review has quite a pull with the wise 

 ones of the trade. Business started to run our 

 way immediately after the appearance of our 

 first advertisements and has been giving a dem- 

 onstration of perpetual motion ever since.— Orow- 

 ers' Exchange, by C. N, 0., Jamestown, N. Y., 

 September 6, 1919. 



Steady results for advertisers not 

 only insure steady but increasing .busi- 

 ness for The Review. Like this: 



I am getting very nice results from my Clas- 

 sified ads in The Review and as I have made some 

 excellent connections I am thinking strongly of 

 taking some double-page or perhaps a 4-page 

 ad in the near future, for I find that selling 

 stock through The Review is much cheaper than 

 by traveling or by circulars. — A. M. Augspurger, 

 Peoria, III.. September 1, 1919. 



All parts of the paper have shared in 

 the increased business of advertisers, 

 Classified, Pink Part, Pacific Coast Sec- 

 tion, Want Ads, especially the Want 

 Ads, which now are to the miscellaneous 

 wants of the trade what the Classified 

 ads are to the plantsmen. Like this: 



You may discontinue our For Salo ad of pots, 

 as we are Just in receipt of an ordPr covering 

 all the pots we had to sell. — Farmers' Nursery 

 Co., Troy, 0., September 8, 1919. 



If 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. 



Conditions are much better than a 

 week ago. Indeed, it may almost be 

 said that all the unfavorable factors 

 have disappeared. It will be recalled 

 that September last year marked the 

 beginning of the boom and therefore 

 there is special significance in the re- 

 port of the principal wholesalers that 

 sales now are running a good percent- 

 age ahead of last September. If sales 

 from this time on equal last year we 

 can say that we are riding on another 

 wave of prosperity. As a matter of 

 I'af't, the trade will be prosperous if 

 sales do not show a falling off more 

 than a quarter or a third, compared to 

 last year. 



The glut of roses has passed. There 

 still are adequate supplies, but it no 

 longer is necessary to force sales. With 

 the reduced supply and increased de- 

 mand, prices naturally have improved. 

 Cooler weather also has resulted in an 

 improvement in the average quality. 

 It no longer is necessary to do so much 

 work in grading to select the stock 

 called for by the shipping orders, and 

 the flowers left after shipping orders 

 have been picked out are of much bet- 

 ter quality than a week ago. There 



