34 



The Florists^ Review 



FXBBCABT 12, 1920 



traffic could anything be done to clean 

 up. 



One of the houses of the Duckham- 

 Pierson range, at Madison, N. J., was 

 damaged during the storm, about sixty 

 feet of eave giving way. 



It is only a little ever a month before 

 the international flower show will be 

 held in the Grand Central Palace. It 

 opens March 15. Preparations are in 

 fine shape and, with a good attendance, 

 the show will prove to be as successful 

 as its predecessors. The committee in 

 charge of the show held a meeting, Mon- 

 day, February 9, at which much busi- 

 ness in the way of final preparations 

 was transacted. The city department 

 of parks has again promised support to 

 the show and will stage some fine ex- 

 hibits. There is not much space left 

 for trade exhibits; so it is certain that 

 this feature of the show will be as im- 

 portant as ever. 



Charles W. Knijght, vice-president of 

 the New York Florists' Club, was un- 

 able to attend the club meeting held 

 Monday, February 2, due to the illness 

 of Mrs. Knight,, who is convalescing at 

 the Sunnyside hospital, Babylon, L. I., 

 after a serious operation. 



A. M. Henshaw, president of the club, 

 has nearly recovered from an attack of 

 the flu, reaching home last week from 

 Pittsburgh, where he was taken ill. 



The Greek- American Florists' Asso- 

 ciation will hold its thirteenth annual 

 ball Thursday, February 26, at the Hotel 

 Commodore. 



W. H. De Graff, Leiden, Holland, ar- 

 rived in the city last week. He brought 

 with him the gold medal which the 

 General Bulb Growers' Society of Haar- 

 lem, Holland, is offering for the finest 

 collection of flowering bulbs and bulb- 

 ous-rooted plants at the international 

 flower show. J. H. P. 



hJv»A'^*yjLv»y':.v»>ji.v»yi.v*^jw!wi^^ 



WAITING FOR THE OROWEB. 



An Emergency In the Trade. 



It is almost pitiful in these days to 

 hear the retailer begging for stock to 

 fill his orders. A man will go into a 

 wholesale house; he perhaps has an or- 

 der, often a large one, to fill for some- 

 one who has been a good customer for 

 years; he will find that his portion of 

 the stock to be had that morning is al- 

 together insufficient for the order he 

 has, to say nothing of the day's sales. 

 Now, this same man may be one who 

 is loudest in his condemnation of the 

 high prices of flowers, but on such an 

 occasion prices are never mentioned; he 

 never thinks of what he will have to 

 pay for the stock, of what profit he is 

 going to derive from his order; he looks 

 upon the whole thing as an emergency 

 and has but one object in view, and that 

 is to get sufficient stock to fill his order. 

 When we come to analyze his motives, 

 we cannot help saying that this is the 

 proper procedure. There is no doubt 

 that in such a case an emergency exists. 



When the Pusher Is Pushed. 



Let us consider for a moment of what 

 it consists. It is so simple that a child 

 can understand it. The fiorist's cus- 

 tomer wants a certain order of fiowers; 

 a retailer cannot take an order subject 

 to being able to get the stock to fill it; 

 his local market is short and there is 

 not much use in trying out of town, for 

 he will find that the same conditions 

 exist everywhere. la it any wonder that 

 high prices exist under these conditions? 

 Yet such scenes are to be witnessed on 

 the wholesale flower market every day. 



Eecently a man who has been the head 

 of a large wholesale house for over 

 thirty years said that he had never seen 

 anything like it in all of his experience 

 and recalled that there was a time when 

 they had to push the business, but now 

 the business was pushing them. 



The whole trouble is lack of produc- 

 tion and there is certainly no chance to 

 deny this when every day we find it im- 

 possible to get sufficient flowers to fill 

 the demand. But to say lack of produc- 



tion does not help the situation any. 

 Judging from the reports in The Re- 

 view, which tell each week what the 

 state of the market is in all the large 

 cities of the country, there is no flower 

 market in this country that is not suf- 

 fering through lack of production. 



Bring Up Production to Demand. 



Admitting that the lack of production 

 is an established fact, the next question 

 is, why does this lack of production 

 exist f And, like the Irishman, I think 

 this can be answered by asking another 

 one. If there were no more cut flowers 

 being sold today than there were several 

 years ago, would there be the extra- 

 ordinary shortage of flowers that exists 

 today? 



The publicity committee is working 

 overtime to popularize flowers. Condi- 

 tions are ripe for this campaign and 

 there is more money in circulation than 

 was ever known before in this country. 

 We have, through this committee, been 

 creating a demand and have been giv- 

 ing all our attention to this phase of 

 the question and not enough to produc- 

 ing the article for which the demand is 

 created. Now, any sensible business 

 man will realize that there are just two 

 things to do in such a case; either stop 

 advertising and creating a demand for 

 flowers, in which case all of the effort 

 and money that have been spent so far 

 can be charged to profit and loss, or else 

 push the campaign harder and then pro- 

 duce the flowers to take care of the in- 

 creased demand. 



To Stay In, Get Ahead. 



Never was there an opportunity like 

 the present for the florist to increase 

 his business. When it was said that the 

 business was now pushing the whole- 

 saler, I could not help thinking what an 

 opportunity it was for the florists; all 

 they have to do is get the stock, and 

 even if increased production does bring 

 prices back to normal, you still have the 

 opportunity to push the business. 



Another thing that I wish to call at- 

 tention to is the fact that the florists' 

 business is being watched by those out- 

 side of the trade. If present conditions 



pxist much longer it will be only a short 

 time before outside capital will be in- 

 vested in the business; we hear now of 

 an $800,000 range to be erected in New 

 Jersey. When we think of the capit^ 

 in this country and the shrewd business 

 men looking for an opportunity to in- 

 vest it, the growers, if they hope to stay 

 in business, should intrench themselves 

 now. Once let the large corporations 

 get into the production of flowers and it 

 will be only a matter of time until they 

 will be pushing the business and some 

 of those who are now letting the busi- 

 ness push them will be working for these 

 corporations. 



The florists should do some serious 

 thinking at this time; the business is 

 passing through a crisis and what its 

 future will be is up to those who are 

 now engaged in it. The question arises. 

 Are there enough big men in it to han- 

 dle it? I, for one, answer yes. Tate. 



TYPHA LATIFOIJA. 



Can you give us the Latin name of 

 the enclosed specimen of cat-tail f We 

 should like also to know the method of 

 propagation, whether from seed or di- 

 vision. B. H. F. — Kan. 



The botanical name of the variety of 

 cat-tail that you forwarded is Typha 

 latif olia. Propagation is either by seeds 

 or by division of roots and is compara- 

 tively simple. C. W. 



WASHINGTON, D. 0. 



The Market. 

 The heavy snow storms during the 

 last week have not helped things any 

 and in some cases the growers found it 

 impossible to get in with their stock. 

 Funeral flowers are hard to get and the 

 demand is still on the increase, due to 

 the flu epidemic. Out-of-town orders 

 are coming in fast and it is impossible 

 to fill half of them. Business has been 

 a little better and all stock has cleaned 

 up well. 



Club Meeting. 



At the February meeting of the Flo- 

 rists' Club, it was announced that the 

 local florists are to be hosts to the 

 American Carnation Society's conven- 

 tion next winter. A. Gude and D. G. 

 Grillbortzer, the newly elected vice- 

 president of the society, made a report 

 to the club on their visit to the conven- 

 tion of the society in Chicago. 



Nominations for officers for the en- 

 suing year were made as follows: 

 President, J. Harper Hetherington and 

 George Anderson; vice-president, A. E. 

 Gude, Jr.; secretary, George V. Schultz 

 and E. L. Jenkins; treasurer, W. F. 

 Gude; financial secretary, Z. D. Black- 

 istone. Election of officers will take 

 place at the March meeting. 



The Tennessee State Florists' Society 

 invited Z. D. Blackistone and W. F. 

 Gude to speak at its meeting in Knox- 

 ville, Tenn. 



Various Notes. 



John Sharper, of Oxon Hill, Md., is 

 known as one of the most ambitious 

 young growers in this section. Four 

 year ago he had about 8,000 feet of 

 glass and now he has 32,000 feet under 

 glass, with the addition of about 5,000 

 feet under construction. His brother, 

 Herbert Sharper, is his assistant. They 

 are both hard workers and are success- 

 fully carrying on the business together. 

 Mr. Sharper grows stock for the Leo 

 Niessen Co. G. V. S. 



