22 



The Florists^ Review 



Febbuary 26, 1920 



vertising gave the most for the money. 

 The committee has been meeting twice 

 each month and welcomes suggestions 

 at such times from members of the 

 local trade. 



Improvement. 



When the florists were asked for con- 

 tributions to the local fund, some dif- 

 ficulty was met in the fact that local 

 members of the trade who had mado 

 pledges to the national publicity com- 

 mittee would then be making two pub- 

 licity contributions, which might lead 

 to confusion or dissatisfaction. So the 

 local committee proposed to the na- 

 tional publicity committee that those 

 who contributed to the local campaign 

 should be freed from their pledges to 

 the national fund if twenty-five per 

 cent of the local committee's receipts 

 weie turned over to the national cam- 

 paign. At a meeting of the local pub- 

 licity committee January 13, 1920, the 

 twenty-five per cent of collections made 

 since April 1, 1919, was ordered paid 

 to the national committee. The 

 amount was $575. J. Fred Ammann, 

 ex-president of the S. A. F., who was 



present, complimented the local com- 

 mittee 0)1 being the first to make this 

 iillotment to the national campaign. 



Personally I think that this so-called 

 Milwaukee plan is the best method of 

 asnessing florists in order to raise funds 

 for publicity. Experience, both local 

 and national, has shown that the rais- 

 ing of funds by assessment is a much 

 more just and more productive method 

 of supporting trade publicity than the 

 plan of depending upon voluntary sub- 

 scriptions. The trade in any city which 

 has not yet organized a definite cam- 

 paign for local publicity will do well 

 to inaugurate one, keeping in mind the 

 desirability of allQtting to the national 

 campaign a share of the amount raised. 

 Any local publicity committee, also, 

 should recognize the advantages of the 

 assessment plan as compared with that 

 of voluntary contributions and should 

 make full use of the experience of the 

 trade in such cities as Milwaukee and 

 St. Louis, where the raising of publicity 

 funds by assessments based on sales or 

 purchases has already been started. I 

 hope that soon the national publicity 

 committee will adopt this plan. 



MEW ENOI.ANDEBS PROTEST. 



Oppose Com Borer Quarantine. 



Florists and nurserymen of the New 

 England states are making strong oppo- 

 sition to the proposed wholesale exten- 

 sion of the quarantine against the corn 

 borer, which will vitally affect their in- 

 terests if issued by the Federal Horti- 

 cultural Board. In preparation for the 

 hearing at Washington, a gathering was 

 held at the State House at Boston, Feb- 

 ruary 18, to form a substantial protest 

 against the projected action of the Fed- 

 eral Horticultural Board. The for- 

 bidding of the shipment of cut flowers 

 outside of the state of Massachusetts 

 would, it is anticipated, put many 

 growers out of business. 



At the Boston hearing, J. K. M. L. 

 Farquhar, J. Edward Moon, president 

 of the American Association of Nursery- 

 men, W. H. Elliott, W. G. Wyman and 

 others spoke. It was finally decided to 

 send a delegation to the hearing at 

 Washington, consisting of J. K. M. L. 

 Farquhar, Thomas Roland, M. E. Moore, 

 W. H. Elliott, W. N. Craig, N. F. Mc- 

 Carthy, W. G. Wyman and Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture Gilbert. 



Hearing at Washington. 



The Federal Horticultural Board gave 

 a hearing February 24 on the proposed 

 extension of the federal quarantine on 

 account of the corn borer, sixty or more 

 persona being present and about a score 

 making statements, all protesting 

 against any general extension. The ma- 

 jority of those present were market 

 gardeners and greenhouse men from 

 Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 

 York. The general sentiment expressed 

 was that the quarantine, if extended, 

 should take the form of quarantining 

 the individual farm or greenhouse or 

 nursery where the pest existed or where 

 it was suspected and not subject the 



entire state or community to a drastic 

 quarantine because of infected spots. 

 It was recommended that the quaran- 

 tine as it now exists should be modified 

 along these lines. 



Qude Presents Argument. 



William F. Gude, representing the 

 Society of American Florists, made one 

 of the opening statements and the line 

 of argument presented by him was 

 largely followed by the other speakers 

 throughout the hearing, which lasted 

 for several hours. He declared that 

 while growers did not want the board 

 to take any steps that would be detri- 

 mental to anyone, they did not want to 

 be unnecessarily restricted by a quar- 

 antine for something that does not 

 exist. On behalf of the S. A. F. he 

 recommended, in place of the state quar- 

 antine, that each suspected individual 

 nursery, greenhouse or farm should be 

 quarantined. In this way, he said, a 

 man who kept his stock free from pests 

 would not be penalized for the careless- 

 ness of one who lets his stock be over- 

 run with pest-breeding weeds. 



Mr. Gude directed the attention of 

 the board to the fact that the Massa- 

 chusetts quarantine extended over the 

 whole state, though it had been shown 

 that the infested area was confined 

 within a small space near Boston. Mr. 

 Gude strongly urged the board not to 

 act in such a way as to place under 

 suspicion large areas, but to adopt a 

 procedure that would aim to control the 

 pest by quarantining and inspection of 

 the individual place of growing. 



Not in Connecticut. 



Wallace R. Pierson, of Cromwell, 

 Conn., made a strong argument against 

 quarantining the state of Connecticut, 

 dwelling on the fact that it would not 

 be fair to quarantine the whole state 

 when none of the pest has been found 

 there. He said that if the borer was 



found there he was willing to have a 

 quarantine which would be confined to 

 the individual, but not one of the blan- 

 ket type. 



Mr. Pierson said that in his opinion 

 the board, instead of trying to eradicate 

 the disease as it is now doing, should 

 police the several oounties where the 

 borer exists and compel the people there 

 to burn all infested growing stock and 

 also compel them to <aean up their 

 places, prohibiting them from sending 

 anything into other territory until the 

 cleaning was made complete. 



Others who made statementil were 

 J. K. M. L. Farquhar, of Boston; Isaac 

 Hendrickson, of Flowerfield, N. Y., and 

 F. W. Bolgiano, of Washington, D. 0. 



T. O. M. 



EABLY FBOST IS LATE, TOO. 



For the last two years L. H. Haney, 

 at Greenfield, Ind., has been making 

 extremely good profits from his bed of 

 Early Frost chrysanthemums, he says. 

 "As well as being Early Frost, it has 

 proved to b^ a good late frost also, * ' are 

 his words, meaning that it has not been 

 a frost at all, in the slang sense of the 

 word. He has grown this variety late 

 for the last two seasons, with good suc- 

 cess each time, obtaining two blooms 

 to each plant. Each plant, Mr. Haney 

 states, -will produce two blooms just as 

 well as one, both blooms of the same 

 size and quality. For last Christmas he 

 had a number of good blooms of this va- 

 riety, despite the fore part of its name. 



PBOSPESITY XrNPATlAT.T.F.T.F.D. 



Striking figures revealing how gen- 

 eral and widespread was the commercial 

 prosperity of the last year as a result 

 of the buying propensities of the Amer- 

 ican public appear in the summary of 

 commercial failures for 1919. 



"With fewer commercial reverses in 

 the United States than in any year back 

 to 1881, when the total number of firms 

 in business was less than half what it 

 is at present, the 1919 insolvency state- 

 ment has contributed largely to an an- 

 nual statistical exhibit that has had no 

 parallel," says Dun's Review. "The 

 industrial and mercantile repression of 

 the early part of last year, which was 

 a time of readjustment and of uncer- 

 tainty and hesitation, was not sufficient- 

 ly severe or protracted to make itself 

 manifest in the failure comparisons, 

 and only 6,451 defaults were reported 

 in the twelve months recently ended." 



One is the more impressed by the 

 table of figures comparing the annual 

 statistics for the last quarter of a cen- 

 tury, covering the number of failures 

 and the assets and liabilities involved: 



Tear No. Aaseta Uabllltlea 



1919 e,4Sl $67,037,843 $113,291,237 



1918 9,982 101,637,798 163,019.979 



1917 13,855 103,464,805 182,441.371 



1916 16,993 113,599,026 196,212.256 



1915 22,156 183,453.383 302,286.148 



1914 18,280 265,293,046 357,908,859 



1913 16,637 174,688,151 272,672,288 



1912 15,452 136,538,168 203,117,391 



1911 13,441 124,516,544 191,061,665 



1910 12,652 136,538,168 201,757.097 



1909 12.924 102,773,007 154.603,466 



1908 15,690 146,199,325 222,315,684 



1907 11.725 138.535.645 197,385,225 



1906 10,682 66,610,822' 119,201,519 



1905 11,520 57,826.090 102,676.172 



1904 12,199 84,438.076 144,202,811 



1903 12,069 90.013,981 155,444.185 



1902 11,615 58.729,557 117,476,769 



1901 11,002 55,455,940 113,092.376 



1900 10,774 78,079,555 138,495,673 



1899 9,337 50,221,409 90,879,889 



1898 12,186 82,577,452 130,662.899 



1897 13,351 105,014,054 154,382.071 



1896 15,088 156,081,500 228,096.134 



1895 13, 197 121,021,535 173.19«,060 



