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MEMORIAL DAY 

 i^ GROWING GREATER 



Easter and Mothers' day this year showed what energy and advertising 

 could do to make good business for the trade. Memorial day is the last 

 of the spring's three hig holidays. It should he the best. The following 

 suggestions are offered to help make the season's grand finale truly grand. 



OLIDAYS play an enormous 

 part in the trade's busi- 

 ness — of that the expe- 

 rience of the week before 

 Mothers' day alone was 

 convincing proof. Such a 

 holiday supplies an out- 

 standing reason for the use 

 of flowers; there is some- 

 thing definite to be said 

 with flowers, something that can in no 

 other way be said so well. But Mothers' 

 day is comparatively new. The educa- 

 tioH of the public to use flowers on that 

 day has gone far enough so that upstart 

 propaganda in favor of flags this year 

 made little headway, but still there is 

 need for further awakening of the 

 people to the many ways in which 

 honor may be shown the mother with 

 flowers. 



Memorial day, how- 

 ever, is different, in 

 that, ever since that 

 day was established by 

 the G. A. R. in 1868, 

 the use of flowers — all 

 flowers, without . limi- 

 tation of kind or color 

 — has been the cus- 

 tomary and natural 

 mode of memorializing 

 the dead heroes. The 

 history of Memorial 

 day has been marked, 

 not so much by the 

 growing popularity of 

 flowers as compared 

 with other means of 

 expression, but rather 

 by a broadening in the 

 aignificance of the day 

 and a greater freedom 

 in the ways in which 

 flowers are used. 



Two Trade Days. 



These two holidays, 

 Mothers' day and 

 -Memorial day, may be 

 rjvala as trade aids, 

 f"it their competition 

 Js helpful rather than 

 (;iherwise. They are 

 ^}T enough apart so 

 t''at different crops 

 •^'Pply stock for each 

 ^iifl yet near enough 

 t<',2:ether so that the 

 I"i bile's flower-buying 

 »i omentum generated 

 f- Mothers' day will to 

 ^"me extent carry over 

 ^'\ the second holiday; 

 2'ivertising for one day 

 ^.' rengthens the puh- 

 I'c 'a inclinatioa to buy 



flowers for the other as well, especially 

 when the Mothers' day prices have not 

 been such as to dampen the enthusiasm 

 of flower lovers. The spirit of the 

 Mothers* day flower buyer closely re- 

 sembles and hence helps to produce that 

 of the Memorial day flower buyer. 



How Memorial Day Grew. 



When Memorial day was first cele- 

 brated, it was the day when members of 

 the G. A. R. decorated the graves of 

 their comrades who had fallen in the 

 Civil war. But soon it was taken up 

 by the families of those heroes. As 

 the ranks of the G. A. R. grew smaller 

 and smaller, the responsibility rested 

 more and more with the surviving 

 relatives. And there were those, in 

 constantly increasing numbers, who 



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Scarcity of Flowers Will Make Wreaths More Popular This Year. 



felt a desire on that day to commem- 

 orate the death of a loved one, whether 

 that person had been a soldier or not. 

 Then in 1898 the Spanish war, with its 

 6,600 fatal American casualties, in- 

 creased the number of homes in which 

 a loss was mourned and Memorial day 

 looked to as a fitting time for the 

 commemoration of the soldier's death. 

 Now the recent war has added much 

 more largely to those homes and the 

 significance of Memorial day has been 

 renewed with tragic keenness for many 

 thousands of American families. Even 

 where no member of a particular family 

 was killed in the war, there is grieving 

 in sympathy with those who sustained 

 direct loss and in sadness over the cut- 

 ting down of so much young manhood 

 both in this country and, yet more, in 

 Europe. Thus Memorial 

 day has become a truly 

 national holiday and 

 not, aa originally, a 

 day for the north 

 alone. 



In various cities 

 throughout this conn- 

 try a campaign is being 

 waged for the raising 

 of money to supply 

 flowers for the decora- 

 tion of the 70,000 

 graves of American 

 soldiers in France. 

 While this money will 

 not be spent with the 

 trade here, the wide 

 publicity involved in 

 raising the funds will, 

 at no expense to the 

 trade, bring the public 

 to realize more fully 

 the need of flowers for 

 every memorial use on 

 that day. 



riowers' Place. 



What, after all, is 

 the real relation of 

 flowers to Memorial 

 day? That is a day 

 when people are re- 

 membering a son, a 

 father, a brother, a hus- 

 band, a friend, whose 

 beauty of character, 

 whose fragrant per- 

 sonality, whose vigor- 

 ous growth was so 

 much to be enjoyed 

 during his lifetime. 

 These happy character- 

 istics of the living, not 

 the sadness of death, 

 are to be testified to 

 and only flowers, with 



