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20 



The Florists' Review 



JUNI 24, 1020 



ing their own and going well. Outdoor 

 sweet peas are beginning to make their 

 appearance. Carnations are small and 

 a large number of them are deformed, 

 but, being staple flowers, they clean up 

 fairly well. 



Gladioli are arriving in good condi- 

 tion, including varieties such as Amer- 

 ica, Halley, Panama, Francis King and 

 Augusta. Valley is in exceptionally 

 good shape and cleans up readily, the 

 best bringing $8 per hundred. 



The first water lilies were seen last 

 week, but, being in short supply, they 

 were soon sold. Gaillardias, coreopsis 

 and cornflowers are still selling well and 

 look as though they are good for a few 

 more weeks. Snapdragons and stocks 

 are about through, but good ones are 

 still to be had. 



Various Notes. 



C. E. Critchell has just received a 

 good line of fancy baskets and reports 

 business booming. 



W. G. Matthews, Dayton, O., was in 

 the city last week to transact business. 

 He reports having sold his place to the 

 Rolf Zetlitz Co., Lima, O. 



Earl Mann, of the E. G. Hill Co., 

 Richmond, Ind., motored here and re- 

 ports a new crop of roses for early ship- 

 ment. 



H. W. Sheppard has been busy lately 

 on graduation and wedding work and 

 also has had a good deal of telegraph 

 delivery work. 



Mrs. George Meyer, wife of George 

 Meyer, of Avondale, has been confined 



to bed with a nervous attack, but is 

 doing well now. 



Clarence Ohmer, of West Palm Beach, 

 Fla., having toured through the east, is 

 stopping here. G. H. K. 



WASHINGTON, D. 0. 



The Market. 



The market showed considerable im- 

 provement last week. The weather was 

 cool and the general condition of all 

 stock was good. The supply of ram 

 bier roses has increased to such an ex 

 tent that prices have dropped consid 

 erably. Sweet peas are still scarce 

 Roses and carnations are better in qual 

 ity , as well as improved in quantity, 

 Myosotis and valley are scarce. The 

 demand for funeral flowers has not been 

 so large, while weddings, graduations, 

 etc., have kept the trade busy. This 

 season is reported as one of the best on 

 record. 



Various Notes. 



J. P. Cureton, of Greenwood, S. C, 

 was in town last week on a business trip. 



Fred Henock, treasurer of the Ove 

 Gnatt Co., Laporte, Ind., was also here 

 on business. 



John Sharper, of Oxon Hill, Md., is 

 cutting some extra fine gladioli. 



The Florists' and Growers' Union held 

 its regular meeting June 16.- Regular 

 business was transacted and a number 

 of new members were admitted. 



G. V. S. 



S^ 



TATE'S TIPS 



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NEED OF ORGANIZATION. 



Growers Forging Ahead. 



From the many accounts we hear of 

 the rapid growth of the National 

 Flower Growers' Association, with the 

 date of the permanent organization still 

 two months in the future, it bids fair, 

 when that date arrives, to start on its 

 active career as a strong organization. 

 The florists all over the country have 

 realized the need of such an organiza- 

 tion for a long time and last January, 

 in Chicago, at the meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Carnation Society, a coterie of 

 growers with a vision of the future of 

 the business were bold enough to launch 

 the project and form a temporary or- 

 ganization, with such men as F. C. W. 

 Brown, J. F. Amniann, E. C. GuUett, 

 W. R. Pierson and R. C. Kerr at its 

 head. 



This list of oflicers has brought pres- 

 tige to the new association and today 

 there is a spirit of confidence through- 

 out the whole country among the grow- 

 ers. There is not a man among the pro- 

 moters of this new organization who 

 has an individual ax to grind; the de- 

 velopment of the business as an indus- 

 try is the sole aim. 



watchword Is Efficiency. 



I liave before me a copy of the pro- 

 posed constitution and by-laws of this 

 organization. Article II defines the ob- 

 ject of the organization. There is no 

 man, whether he be in the business in 

 a large or a small way, who, if he 



studies this article, will not realize that 

 the time has come when these prob- 

 lems must be faced. Note, for instance, 

 "To devise ways and means for the 

 best and most economical way of pro- 

 ducing stock; to bring about uniform 

 working conditions for labor; to edu- 

 cate florists to better business meth- 

 ods; to devise and carry out ways and 

 means to better selling conditions and 

 eliminate the present cause of waste in 

 marketing flowers." These are just a 

 few of the problems this organization 

 will deal with. In these days when 

 efficiency is the watchword, everyone 

 realizes the importance of them. 



Preserving the Business. 



The first question I hear many grow- 

 ers asking is, "Is this possible?" These 

 same timid men would have asked the 

 same question about the association 

 itself prior to last January. Of course, 

 there is no one who believes that the 

 organization of this association is going 

 to usher in the millennium in the flo- 

 rists' business. There will be hard 

 work ahead, but this work will be done 

 in a systematic manner. There is an 

 old proverb, and a true one, which says, 

 "What is everybody's business is no- 

 body's business." These questions must 

 be taken up and studied; then the solu- 

 tion of this investigation must be in- 

 corporated into a system and this sys- 

 tem adopted by the organization and 

 put into actual practice by the individu- 

 al members. Then comes the most im- 

 portant part of all, living up to the sys- 

 tem. A chain is just as strong as its 



weakest link; that is the case with any 

 system. 



But I can hear some saying, "This is 

 all Utopian; it can't be done." It has 

 been done successfully by other indus- 

 tries; why not by the florists? I pre- 

 dict that it will be accomplished, for 

 the men with brains enough to produce 

 a new rose, or to grow that rose to per- 

 fection after it has been produced, cer- 

 tainly have the brains to sell that rose 

 when they give the marketing of their 

 product some of the thought required 

 to produce it. To be brief, I have 

 heard some allude to this new organiza- 

 tion as the "preservation of the flo- 

 rists' business." This implies preserv- 

 ing something we already have. From 

 all that I have read on the subject, and 

 I have studied everything that has been 

 written up to this time, the keynote of 

 the promoters is expansion or growth. 



There is no body of men in the uni- 

 verse more familiar with growth than 

 the florists. From the time the florist 

 puts his cutting into the propagating 

 bench till he has the matured plant, 

 what is required? Faith, care and 

 work. But look at his reward for the 

 exercise of these three cardinal prin- 

 ciples. These same principles are go- 

 ing to make the National Flower Grow- 

 ers ' Association one of the strongest 

 and most useful organizations of its 

 kind in the country and consequently 

 place the business on a plane where it 

 belongs. 



How About Retailers? 



But there is a branch of the business 

 which it seems to me has no part in this 

 organization and it is a branch that is 

 just as important as the growing end 

 of the business. I am not taking up 

 their problems with any view of creat- 

 ing strife or discord, but, Mr. Retailer,, 

 don't you think that you owe to your- 

 self to organize along the same lines as 

 your brothers, the growers? There are 

 plenty of men among the retailers of 

 this country who, if they would just 

 launch such a movement, would be as- 

 tonished to see how it would be taken 

 up. Surely the retailer has just as many 

 ])roblems to face as the grower. Let a 

 committee of retailers meet with a 

 committee from the growers' associa- 

 tion in honest cooperation; think what 

 it would mean for the whole trade. 



The growers took advantage of the 

 American Carnation Society's meeting 

 to launch their organization. There is 

 going to be a larger gathering of flo- 

 rists in Cleveland in August. Why not 

 a retailers' organization? I am sure 

 it would be welcomed by the growers. 

 This would mean that the entire trade 

 would be organized. All are in one 

 business, v/ith different problems to 

 solve, but we have scriptural warrant 

 for the statement, "A house divided 

 against itself shall not stand." Tate. 



Aurora, Neb. — F. A. Davidson has 

 sold out his business in Aurora and has 

 gone to Minneapolis, Minn. 



Nashville, Tenn. — By a recent court 

 decision the Prairie State Fertilizer Co. 

 was ordered to pay the Mclntyre Floral 

 Co. the sum of $10,000 for damages and 

 was prohibited from further operation 

 of its fertilizer plant, erected alongside 

 the range of the floral firm. It was 

 stated that the dust from grinding phos- 

 phate and the fumes of acid at the fer- 

 tilizer plant were destructive to plant 

 growth. J 



