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26 



The Florists^ Review 



Septhmbsb 23. 1020 



weeks' sojourn in the States, much im- 

 proved in health. He is expanding hia 

 business, taking large quarters in the 

 same building on the third floor, in 

 which all design work will be done. He 

 will also stock his supplies in the new 

 rooms and will carry on the business of 

 making artificial flowers for winter 

 trade. Some of the florists find this 

 works in well with the cut flower busi- 

 ness without hurting it in any way. Mr. 

 Yavner has joined the F. T. D. 



Arrangements are being made to visit 

 the F. T. D. convention at Indianapolis 

 in full force. Several motor cars will 

 carry those who wish to go and Mrs. 

 Percy Waters, J. H. Dunlop and H. 

 G. Dillemuth have offered their cars 

 and there will be others. Any florist, 

 whether a member of the F. T. D. or 

 not, who wishes to make the trip is 

 invited to inform George M. Geraghty, 

 who will arrange for his accommodation 

 in the cars. It is hoped that the 1921 

 convention will be secured for Toronto. 



Gordon P. McCrostie, of Guelph, has 

 been appointed professor of plant 

 breeding at McDonald College, St. 

 Anne Bellevue. 



The beautiful displays in the floral 

 building at the Canadian national ex- 



hibition won much admiration both 

 from professionals and amateurs. Some 

 of those which were particularly ad- 

 mired were those by Thomas Manton, 

 grower for Sir Henry Pellatt; Dale Es- 

 tate, Georgetown Floral Co., St. 

 Thomas Horticultural Society, T. H. 

 P. Hammett and A. B. Ormsby. The 

 beautiful new gladiolus of A. Gilchrist, 

 which is a perfect shell pink, was much 

 admired by the trade, who see in it a 

 good commercial flower. Mr. Gilchrist 

 has named it Gladiolus A. Gilchrist. 



A. Lange, Chicago, was a recent 

 visitor. 



J. J. Higgins had a moss window re- 

 cently, asters and gladioli being taste- 

 fully arranged in baskets. 



H. G. Dillemuth had a window bank 

 of dahlias last week. J. J. H. 



SIANHATTAN, KAN. 



Mr. Virtanen, superintendent of the 

 Kansas State Agricultural College 

 greenhouse, has resigned, to accept a 

 position in Texas. 



The Martins have finished planting 

 several hundred peonies in their peren- 

 nial gardens. They are pushing work 

 on the greenhouses and are well pleased 

 with business so far. 



!^ 



GROWERS' MEETING 



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CHICAOO GROWERS GATHER. 



Discuss Questions of National Interest. 



The discussion which formed the main 

 part of the initial fall meeting of the 

 Commercial Flower Growers of Chicago, 

 held Thursday evening, Septemjber 16, at 

 the Randolph hotel, was largely for the 

 purpose of indicating the growers' opin- 

 ions and offering suggestions to Otto Am- 

 ling, director of the National Flower 

 Growers' Association, so that he might 

 know better how to represent the Chi- 

 cago district at the meeting of the 

 national association's directors to be 

 held at Indianapolis in October, when 

 the question of dues, left over from the 

 organization meeting, will be consid- 

 ered. Since the next meeting of the 

 local organization will be held October 

 21, this was the last opportunity which 

 Mr. Amling had to consult with his con- 

 stituency as a whole. 



Since the question of increasing the 

 local assessment for publicity had not 

 been mentioned in the notice of the 

 meeting, it was felt that no binding ac- 

 tion could be taken and the matter was 

 made special business for the October 

 meeting. However, an unofficial test 

 vote showed that the thirty or more 

 members present were practically unani- 

 mously in favor of increasing the per- 

 centage of the assessment on growers' 

 sales from one-half of one per cent to 

 five-eighths of one per cent. Accord- 

 ing to figures presented by W. J. Keimel, 

 president of the National Flower Grow- 

 ers' Association, one-half of one per 

 cent on sales, the present amount paid 

 to the Allied Florists' Association of 

 Illinois by its grower members, is about 

 equal to $4 per thousand square feet 

 of glass. Therefore the additional one- 

 eighth of one per cent would equal the 



$1 per thousand square feet which has 

 been suggested as the basis of assess- 

 ment; of this amount half would go to 

 the local and half to the national or- 

 ganization. 



Percentage and Square-foot Plans. 



Much of the evening's discussion 

 turned on the relative merits of the per- 

 centage basis and the square-foot basis 

 of assessment, with the general senti- 

 ment of the meeting in favor of the 

 former. President Kohout suggested 

 that the percentage plan was better 

 where the growers were organized and 

 the square-foot plan better where they 

 were scattered and unorganized, so that 

 the matter might well be left to the in- 

 dividual locals for decision. Bemarks 

 made by W. J. Keimel, Otto Amling and 

 others were to the effect that the per- 

 centage plan takes care of the grower 

 of gladioli, peonies and other outdoor 

 flowers, who has no glass, and of the 

 grower whose glass is either vacant or 

 unproductive because of some acci- 

 dent, disease or pest. The grower who 

 pays a percentage on his sales feels 

 that his advertising expense is deter- 

 mined directly by his returns. 



The association voted that its repre- 

 sentative, Otto Amling, should recom- 

 mend to the national directors the adop- 

 tion of the percentage plan, recogniz- 

 ing, however, that if the national as- 

 sessment was based on the glass-area 

 basis the local organization could do its 

 own assessing on the other basis and 

 make its returns to the national asso- 

 ciation on the basis of the square feet 

 of glass. When the discussion reached 

 the question of what proportion of the 

 money collected for local advertising in 

 connection with the Allied Florists' As- 

 sociation should be turned over to na- 

 tional advertising, the association voted 



that the proportion should be twenty- 

 five per cent, up to March 1, 1921, when 

 the retailers' agreement also ends. 



Publicity and the Slogan's Use. 



From the question of dues for na- 

 tional publicity the discussion turned 

 naturally to national publicity itself. 

 Mr. Pearson emphasized the need for 

 continuous publicity for natural flowers 

 in order to ward off any danger from 

 artificial flowers, which, he believed, 

 were being stored away in large quan- 

 tities for later use. He also reminded 

 the growers present of the large amount 

 of free publicity which flowers were 

 getting, partly in connection with the 

 slogan and partly in the increasing use 

 of flowers in advertisements of other 

 commodities, and said that the florists' 

 national publicity campaign was being 

 closely watched by other producers. 

 J. K. Bugowski, of Manitowoc, Wis., 

 said that national advertising was cer- 

 tain to bring in $2 for every dollar 

 spent and told of his own use of motion 

 pictures of his aster fields for adver- 

 tising. 



Two particular features of national 

 publicity which were considered were 

 the slogan billboards and the use of 

 flowers when the slogan song is sung in 

 vaudeville houses. H. V. Swenson urged 

 the purchase of these $50 billboards, of 

 which the national publicity still has a 

 large supply on hand. Mr. Pearson and 

 Mr. French told of having visited local 

 vaudeville or movie houses when the 

 song, ' ' Say It with Flowers, ' ' was sung 

 and how the flowers which were dis- 

 tributed at the time were received with 

 much enthusiasm. 



Some Asters. 



The exhibit of the evening consisted 

 of three vases of asters from the J. K. 

 Bugowski Seed Co., Manitowoc, Wis. 

 At the invitation of I*re8ident Kohout, 

 Mr. Bugowski told how he had begun 

 growing asters thirteen years ago, send- 

 ing his blooms first to the C. C. Poll- 

 worth Co., Milwaukee. The four kinds 

 exhibited, which he had named Pure 

 Honor, white; Meritorious Pink, pink; 

 Dwarf American Beauty, red, and Pur- 

 ple Honor, purple, were of his raising; 

 he said that he had got the first three 

 100 per cent pure, but that Purple 

 Honor as yet came about seventy per 

 cent pure. President Kohout appointed 

 Hans Yepsen and Henry Wehrman to 

 judge them. In reporting, Mr. Yepsen 

 was so infiuenced by the size of the 

 blooms that he called them chrysanthe- 

 mums and had to correct himself; he 

 said that they marked a wonderful im- 

 provement in the aster family, but that 

 the judges had been able to consider 

 only the pink variety, since the others 

 were in vases of mixed colors. To 

 Meritorious Pink they awarded ninety 

 points, as follows: Color, 25, from a 

 possible 30; size, 40; stem, 15, from a 

 possible 20; substance, 10. 



The chief points in the more routine 

 business of the evening were the elec- 

 tion of Joseph Trovsky, of Gross Point, 

 111., to membership, and the acceptance 

 of two resignations, including that of 

 Joseph Hill, of Bichmond, Ind. Presi- 

 dent Kohout said that a number of such 

 resignations might now be expected, as 

 new locals were organized in Indiana 

 and southern Illinois, which would claim 

 the allegiance of a few present mem- 

 bers of the Chicago association. 



