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28 



The Florists' Review 



OCTOBIB 28, 1920 



Established 1897. 



Published every Tbnrsday by 

 The Florists' Publishing Co., 



600-560 Oaxtoa Balldlnsr, 



606 South Dearborn St., Ohlcafiro. 



Tel., Waboah 8196. 



Reiftstered cable address, 



Florvlew, Oblcago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897, at the poet-offlce at Chi- 

 caRo, 111., under the Act of March 

 3. 1879. 



Subscription price, t2.00 a year. 

 To Oanada, $3.00; to Europe. |4.00. 



Adyertlslnnr rates quoted on 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



Besults bring advertising. 

 The Eeview brings results. 



All advertising is publicity, but not 

 all publicity is advertising, by any means. 



Armistice day, November 11, is just 

 two weeks away. With a little effort 

 every florist can add considerably to his 

 •ales on that day. 



Commercial failures last week num- 

 bered 212, against 205 the week before, 

 200 in the preceding week and 100 in 

 the corresponding week last year. 



L. F. Darnell, who traveled last year 

 in the interest of the Florists ' Telegraph 

 Delivery Association, has removed from 

 Cleveland to Daytona, Fla., where he has 

 opened a winter season flower store un- 

 der the name of the Triple Cities 

 Floral Co. 



A total of 12,135,000 tons of bitumi- 

 nous was mined during the week ended 

 October 16, the largest weekly total 

 with one exception since the armistice. 

 Mining of anthracite coal is said to 

 have reached a normal basis and florists 

 will get fuel. 



Since the early days of the Republic 

 it has been an axiom that the quadren- 

 nial national election was a disturber 

 of business conditions. There has been 

 ansettlement this autumn, more in other 

 lines than in the florists' trade, but the 

 campaign is almost over. The election 

 ia next Tuesday. If business unsottle- 

 ment has been due to the campaign, 

 business can go ahead again next week. 



Every indication points to the con- 

 tinued easing of the fuel situation. 

 There are localities in which the green- 

 house trade has not yet been able to 

 provide itself with fuel, but in the prin- 

 cipal markets the coal trade is hunting 

 customers. The effort has not yet 

 brought low prices, but the apparent 

 anxiety to sell is a sure forerunner of 

 a continued fall in prices. Government 

 reports indicate that the production of 

 coal is running at a higher rate than in 

 any previous year, while the mild au- 

 tumn weather has resulted in an enor- 

 mous saving. Coal probably will not be 

 cheap at any time this winter, but there 

 is small danger of not being able to pro- 

 cure the necessary qu.Tntity. Railroad 

 men say operating conditions have so 

 improved that there need be no worry 

 about transportation. 



A. L. Miller, president of the S. A. 

 F., has announced that he proposes to 

 remember the society in his will. Who '11 

 do the samef 



How well it pays florists to grow 

 perennials was indicated by Philip 

 Breitmeyer 's statement before the F. T. 

 D. convention at Indianapolis that one 

 of his branches in Detroit had sold 

 $2,000 worth of the so-called field flow- 

 ers during the last season. 



Considering the reports of general 

 business conditions, we may well con- 

 gratulate ourselves on the continued ac- 

 tivity in the florists' trade. Not only 

 is business better than in most other 

 lines, but florists have no large stocks 

 of finished or raw materials to cause 

 losses as prices fall. 



To the trade about Chicago the River- 

 bank Greenhouses are well known, for 

 the superintendent of them, Charles Mc- 

 Cauley, is treasurer of the Chicago 

 Flower Growers' Association. The 

 Riverbank Laboratories, from which 

 comes the leading article in this issue, 

 though they are not so well known to 

 the trade, are equally famous; both are 

 on the estate of Colonel George Fabyan, 

 at Geneva, 111. 



COAL PRICES FALLXNG. 



In line wdth predictions and the tend- 

 ency of the times, the price of coal is 

 falling. There has been wide variation 

 in what buyers have been paying for 

 their fuel. Prices in the spot market 

 have been based on the buyer's neces- 

 sity and brokers have taken full advan- 

 tage of their opportunities. The mild 

 autumn, the increased output, the de- 

 creased manufacturing activity, all 

 have combined to relieve the necessities 

 of the buyers, with the result that in 

 this, as in other lines, it is turning from 

 a sellers' market to a buyers' market. 

 In Chicago, southern Illinois bituminous 

 coal has cost as much as $8.50 per ton 

 at the mines, but recent sales are re- 

 ported at $5.25 per ton. This seems like 

 quite a fall, but it should be remem- 

 bered that before the war the same coal 

 cost about $1.60 per ton. 



Growers who have enough coal to 

 carry them for two or three months can 

 afford to sit tight. Having started its 

 downward course, the fuel market is 

 not likely to advance, except tempor- 

 arily under the influence of severe win- 

 ter conditions. 



GOOD BUSINESS IN PROSPECT. 



Talk with your banker and he is an 

 exception to the rule if he does not tell 

 you that, while general business is ex- 

 tremely dull at present, underlying con- 

 ditions are sound, that the period of 

 deflation will be short and that a long 

 stretch of good but not boom business 

 soon will open. 



Banking opinion is based on the coun- 

 try-wide necessity for building. Bank- 

 ers as a class seem sincere in the belief 

 that building costs, both for materials 

 and labor, soon will have fallen to the 

 point at which operations will recom- 

 mence and that these will have a stabil- 

 izing effect on business in all other lines. 

 Next to agriculture, bniMing is the 

 basic industry in America and, for the 

 immediate future, in most of the rest of 

 the world. With builders fully em- 

 ployed, instead of nearly all idle as at 



present, all other lines will be at least 

 moderately active. Florists will pros 

 per. 



NO OVERPRODUCTION POSSIBLE. 



The month of October has beer 

 marked by supplies of stock at least 

 adequate for the needs of florists prac 

 tically everywhere in the United States. 

 The condition has given rise to renewed 

 discussion of the possibility of oversup 

 ply, of a fall in prices which will carry 

 the income below the continued high 

 cost of production of plants and cut 

 flowers. 



Those who fear overproduction fail 

 to take account of important facts. 

 First of these is increased demand. Pop- 

 ulation increases; the standard of liv- 

 ing rises; there are many more flower 

 buyers than there were before the war. 

 On the contrary, glass area has in- 

 creased little if at all. In the last three 

 years as much old glass has gone out of 

 production as there has been new glass 

 erected; the increase in the number of 

 florists, if any, has been in the retail 

 selling en&, where the trade was weak- 

 est before the war. 



It is, of course, true that the deflation 

 process through which we are passing 

 has to some extent reduced the pur- 

 chasing* power of the people as a whole 

 without as yet reducing the cost of pro- 

 duction in greenhouses, but florists' 

 costs will fall if others do; perhaps not 

 first, but finally. 



Look back to the autumn of other 

 years, especially to those years in which 

 cold weather came late, and it will be 

 found that conditions in this trade in 

 October were no better than now, if so 

 good. The only exception is the year 

 of the flii. No. There is no reason to 

 fear overproduction this season, or next, 

 nor for several years. Demand and dis- 

 tributing faciiitiel' have increased 

 faster than production. 



REVERT TO STANDARD TIME. 



This week will end the reign of the 

 daylight saving plan and Sunday night, 

 October 31, the hands of thousands of 

 clocks in most of the large cities and a 

 few of the rural communities will be 

 pushed counter-clockwise, one hour. 

 The Sunday nearest November 1 is 

 taken, because this is conceded to begin 

 the winter season and efforts to make 

 the clock run more in accordance with 

 the sun would be of no avail during the 

 winter. 



This event will be welcomed by the 

 trade, particularly by the city whole- 

 salers, who are put to considerable in- 

 convenience due to the difference be- 

 tween their time and the time of their 

 growers and customers. There has, 

 however, been general satisfaction in 

 the cities with the daylight saving and 

 it is only the inconvenience caused by 

 the failure of the rural districts to 

 adopt this practice in time regulation, 

 that has marred its popularity in the 

 city. Under the daylight arrangement 

 the stores of the city wholesalers closed 

 when in the country it was only 4 

 o'clock. However, florists who have no 

 volume of business with retailers in 

 other cities operating on a different 

 time have, with the rest of the urban 

 public, expressed satisfaction with the 

 plan, and there is a likelihood that it 

 will be adopted again, at least in the 

 large cities, next year. 



