'/, 



_•,-',-'; 



24 



The Florists^ Review 



Decbmbbb 18,. 1019. 



ff 



Establiahed. 1897, by a. L. GRANT, 



Pnblished every Thnrsday by 

 Thk Florists' PuBLisHiNa Co., 



S20-660 Oaxtoa BulIdlnK. 



608 South Dearborn St., Chicago. 



Tele., Wabash 8195. 



Re^stered cable address, 



Florview, Chicago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3, 1897, at the post-office at Ohl> 

 cago. III,, under the Act of March 

 a, 1879. 



Subscription price, Sl.SO a year. 

 To Canada, $2.S0; to Europe. $3.00. 



Advertising rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



RESULTS. 



We give them. You get them. 



We both have them. 



It will be a merrier Christmas with 

 the coal strike settled. 



Many are the reports of plantsmen who 

 are already sold out for Clu-istmas. 



Publicity is changing the flower-buy- 

 ing season from a 3 -month interval to an 

 all-year period. 



Put Paper White narcissi in the Christ- 

 mas corsages of violets where you for- 

 merly put valley. 



Scarcity of fuel has limited the pot 

 manufacturers to such an extent that 

 there is a serious shortage. 



Dark days, zero weather and fuel re- 

 striction have combined to check cut flow- 

 er production this month. 



Trade prognosticators see in the scar- 

 city of sugar and consequent diminution 

 of candy supplies a stimulus for flower 

 sales at Christmas. 



Those who last summer postponed 

 building more glass on account of the 

 high prices are coming to the belief now 

 that it would have been money well in- 

 vested. 



Growers, following the lead of other 

 sorts of manufacturers, find advertising 

 valuable to stimulate general demand for 

 their products. Hence their enthusiasm 

 for the cooperative campaigns. 



President J. F. Ammann's project of 

 a national association of growers, which 

 received much favor upon its proposal at 

 Detroit, will be launched at the time of 

 the American Carnation Society's meet- 

 ing in Chicago, January 21 and 22, 



The changes in rules regarding the 

 packing of express shipments which went 

 into effect last week do not affect the 

 trade. Briefly, the provisions are that 

 shipments weighing over twenty-five 

 pounds shall be packed in containers of a 

 requisite strength. 



The notice sent out by the Illinois State 

 Florists' Association set the date of its 

 meeting in Chicago as January 29, which 

 is just one week too late. The dates of 

 the meeting and exhibition of the Ameri- 

 can Carnation Society, with which the 

 state meeting will be held, have been 

 changed to January 21 and 22, to avoid 

 conflict with the automobile show and ob- 

 tain better hotel accommodations therebv. 



Is the trade's publicity outdistancing 

 its production? 



When prices are up the rest of the year, 

 there is no complaint from the public of 

 high prices at holidays. 



There seems to be small chance of an 

 adequate supply of stock for the spring 

 trade. It wiU be in line for every 

 grower to propagate industriously, to 

 produce all he can. 



It is to its friends The Eeview is in- 

 debted for its continuous growth in cir- 

 culation. For several years most of the 

 new names have gone on the list because 

 some reader has recommended The Re- 

 view to his neighbor. 



There is a general report in the trade 

 that wealthy people are inclined to curtail 

 expenditures and that the recent increase 

 in flower buying is due to the activities of 

 wage-earners, who have not heretofore had 

 the means to gratify so freely their wish 

 for flowers. --^ - ^ 



of fuel cut off the wage-earners ' income. 

 There the trade finds business not so 

 good. Yet, the country over, bumper 

 holiday sales are expected. 



FLORISTS WILL GET FUEL, 



The grave situation of the greenhouse 

 industry was realized by the fuel au- 

 thorities when they lifted the restric- 

 tions which had previously confined the 

 delivery of coal to governmental insti- 

 tutions and offices and to public utilities. 

 When additions were made, the green- 

 housemen were placed sixth upon the 

 list, ahead even of manufacturers of 

 food products. The industries were 

 designated in the following order: 



(1) Railroads; (2) army, navy and 

 other departments of federal govern- 

 ment; (3) state and county depart- 

 ments and institutions; (4) public util- 

 ities; (5) retail dealers; (6) green- 

 houses; (7) cold storage plants; (8) 

 meat packing establishments; (9) cream- 

 eries and other manufacturers of perish- 

 able food products; (10) grain eleva- 

 tors; (11) beet sugar plants; (12) manu- 

 facturers of news print paper; (13) 

 manufacturers of yeast. 



Florists whose cars of coal were 

 seized in transit and now find their piles 

 low will, it appears, have the assistance 

 of the fuel committees in securing their 

 requirements. 



COAL AND CHRISTMAS. 



The return of the coal miners to their 

 work and the removal of the fuel re- 

 strictions turned a gloomy outlook for 

 Christmas into a much brighter one. 

 It is for some not so bright as it was 

 before the fuel shortage occurred, for 

 lowered temperature delayed stock so 

 that it will now miss the holidays. This 

 hardship operates only in a few locali- 

 ties and in individual cases, for most 

 growers were sufficiently supplied wdth 

 coaL The absence of this stock, how- 

 ever, will aggravate the scarcity that 

 has been anticipated for Christmas. In- 

 ability to secure stock to fill orders is 

 the matter that is giving retailers most 

 concern as the Yuletide nears. Both 

 plants and cut blooms will be sold out, 

 it is expected, ere the rush is ended. 



But such conditions are greatly to be 

 preferred to the possibility of doing 

 business under the handicap of short- 

 ened hours, dimly lit and chilly stores 

 and curtailed transportation, which flo- 

 rists faced a week ago. The public, 

 relieved from the hardships it contem- 

 plated so shortly since, is purchas- 

 ing for Christmas more freely than ever, 

 except, of course, in those communities 

 where the closing of factories for lack 



PINK PART JUST TWO. 



The Pink Part celebrates its second 

 birthday this week. The retailers' de- 

 partment of The Review made its first 

 appearance on rosy tinted paper Decem- 

 ber 20, 1917. But my, how it's grown! 

 On that first appearance it was sixteen 

 pages in size and included 310 florists. 

 Last week, when it completed its second 

 year, the Pink Part tightly filled forty 

 pages and included 563 florists. The 

 increase in space occupied was 150 per 

 cent. And the increase in number of 

 florists was 253, or roughly eighty per 

 cent. This week the Pink Part again 

 fills forty pages and has five additional 

 names, or a total of 568 retailers who 

 advertise their ability to handle tele- 

 graph orders through The Review. The 

 growth of the trade and the growth of 

 the telegraph delivery business is well 

 reflected in this birthday comparison, 

 for The Review is the paper that grows 

 with the trade. 



GENERAL AVERAGE. 



Perhaps the highest commanding gen- 

 eral on the staff of business in war or 

 peace is that important figure "General 

 Average." The individual in the ranks 

 who strives to go contrary to the dic- 

 tates of that old warrior usually finds 

 he has little success. General average 

 rules. 



This idea is a serious one for the 

 grower who sends stock to the whole- 

 sale market. If his blooms are of uni- 

 formly good quality, his general aver- 

 age in returns will be high. But if 

 amid flowers of the better sort are 

 mixed culls and cripples, the price per 

 flower will be lower. And not slightly 

 lower, but, so the grower thinks, much 

 lower. 



Though the culls and cripples count in 

 number on the production books, they 

 do not count in the returns — except as 

 they count against the one who sends 

 them in. Retailers do not buy them; 

 they pay for good stock and ask for 

 that in bunches that are uniformly of 

 liigh quality. Culls and cripples lower 

 the general average of the growers' re- 

 turns; if he left them out his produc- 

 tion count might shrink, but the gen- 

 oral average would be higher. 



BUSINESS EMBARRASSMENTS. 



Kansas City, Mo. — Felizian Fromhold, 

 who formerly conducted the flower shop 

 in the Muehlebach hotel, filed a petition 

 in voluntary bankruptcy in court here 

 December* 5, He has 126 creditors, to 

 whom he owes $7,731.70. His total as- 

 sets are $1,240.55. 



STRONG WORDS. 



When a man of known conserva- 

 tism uses strong words, they become 

 even stronger than usual. Like this: 



The results we have obtained through our re- 

 rent advertisinK in The Review have been amaz- 

 inK. both on inciuiries and orders. — The Pitts- 

 burgh Cut Flower Co., by T. P. Langhans, secre- 

 tary, December 5, 1919. 



If you hear a man complain of the 

 cost of advertising you can be pretty 

 certain he spends a good bit of money 

 elsewhere than in The Review. 



