24 



The Florists^ Review 



Mat 24, 1»1T. 



r 



1 3C^ 



Establlehed, 1897, by O. L. GRANT. 



Publisbed every Tlmrsday by 

 The Florists' Poulisuing Co., 



520-660 Oaxton Building, 



508 South Dearborn St., Chicago. 



Tele-., Wabash 8195. 



Registered cable address, 



riorvlew, Chicago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3, 1897, at the post-ottlce at Chi- 

 cago, III., under the Act of March 

 3 1879. 



Subscription price, $1.50 a year. 

 To Canada, $2.50; to Europe. $3.00. 



Advertising rates quoted upon 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



m' 



H»M1. ■..»... .,'*t 



NOTICE. 



It is impossible to ifuarantee 



the insertion, discontinuance or 



alteration of any advertisement 



unless instructions are received 



BY 4 P. M. TUESDAY. 



SOCIETY OF AHEBICAN FLOBISTS. 

 Incorporated by Act of Congress, March 4, 1901. 



Officers for 1917: President, Robert C. Kerr,, 

 Houston, Tex.; vice-president, A. L. Miller, Ja- 

 aaica, N. Y.; secretary, John Young, 53 W. 28th 

 St., New York City; treasurer, J. J. Hess, 

 Omaha, Neb. 



Thirty-third annual convention. New York, 

 N. Y., August 21 to 24, 1917. 



Results bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Some of those Hollanders are wonder- 

 fully progressive people. 



What would you give per thousand for 

 Paper Whites that were all 12-centime- 

 ter? 



At the moment it is almost impossible 

 to buy Pocahontas coal in quantity at 

 any price. 



Relax no effort to grow good stock 

 and give good service ; it never paid bet- 

 ter than it will now. 



In the midst of any excitement ordi- 

 nary business is likely to be forgotten — 

 unless it is advertised. 



The sale of bedding plants never be- 

 gins until after the bulbs have passed out 

 of bloom and this year the season of 

 bulb bloom has been prolonged to an un- 

 usual degree by cool weather. 



When a subscriber writes to The Re- 

 view, complaining of the stock received 

 from an advertiser, investigation nearly 

 always sliows that the offer was the 

 cheapest price of any advertised at that 

 time. It seems to be human nature to 

 want to get something for nothing, or for 

 as near nothing as possible. 



It is the opinion of well informed men 

 that general business will be unusually 

 active in the United States by next au- 

 tumn, and that the average man, except 

 for paying his share of the cost of war, 

 will be making better money than ever 

 before. As human nature changes slow- 

 ly, if at all, it is difficult to see how the 

 florists' trade can be otherwise than 

 good. 



Professor A. C. Beal, of Cornell Uni- 

 versity, is the author of * ' The Culture 

 of Garden Roses," recently published as 

 Lesson 121 of the Cornell Reading 

 Course. 



The supply of Mrs. Russell rose plants 

 again is well cleaned up and most of those 

 who make a specialty of this rose have 

 obtained better prices than in previous 

 years. Russell is worth more money than 

 any other forcing rose, if for no other rea- 

 son, because the percentage of failures in 

 the grafting case is higher than with 

 other varieties. 



Nearly every grower of cyclamens has 

 set aside a few plants for seed production, 

 because of the improbability of obtain- 

 ing German seed this year. One of the 

 results of the war may be that we shall 

 become self-reliant in this respect, but the 

 average American grower is too slapstick 

 in his methods to compete for quality 

 with the painstaking, trained European 

 growers of special strains of flower seeds. 



The friends of the telegraph delivery 

 idea should be careful not to handicap 

 its development by promising too much. 

 Orders of too small value should not be 

 encouraged unless it is certain they do 

 not call for a long delivery trip and too 

 great speed should not be promised; 

 there will be either a large percentage 

 of failures or the orders will become 

 unwelcome to the man who is called on 

 to execute them at twenty per cent dis- 

 count. 



TRADE PROSPERITY. 



Rarely a week passes that the news- 

 letters in The Review do not contain 

 items which demonstrate that the trade 

 as a whole is prosperous. When it is 

 recorded that this retailer has purchased 

 a new auto truck, or has added one to 

 his delivery service; that a grower is 

 erecting several additional thousand 

 feet of glass on his range; that another 

 retailer has moved into his new store, 

 which is equipped with the most modern 

 refrigerators and other fixtures, could 

 there be greater indications of our busi- 

 ness prosperity? 



Apparently, the trade does not believe 

 that retrenchment is the order of the 

 day; that it is necessary to sit back 

 and await developments. Instead the 

 members of the trade are going right 

 ahead preparing for a greater year than 

 the last one. Such faith is bound to 

 get the proper reward. 



PRICE READJUSTMENT. 



it is an old trade axiom that where 

 there is a demand there always will be 

 a supply. But no matter what the de- 

 mand, the supply will not be forthcom- 

 ing unless tliere be recompense for the 

 individual who furnishes it. There is 

 always a demand'for flour, and there is 

 always a supply, provided the would- 

 be purchaser is willing to pay the price, 

 wliich is fixed by the cost of raw ma- 

 terial and production, plus a profit for 

 the manufacturer. 



Growers in the central states believe 

 the time lias come for a trade readjust- 

 ment, based on the increased cost of pro- 

 duction. It is proposed that a meeting 

 1)0 held in Chicago June 19 and 20, at 

 which growers can exchange ideas upon 

 this subject. 



Such a meeting is the logical method 

 by which to arrive at a solution of the 

 troubles of the growers. If costs of 

 production have risen, and there seems 



no doubt but what they have, then it 

 naturally follows that the selling price 

 must be raised. The grower is just as 

 much entitled to a fair return on his 

 investment and labor as is the miller 

 who supplies the demand for flour. 



WHERE IT IS READ. 



It takes an awful lot of pounding to 

 get a certain type of florist to wake up 

 to the fact that there is a better means 

 of selling stock than the one heretofore 

 employed. Some who READ The 

 Review regularly will not advertise in 

 it because it is PRINTED far from their 

 home! They cannot realize that it is not 

 where a paper is PRINTED, but where 

 it is READ that counts. 



WHY PUT IT OFF? 



It is the weekly experience that a 

 number of orders concerning advertise- 

 ments are received too late for atten- 

 tion for the current issue of The Review. 

 It is stated conspicuously in each issue 

 that "it is impossible to guarantee the 

 insertion, discontinuance or alteration 

 of any advertisement unless instructions 

 are received by 4 p. m. Tuesday," at 

 'which time the last of that day 's mail is 

 delivered. But there are advertising 

 orders every Wednesday, and even on 

 Thursday and Friday. 



A surprising number of advertising 

 orders come Tuesday by telegraph. Just 

 why should a man wait until Monday 

 night and then send a long night letter 

 telegram, subject to the many errors of 

 telegraphic transmission, when acting 

 a few hours earlier, to catch the Monday 

 mail train, would accomplish the same 

 thing at one-twenty-fifth the cost, and 

 with twenty-five times the certainty f 

 Nor is The Review the only one that 

 gets much business by telegraph that 

 might better be transmitted by mail. 

 Wholesale florists say they get any num- 

 ber of telegraph orders where a letter, 

 by posting a little earlier, would have 

 accomplished the result with greater 

 assurance of accuracy. 



It seems as though one of the places 

 where the trade could save money would 

 be by breaking away from its habit of 

 procrastination. Use the mails instead 

 of the telegraph. 



CHICAQO. 



The Market. 



Talking in terms of the stock ex- 

 change, one might say that the bottom 

 fell out of the wholesale cut flower 

 market last week. From a position of 

 what seemed almost impregnable 

 strength the market experienced a sud- 

 den, shejer fall the middle of last week 

 which transformed it at a blow from 

 a sellers' to a buyers' market. With 

 the hot weather that suddenly came 

 upon fur-garmented Chicago, a super- 

 abundance of stock flooded into the 

 market and brought distress to whole- 

 salers. City trade fell off heavily; in 

 fact, it might almost be said without 

 exaggeration that there was none. 

 Shipping trade fared a trifle better and 

 from one or two quarters there even 

 comes the sanguine report that it was 

 good, but that was certainly not true of 

 the majority. The main part of the 

 shipping business is for school com- 

 mencements, although weddings also 

 figure in the demand. 



Probably the only exceptions to the 

 general debility of the market are 



