28 



The Florists^ Review 



JuNi 9, 1921 



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Bstablfahed 1897, 

 by a. L aranU 



Pabliahed every Thursday by 

 Thk Florists' Publishing Co., 



SOO-060 OaxtoD BuIIdlnff, 



608 South Dearborn St., Ohlcago. 



Tel., Wabash 8196. 



Registered cable address, 



Florvlew, Chicago. 



Entered as second class matter 

 Dec. 3. 1897. at tlie post-office at Ohi- 

 cago, lU., under the Act of March 

 8. 1879. 



Subscription price, t2.00 a year. 

 To Canada, $3.00; to Europe, 14.00. 



AdTertistn? rates quoted on 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 vertising accepted. 



n 



Results bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Have you got your member for the 

 S. A. F.t 



The second installment of your income 

 tax is due next week, June 15. 



Watch closely for the mum midge. It 

 is devastating if uncontrolled, but it can 

 be destroyed if discovered in time. 



The weather, in its vagaries, has not 

 been altogether favorable to the florists 

 this spring, but the cool days at present 

 are maintaining trade well. 



From all indications, the supply of 

 blooming plants for next autumn and win- 

 ter will be smaller than usual. Work up 

 all the good stock you can. 



Pink roses no doubt always will sell 

 better than other colors, taking the year 

 through, but there is need of a good red, 

 a clear yellow and a better white. 



Take the trouble, during the slack 

 period this summer, to give more instruc- 

 tion to some likely lad who is helping in 

 your greenhouses. You wiU be wanting 

 a good grower later on. 



Thus far Mothers' day has belonged 

 to the cut flower people, but geraniums 

 in bloom, in fancy dressed pots, have sold 

 well when offered. Plan now to have 

 some ready for May 14, 1922. 



So frequent are the requests for in- 

 structions as to cyclamen culture that 

 The Review prints this week, on another 

 page, information which has appeared on 

 different occasions and in different forms 

 before. The methods described are the 

 best used today. Save this page, for you 

 will want it some other time if not now. 



What this trade needs most of all is a 

 higher standard of business honor — the 

 practice of the golden rule. We need to 

 develop a sense of responsibility which 

 will prompt a shipper to decline an order 

 when he knows his stock is of questionable 

 quality; we need to eliminate the men 

 who do not send out usable plants and 

 those who, having received cash in ad- 

 vance, ignore complaints; we need, more- 

 over, to devise a means of reaching the 

 fellows who hold money weeks or even 

 months, waiting for the stock to fill the 

 orders, meanwhile neglecting all inquiries 

 and demands. If we could bring such 

 florists to see themselves as others see 

 them, then the trade would boom. 



American Beauty is seeing its last days 

 in the middle west, where it made grow- 

 ers rich and famous ten to twenty years 

 ago. 



The American Sweet Pea Society will 

 hold its annual meeting and exhibition at 

 the Museum of Natural History, Central 

 park, New York, June 25 and 26. 



It will cost less to produce stock next 

 season; the trade can afford to sell 

 cheaper; but let's never go back to the 

 prewar prices; grow good stock and 

 charge what it costs, plus a profit. 



The Internal Revenue Department, col- 

 lecting Uncle Sam's taxes, notes the in. 

 creasing income derived from the so-called 

 luxury taxes and officials comment that 

 the public appears once more to be loosen- 

 ing purse strings for the purchase of non- 

 essentials. 



There is, today, plenty of good office 

 help. Why not hire a man, even if he 

 knows nothing of the floiripts' business t 

 Let it be his first duty to collect outstand- 

 ing accounts and pay outstanding bills. 

 Most florists can furnish a summer 's work 

 at that. 



The present-day retailer is often so 

 removed from the growing of flowers 

 that he loses the abUity of the old-time 

 florist to tell customers all they want to 

 know about his wares. Know intimately 

 the flowers you sell. If you don't know, 

 learn about them. 



A VALUABLE book of reference for every 

 florist is a scrapbook into which are 

 pasted the articles which appear in The 

 Review each week giving directions for 

 meeting trying situations or special prob- 

 lems. If a florist is so fortunate as to 

 keep a complete file of the issues he 

 receives, a notebook, posted alphabeti- 

 cally, should be used to record such pieces 

 of information. 



Demand for lower prices by the public 

 has necessitated pruning the overhead 

 costs in the flower store as elsewhere. 

 Some of the most effective ways are: 

 Getting more work from the same or a 

 smaller number of employees, spending 

 the advertising appropriation where each 

 dollar brings the most business, studying 

 appropriations and their returns by means 

 of cost accounting and budget systems, 

 and keeping collections up to the mark. 



The editor's desk has been decorated 

 with an unusually fine spike of gladiolus 

 sent by F. J. Olsan & Sons, Ames, la., 

 for identification. They say it appeared 

 among some hybrids. The spike seems to 

 be a glorified Halley. Prince of Wales 

 is described as an improved Halley. The 

 spike from Olsan & Sons probably is that 

 variety. It carries ten open flowers and 

 five buds showing color. The flowers were 

 set closer together than is characteristic 

 of either Prince of Wales or Halley. 



KEEP BUSY. 



Various business houses in this coun- 

 try and abroad, where conditions are as 

 much depressed as here, if not more, 

 are striving, by means of inspirational 

 advertising and striking slogans, to stir 

 business men into greater activity. 

 "1921 Will Reward Fighters," asserts 

 the Chicago Tribune, and prints full- 

 page advertisements of examples of 

 success achieved by battling business 

 men this spring. "Don't Let the Slump 

 Beat You," advertises a prominent 

 British horticultural supply house, de- 



claring, "In a period of trade depres- 

 sion such as we are going through now, 

 the wise man redoubles his efforts to 

 secure a share of whatever business 

 there is to be done, concentrating on 

 those lines which command a ready sale 

 and thus bring him the quickest re- 

 turns." 



Those slogans are for us, too. Though 

 we have fared better than other lines 

 this spring, there is no assurance that 

 our good fortune will continue unless 

 we bend our efforts to make it do so. 

 Warm weather is a temptation to 

 slacken one's grip. Instead, we must 

 tighten it. Now is the tim§ to urge on 

 the public those uses of flowers to 

 which we paid small attention during 

 the succession of big holidays. Birth- 

 days are as numerous in summer as in 

 winter; advertise flowers for birthday 

 anniversaries. There are more travel- 

 ers in summer than in winter; bring the 

 florists' telegraph service to the atten- 

 tion of all tourists, domestic and for- 

 eign. Business men have need of 

 brightening their offices in the heat of 

 summer; furnish inexpensive vases of 

 outdoor blooms on monthly contract. 

 Flowers for the sickroom should be 

 pushed; tell your customers not to wait 

 till their friends are dead to send floral 

 remembrances. These are but a few 

 suggestions. If the trade will work on 

 them and others, earnestly and assidu- 

 ously, by personal suggestion, circulars, 

 window displays and newspaper adver- 

 tising, we can beat the slump that may 

 threaten us as it has more than threat- 

 ened others. Let's keep busy. 



WHO CAN ANSWER THIS? 



"While attending the convention at 

 Cleveland last year," writes a sub- 

 scriber, "the representative of a flo- 

 rists' firm handed me a card describing 

 its new geranium, Indiana. The card 

 has been mislaid. Can you advise me of 

 the name of this firm!" 



The Review has no record of such a 

 variety. Perhaps some reader can help 

 on this question. 



AN EASTERN EXPERIENCE. 



There is an old saying to the effect 

 that it is not where a publication is 

 printed, but where it is read, which 

 counts with advertisers. Of course, 

 The Review is read throughout the 

 trade, but it has more subscribers in 

 the state of New York that in any 

 other one state in the Union. Penn- 

 sylvania is second. Some eastern flo- 

 rists who have surplus stock fail to 

 realize that they are advertising right 

 at home when they send an advertise- 

 ment to The Review, but it works like 

 this: 



Please stop our geranium advertisement. It 

 has sold 15.000 4-lnch geraniums for us. — T. K. 

 McGlnniss & Son, South WilliamBport, Pa., May 

 26, 1921. 



It was an advertisement of seven 

 lines, costing $1.26 per week. The ad- 

 vertisement offered the plants at 20 

 cents each, so that the little liner 

 brought this Pennsylvania advertiser 

 $3,000 in sales at a cost of $1.26 per 

 week. The advertisement appeared 

 only five times. 



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. 



BRIEF ANSWER. 



H. H. G., 0.— Write to R. G. Fraser 

 & Son, Pasadena, Cal. 



