24 



The Rorists' Review 



July 7. 1921 



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Publlslied every Thursday by 

 Thk Florists' Piiulisuino Co., 



500 560 Caxton BuUdlDK, 



608 South Dearborn St., ChlcaKO. 



Tel, Wabash 8195. 



Keulstered cable address, 



Florvlew, Chicago. 



Entorod as second class matter 

 D'.c. 3, 1897, at the post-ortice at Clil- 

 caRo, 111., under the Act of March 

 3.1879. 



Subscription price, $2.00 a year. 

 To Canada, $:!.0O; to Europe, $4.00. 



Advertlslnff rates q.uoted on 

 request. Only strictly trade ad- 

 TertislnK accepted. 



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Results bring advertising. 

 The Review brings results. 



Now tlic tariff adds to the high cost 

 of some flowers. 



Perennials should be more grown by 

 florists who have the available land. They 

 afford variety and are suitable for many 

 uses. 



Nothing is so appropriate an observ- 

 ance of a wedding anniversary as flow- 

 ers. Put the thought in your patrons' 

 minds. 



St.\rt Sunday dosing these hot sum- 

 mer days and your patrons will be ac- 

 customed to it by the time of licavy busi- 

 ness in autumn. 



A GRE.\T many business men, includ- 

 ing not a few florists, feel, like the fight- 

 ers at Jersey City, that Uncle Sam is 

 getting the lion 's share of the profits. 



Florists are now more nearly on a 

 par with other merchants in the matter 

 of business hours than they ever were 

 before. "We should not go back to the 

 old ways again. 



Don't lot the hills receivable climl); 

 get your money. Working capital is 

 necessary to your business; "frozen" 

 capital, though safe, is useless — it is an 

 investment witiiout dividends, a laborer 

 witiiout pay. 



The decrease in the cost of living in 

 the eleven months lietwoen June, 1920, 

 and May, 1021, was lfi.7 per cent. The 

 salaried class, reduced as flower buyers 

 during the postwar period of II. ('. L., is 

 coming back to us. 



There will be no strike of railway 

 em]iloyces, and the companies may now 

 begin their saving of ,$400,000,000 a year 

 under the new wage scales. The trade is 

 not likely to benelit, however, until the 

 roads have saveil enough to pay some of 

 their debts and business has picked up. 



About fifteen per cent fewer business 

 failures occurred in the second quarter 

 of this year than in the first three 

 months of 1921. Except in Ajn-il, the 

 number has l>een less each month, with 

 that in June the smallest since last No- 

 vember. But last month's total, 1,200. 

 is far above the average and about twice 

 the number in the same month in the 

 two preceding years. Business is not 

 so bad as it was, but not yet so good 

 as it should be. 



Convention time is not far away. 

 Have you a new member for the S. A. F. ? 



Congress has at last decided that the 

 war is over. Any who felt hesitation 

 before that decision may now get to 

 work in the old peace-time way. 



Duties proposed in the new tariff act 

 on potash and sulphate of ammonia are 

 regarded as a possible cause of a boost 

 in price on the commercial fertilizers 

 containing these jiroducts, which some 

 florists use. 



Among the new French hydrangeas, 

 Domotoi is spoken particularl.v well of. 

 It has large, double pink blooms and fine 

 foliage. Cut blooms were exhibited at the 

 nurserymen's convention in Chicago by 

 Dreer. Stock is not large yet. 



Read.tustment means a change from 

 charging all the traffic will beasr to ask- 

 ing a price that meets the cost of doing 

 business and provides a fair profit. To 

 accomplish this properly, we should know 

 what is our cost of doing business. 



When we can train our vision to look 

 beyond the abnormal tim^s of the last 

 two years and recall the days preceding, 

 some of our pessimism about the present 

 may bo relieved. It's not so much a 

 case of hard times coming as of easy 

 times going. 



The circulation of The Review is 

 prowing steadily, principally through 

 florists recommending the paper to be- 

 ginners in the trade, although occasion- 

 ally some friend notes a veteran in the 

 business who has not kept step with 

 events and tells him to send in his $2. 



A RECENT publication of the New York 

 Agricultural Experiment Station at Ge- 

 neva, bulletin No. 480. contains the re- 

 sults of analyses of 677 samples of com- 

 mercial fertilizers and fertilizer mater- 

 ials collected by the commissioner of ag- 

 riculture during 1920. The bulletin may 

 be had free" of charge upon request. 



Those experimenting with their first 

 business systems will find some valuable 

 hints in the artif'le in this issue, "Grow- 

 er's Mail Order System," by the mana<Ter 

 of Steele's Pansy Gardens, Portland, Ore. 

 The succestions are practiced as well as 

 practical. This firm's letterhead, thoush 

 too expensive a color scheme for manv, 

 is as artistic and attractive a one as 

 may be found. 



The downward swinfr of the commer- 

 cial pendulum was well-nigh completed 

 before florists felt it and it seems as 

 though the upward swing will so soon 

 be in prorress that this trade will feel 

 no more than the dull summer that is 

 usual. Predictions for resumption of 

 business in the slack lines are so gen- 

 eral as to make florists' prospects for 

 next season r(\asons for optimism anil 

 ]ire]ia ration. 



An interesting side-light on the refent 

 past and early prospects of the retail 

 flower business is afforded by the state- 

 ment of W. Abrahamson, mIio has charge 

 of the store fixture department of the 

 A. L. Randall Co., Chicago. Mr. Abra- 

 hamson reports that .Tune was the best 

 month in the history of the depnrtment 

 — not only n larsrer total of sales, but a 

 larger number of orders for new refrig- 

 erators and store fixtures than in any 

 preceding month. Do vou suppose there 

 is any other line of business in which 

 the retailers are preparing for next sea- 

 son with equal confidence? 



Lack of working capital is the reason 

 for appearance under the "Business Em- 

 barrassments" heading of firms whose 

 business is quite solvent. Ability to 

 collect due bills would save them. 



If a florist, every time he took an order 

 for wedding flowers, asked where the 

 married couple would live, he would have, 

 in the course of time, an excellent list 

 to which to send reminders to observe 

 each wedding anniversary with flowers. 



COAL PRODUCTION CUT DOWN. 



Absence of orders for bituminous coal 

 is causing a precarious situation in that 

 fuel because production is being dimin- 

 ished to so dangerous an extent. A 

 large number of mines paid off their 

 workers before the Fourth, with the re- 

 quest that they take a vacation the en- 

 tire week following the holiday. Some 

 of the pits closing down may not be 

 opened the entire month. A number of 

 operators filled their sidings to ca- 

 pacity with loaded cars ready to be 

 moved at a moment's notice in case any 

 demand should develop during the week. 

 Some operators thought a surplus would 

 be worked off during the "vacation" 

 period, but because of shutdowns in con- 

 suming industries the week of the 

 Fourth there seemed to be no more than 

 a desultory market. Production of 

 bituminous coal is not likely to be in- 

 creased until there are orders which will 

 move what is on hand. In the face of 

 such a situation the wise course for 

 every greenhouse owner is to store coal 

 now for next winter's needs. It will be 

 hard to get when cold weather comes. 



BRIDES FEWER THIS JUNE. 



Some florists have declared that 

 brides are using fewer flowers for their 

 weddings, business for these occasions 

 being much less this June than in the 

 same month formerly. But Louis Leg- 

 ner, clerk of the Chicago m.arriage li- 

 cense bureau, declares the falling off 

 is in the number of brides. 



"June," he says, "is supposed to 

 be Cupid's most prosperous month, but 

 we are running fully 600 marriage li- 

 censes fewer than a year ago. The nat- 

 ural increase in population should add 

 about 2,000 marriages to the total each 

 year. So far, however, only 19,38.1 wed- 

 dings have taken place in 1921, and the 

 final figure for the year will not be 

 more than 36,000 or 40,000. This in con- 

 trast to 42,.'503 for 1920." 



Mr. Legner blames the shortage in 

 apartments and the general unrest for 

 the shortage of brides. Business in 

 marriage licenses and in wedding flow- 

 ers will be better when general condi- 

 tions improve. 



MORE ORDERS THAN STOCK. 



It seems remarkable to many, in this 

 season of general business depression, 

 that users of The Review should have 

 had more orders than stock. There 

 have been many instances of it rc}iort- 

 ed, like this: 



nnirn-iiiis seem to lip a sp.irrp article. As a 

 rosult of our nd in The Review we reoeivt'd 

 orders for i;,."00 more jilants tlian we liml. 

 'J'liere is a bimkI phance to clean up any surplus 

 lots, if the linldprs will just tell the buyers 

 where to send Iheir orders. — Alfred Engelmnnn. 

 Maryville, Mo., June 30, 1921. 



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. 



