Apbil 29, 1822 



The Florists^ Review 



35 



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HEAD OF OHIO CHAIN 



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HOW ZETUTZ BUILT CHAIN. 



Heads Eight Establishments. 



The chain store idea has found a 

 champion with remarkable organizing 

 ability in this trade, if the aggregation 

 of eight Ohio greenhouse ranges— three 

 at Dayton, two at Lima, one at Middle- 

 ton, one at Ada and one at Columbus — 

 may be considered as sufficient material 

 evidence of the accomplishments of 

 Rolf Zetlitz. 



Mr. Zetlitz came from Norway in 

 1892 with his father, who established 

 himself in a small greenhouse at Lima, 

 O. Young Rolf was then only a boy 8 

 years old, but he was a great help to 

 his father and it was here that he 

 learned to love flowers and laid the 

 foundation for the brilliant career 

 which lay before him. 



When but 17 years of ago he left 

 Lima and went to Chicago, where ho 

 secured employment in a large green- 

 house establishment. His knowledge of 

 plants soon won him a position of re- 

 sponsibility. His intense desire to get 

 on in the world, however, led him two 

 years later to undertake the establish- 

 ment of a business of his own. With 

 $300, his entire savings, in his pocket, 

 he returned to Lima, 0., and engaged in 

 business in direct competition with his 

 father. The fact that either he or his 

 father might starve to death as a result 

 of two greenhouses in a town the size 

 of Lima never entered the younger 

 man's head, because he believed that 

 the outside world was large enough for 

 all of the flowers that could be grown. 

 His climb to success was the subject of 

 a feature story in the Dayton News 

 recently. 



When asked how his first venture 

 succeeded, he said, "I'll tell you how 

 much of a competitor I was to my fa- 

 ther. I took in just $42 the first mouth 

 I was in business. I didn't go out and 

 hunt for business when I started in. 

 I went where I knew the business was 

 • — I set up right across the street from 

 the Lima cemetery. Throe hundred dol- 

 lars was precious little capital when it 

 was all going out and nothing coming 

 in, but I sold my flowers and kept my 

 stock from freezing, and soon had :i 

 comfortable start, as f;ir as growing 

 plants were concerned. 



Hail Destroys Range. 



''When I had accumulated a little 

 money I went over to Ada, O., and 

 bought a greenhouse that was specializ- 

 ing in roses. That move was a success 

 from the start. My rose business grew 

 by leaps and bounds. Then one Oc- 

 tober day, about four years ago, a ter- 

 rific hail storm hit the outskirts of Ada 

 and seemed to center right over my 

 greenhouses. I had an investment of 

 $30,000 there. The hail storm lasted 

 three minutes and when it was over all 

 T had was a mass of broken glass and 

 twisted timbers, all lying on top of my 

 stock. 



"For a whole day (I don't think it 

 was longer than that) it seemed to me 

 the world was running backward. Then 

 I remembered that I started once with 



nothing and still had my best asset, 

 good health, so I determined to show 

 my own little part of the world that 

 a thing like a hail storm couldn't make 

 a quitter out of me. I looked over the 

 mess in Ada and turned my steps to- 

 ward Dayton. I wanted to get the at- 

 mosphere of a town tliat had been 

 wiped off the map and then, rising and 

 brushing the mud off herself, had 

 builded bigger than before. I came to 

 Dayton and bought a florist's estab- 

 lishment. 



Continued Expansion. 



"That was just three years ago. 

 Since then I have replaced the Ada 

 range, enlarged it and added a retail 

 store, and 1 have bought out another 

 competitor in Lima. I didn't quit 

 there, but went over to sec how father 

 was getting along, found him ready to 

 retire and bought his business. 



"Back to Dayton, with my sleeves 

 rolled up, I found the town possessed 

 of the very fighting spirit I needed, and 

 I sort of absorbed more than my share. 

 One day a year ago I called on Warren 

 G. Matthews, Dayton's pioneer florist. 

 Everybody knows Warren and his 

 sunny disposition. But when I dropped 

 in, Warren was suffering with an ag- 

 gravated attack of the blues. He had 



reasoned it out that he'd been in the 

 business long enough and when he said 

 he thought he'd sell out and I asked 

 for his figures, the sun seemed to start 

 shining again. To make a long story 

 short, I bought his establishment the 

 same day I asked for his figures. 

 Buys a Coal Mine. 



' ' There are two grave things to con- 

 sider in growing flowers for the trade. 

 One is hail and the other is low tem- 

 perature. Last winter, when a coal 

 famine was threatened and when coal 

 prices promised to land up around $15 

 a ton, it occurred to me that I had 

 bought insurance against hail, but I 

 hadn't insured against frost. So I 

 bought a coal mine at Nelsonville, O. 

 It isn't a whopper of a mine, but we 

 take from three to six carloads a day 

 out of it, or did up to a few months 

 ago, when the coal market shifted to the 

 point where we could buy West Vir- 

 ginia coal laid down in Dayton cheaper 

 than we could load it on the cars at 

 Nelsonville. 



"The coal mine bought, T turned my 

 attention to the Columbus field, as we 

 were developing a wonderful business" 

 throughout that region. I looked over 

 the greenhouse establishments there- 

 and bought one, the biggest of those of 



Rolf Zetlitz. 



