14 



The Florists^ Review 



FsBRnARY 25, 1915. 



is'fetion and 



ILe5^ Decision 



EFFECT OF SALE OF GOOD WILL. 



When a florist sells his stock, fix- 

 tures and good will, without any ex- 

 press agreement as to whether he shall 

 be at libeity to set up a competing 

 business, question may afterward arise 

 as to how far his successor can re- 

 strain his competition. The decision 

 in the case of Eanft vs. Keimers, 200 

 Illinois Supreme Court Eeports 386, 

 shows the state of the law on this 

 subject. These rules of law were laid 

 down in this case: Mere sale of the 

 good will of a business does not pre- 

 clude the seller from afterwards es- 

 tablishing a competing concern; there 

 must be an express agreement not to 

 compete. Nor will the seller be pre- 

 vented from using his own name in re- 

 suming business, unless it clearly ap- 

 pears that there was an agreement to 

 the contrary. On the question of solic- 

 iting former customers, the court said: 



"In England it seems to be settled 

 that the vendor of a good will is not 

 entitled to canvass customers and so- 

 licit them not to deal with the pur- 

 chaser, but to deal with the vendor. 

 The vendor will be restrained from 

 such conduct by injunction. In this 

 country the authorities are not agreed. 

 In some states it is held that the 

 purchase of a good will does not carry 

 with it any obligation not to lessen 

 its value by interference with it un- 

 less there is an express agreement to 

 that effect, provided that the vendor 

 does not hold himself out to the pub- 

 lic as continuing the business which 

 he has sold. In these states the seller 

 may set up the same business in the 

 same vicinity, and canvass the custom 

 ers of the house, with the effect of 

 destroying the good will. The Eng- 

 lish view, which we are inclined to 

 regard as the more just and equitjtble, 

 is adopted by other authorities. 



"We do not think that the defendant 

 ought to be allowed, after selling and 

 warranting a good will to complain- 

 ants, to purposely endeavor to prevent 

 their receiving the benefit of it, or to 

 attempt to disturb them in its enjoy- 

 ment. The locality chosen by her was 

 not near enough to have that effect. 

 But to canvass old customers of the 

 firm and endeavor to dissuade them 

 from continuing to deal with complain- 

 ants was a direct interference with the 

 property which defendant sold, with 

 the purpose of destroying it and pre- 

 venting complainants having the ben- 

 efit and advantage of it. The attempt 

 to appropriate the telephone number 

 which had been used in the business 

 sold, and by which a large part of the 

 orders had been accustomed to come, 

 was of the same character." S. 



A HOUSE OF DAPHNE ODORA. 



' There are just a few of us who know 

 that R. G. Hanford, of Norwalk, Conn., 

 is selling agent for a greenhouse place 

 devoted to daphnes; in fact, there are 

 a great many of us who have never seen 

 a daphne and only know that it was 

 one of .the flowers used by the last gen- 



eration of florists in making up those 

 old-fashioned bouquets of which we 

 hear so much nowadays. Yet N. Fred- 

 erick Byzbee has spent his life grow- 

 ing the daphne; he grows it to perfec- 

 tion in four old-fashioned houses that 

 do not mind a freeze in winter and 

 have their low sides protected from 

 the summer sun by armloads of grasft 

 thrown over them. To grow the daphne 

 as it is grown here requires skill an<^ 

 knowledge so great that fear has been 

 expressed lest the art should some day 

 be lost. Phil. 



THE TRADE SCHOOLS. 



The following is from an article, 

 ' ' The Development of Floriculture in 

 America," by H. B. Dorner, recently 

 published in the Peoria Star: 



"The advance of the profession has 

 also been shown by the demand for re- 

 search and instruction in floriculture in 

 our universities. Work has been taken 

 up at Cornell, in New Jersey, in Massa- 

 chusetts and in Illinois. These institu- 

 tions will no doubt rapidly be followed 

 by others, until every state having 

 large floricultural interests will be 

 offering instruction along these lines 

 to her citizens. 



' ' Much money is now being spent by 

 these institutions in building up glass 

 ranges for floricultural research and in- 

 struction. Illinois heads the list with 

 about 28,000 square feet of glass de- 

 voted to the work. Illinois is also the 

 only institution offering a course lead- 

 ing to the professional degree of bach- 

 elor of science in floriculture. 



"Much has been said at various 

 times as to the value of a college train- 



ing in floriculture, but it will have to 

 be admitted that the man with a thor- 

 ough grounding in the rudiments of 

 the work has much better chances for 

 rapid advancement than the old-time 

 apprentice. The man with a working 

 knowledge of the structure and re- 

 quirements of plants, of soils, of fer- 

 tilizers and their uses, of business man- 

 agement, and the many other require- 

 ments of a successful florist, is surely 

 better equipped to make a success of 

 his chosen work. No university guar- 

 antees to turn out finished florists any 

 more than it guarantees to turn out ex- 

 pert engineers, but the graduates are 

 expected to be better fitted to cope 

 with the florists' problems." 



HIGH PRAISE. 



Every now and then some one well 

 pleased reader writes The Review how 

 indispensable he finds the paper — but 

 how many would go as far as this manf 



Here is my dollar for another year. I would as- 

 soon think of doing without my good old pipe as 

 getting along without The Review. — D. B. Kelly, 

 F'ranklin, Ind., February 15, 1915. 



Ashtown, IIL — The greenhouse, 24x 

 100 feet, which was erected last fall 

 by Oscar Schade and his son, Otto, is 

 now filled with vegetables of various 

 kinds, with which they are having suc- 

 cess. Their specialty is cucumbers. 



Houston, Tex. — A feature of the meet- 

 ings of the Rotary Club is exhibits and 

 addresses on them by the members^ 

 February 4 R. C. Kerr and O. P. Jack- 

 son were among those who were to the 

 front, one showing flowers, the other 

 seeds, and telling about them. 



Houston, Tex. — At the February 

 meeting of the Florists' Club it was de- 

 cided to assist the local newspaper 

 with its season's gardening contests the 

 same as last year. A fall show is 

 planned, but it is intended to run it 

 along different lines, so as to interest 

 more amateurs than was done in 1914. 



House of Daphne Odora Grown by N. F. Byzbee, Norwalk, Conn . 



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