366 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



Decembek 28. 1905. 



whether you think it possible to improve 

 this condition of affairs." 



The Review constantly and insistently 

 urges upon its advertisers the necessity 

 of keeping their advertisements up to 

 date. "We urge it for the advertiser's 

 sake and for our own. It hurts a firm 

 or an individual to offer what cannot be 

 supplied, and to a lesser degree it hurts 

 the publication which is the vehicle of 

 that offer. But this much should be said 



in extenuation: Very many advertise- 

 ments are ordered to run until forbid; 

 one or two insertions sells the stock 

 and a letter is dispatched canceling the 

 advertisement, but is received too late 

 to prevent another insertion. The only 

 remedy is for each advertiser to watch 

 his own interests closely and cut out the 

 advertisement promptly when stock runs 

 low. Don 't neglect it ; Review adver- 

 tisements work while you sleep. 



A GOOD OLD YEAR. 



As 1905 has but two more business 

 days to run, it is fitting at this time 

 that we should glance backward for a 

 short review of the trade accomplish- 

 ments of the year. There can be no 

 doubt that 1905 has been the banner 

 year in the history of our business, not 

 alone in one department, but in all. 

 That this would be the case was early 

 apparent, and, indeed, business has been 

 steadily gathering volume and was bet- 

 ter toward the close of the year than 

 in its first half. 



It has been a period of unexampled 

 prosperity in all business activities in 

 the United States, but in no department 

 has prosperity been broader than in agri- 

 culture. The farmers have money and 

 a notable feature of 1905 has been the 

 fact that business has been better, rela- 

 tively, in the smaller communities than 

 in the great cities. But every florist 

 has had a market for all he could pro- 

 duce, providing he produces the proper 

 quality. A period of prosperity is not 

 a time for turning out cheap stock. If 

 any man has failed to find a profitable 

 sale for his stuff it has been because 

 his stock was poorly chosen or poorly 

 grown. There have, of course, been in- 

 dividual and local exceptions, but the 

 man who finds fault with 1905 should 

 look inward rather than outward. 



Door-yard Gardening. 



If there is one feature most striking 

 about the business of 1905 it is the 

 increase in interest in flower gardening. 

 This has been so marked as to attract 

 the attention of observers in all lines 

 of activity, as well as those who have 

 been directly benefited. From million- 

 aire to day laborer, everyone has felt 

 ♦he value and pleasure of door-yard or 

 window gardening and the demand for 

 material for this class of work has been 

 unprecedented. In the west there has 

 been a greater increase in landscape 

 gardening than in the east, but through- 

 out the country door-yard planting has 

 been the popular hobby and the interest 

 80 keen that a number of amateur gar- 

 dening publications have made conspicu- 

 ous successes by catering to this interest 

 and the great daily papers have found 

 the flower gardening department one of 

 the most interesting special features. 



The sale of bedding stock last spring 

 was not especially heavy, possibly be- 

 cause a great many growers were late 

 with a considerable part of their crops, 

 and good quantities were left over which 

 might have been sold if offered earlier 

 in the season. 



Cut Flower Trade. 



The cut flower business has eclipsed 

 all previous records. In wholesale cen- 

 ters trade was slow in the spring, but 

 during the summer, and this is especially 

 true of the west, business was better 

 than it ever had been before during 

 that season. And in the fall the ac- 

 customed glut of stock did not come 

 until just before Thanksgiving, when 

 there was a brief ijeriod of oversupplies 

 and low prices. Considering the year 

 as a whole, very satisfactory prices have 

 been realized and the production has 

 been larger than it ever was before. 

 Chrysanthemums realized this fall slight- 

 ly lower values than in previous years 

 and violets this autumn repeated the ex- 

 perience of last season in oversupplies 

 and low returns to the growers. Carna- 

 tions have brought especially good prices. 



A feature which can escape no careful 

 observer is the fact that more and more 

 each year the large consumes of cut 

 flowers are providing local supplies. 

 They are building greenhouses of their 

 own, and selling their own product, or 

 they are encouraging the development of 

 local wholesale cut flower growing estab- 

 lishments. A number of such places are 

 proving conspicuous successes and others 

 are planned. At the same time building 

 progresses apace in the large wholesale 

 centers and one would look for great 

 overproduction. It is a fact that short- 



ages are much less common than they 

 have been, but the development of new 

 outlets through new retail stores, and ia 

 communities where cut flowers were pre- 

 viously little used, has served to keep 

 the markets fairly well balanced. 



Greenhouse building in the past year 

 eclipsed the record of 1903, which was 

 the banner year up to that time. It is 

 difficult to offer any estimate of the 

 amount of new glass put up in 1905. 

 Much rebuilding was done, but it is 

 safe to say that greenhouse areas ex- 

 tended at least fifteen per cent during 

 the year. Early indications are that 

 1906 will see an even greater increase 

 in glass area. 



Holiday Business. 



Florists are everywhere interested in 

 holidays, as they are the harvest seasons 

 in the retail way. Easter, 1905, made 

 an advance over previous Easters. It 

 was, perhaps, not a great advance in 

 money return, but all cut stock sold at 

 good prices. It is noteworthy that the 

 sales for bulbous stock, especially cut^ 

 are not so great as they have been in 

 the past years and that a large propor- 

 tion of the Easter buyers are turning 

 to growing plants. All good cut flowers 

 cleaned out at Easter, but there is no 

 longer occasion for accumulating cut 

 flower stock at the expense of quality 

 for this holiday; salable plants are now 

 too abundant. The lily continues to be 

 the popular Easter flower, but its pre- 

 domination is not so marked as in the 

 days before the Easter lily was offered 

 all the year around. 



There is now a great variety in the 

 line of Easter flowering plants and to 

 name them would be superfluous. All 

 well-grown flowering plants will sell at 

 Eftster, providing they are offered to the 

 right class of trade. You can 't sell ten- 

 dollar plants in fifty-cent stores and ten- 

 dollar stores can 't afford to handle fifty- 

 cent plants. 



Memorial day is becoming of more 

 .Tud more importance. Throughout the 

 north, from New England to Colorado, 

 Memorial day calls for annually increas- 

 ing quantities of cut flowers and a con- 

 siderable number of flowering plants. It 

 is not a day for high prices and those 

 who attempt to raise prices will defeat 

 the best interests of the trade. 



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A Bench of Poinsetfias. 



