988 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



Maucu 1, 1006. 



in Ohio, sends me a clipping from his 

 local newspaper and suggests that it is 

 worthy of a few comments. It appears 

 that there is some opposition in that 

 town, or it would not be necessary to 

 insert such large-typed ads and quote 

 such very popular prices. My friend 

 need not worry. Such attempts at gain- 

 ing trade by undersfilling your con- 

 temporary ana advertising such ridicu- 

 lous prices are the weak weapon* of a 

 weak man and we have all in some de- 

 gree suffered from such business 

 methods. I hear less of it every year 

 and there can be but one inevitable end, 



"In this case we know that only very 

 poor roses or carnations could be pro- 

 cured at wholesale for the prices quoted. 

 Grow or offer for sale the best flowers 

 and plants and charge accordingly and 

 you need not worry about such opposi- 

 tion, and remember that with scarcely 

 an exception neither you nor any other 

 respectable florist ever lost a valued cus- 

 tomer by charging a good stiff price for 

 a first-class article. The price, if it did 

 at the time seem rather extravagant, 

 will be quickly forgotten, but poor qual- 

 ity at any price will neither be forgotten 

 nor forgiven. 



"The cutting of prices below those of 

 old established^ firms is often the method 



employed by beginners in ours as well 

 as in other businesses. It is to them 

 the simplest and strongest card they can 

 play. However, it may work in other 

 business, it never does in ours, and your 

 opponent who is selling at a loss is slow- 

 ly perhaps but surely going to the wall 

 and the time will come when the fearless 

 and square dealing man will have less 

 opposition. 



' ' A contractor remarked to the writer 

 recently : ' Our firm will figure down to 

 the lowest living profit and if another 

 firm goes below that we are pleased that 

 he gets the contract, for we know that 

 he is crippling himself and will be less 

 opposition in the future.' 



"This is not philanthropy, but busi- 

 ness, and nowadays business is made up 

 of 100 per cent of self preservation and 

 only a trace of philanthropy. 



"Go ahead, my friend, and congratu- 

 late yourself that your contemporary is 

 not made of more brilliant stuff and al- 

 ways remember that it is quality that 

 will acquire and keep good trade and not 

 low prices. The genius is not yet born who 

 can sell high quality below cost and 

 survive, and in conclusion, we believe 

 there is less and less every year of the 

 weak attempt to gain trade by cutting 

 prices. ' ' 



SORTS TO GROW WITH LAVSON. 



Will you kindly give us a list of car- 

 nations that will grow in the same house 

 with Lawson? We grow one house of 

 carnations to supply cur local trade 

 and want white, pink, scarlet and crim- 

 Bon. Now, Lawson gives us splendid 

 blooms and is in all ways satisfactory, 

 but we wish for a lighter pink, also some- 

 thing of the color of the old Daybreak. 

 If you can give us a list that we can 

 grow with Lawson and do reasonably 

 well, we shall be greatly obliged. 



H. F. II. 



I will take it for granted that you 

 grow your Lawson in about 55 degrees 

 and will make my list accordingly. To 

 start with, you can get the Lawson sports 

 in every one of these colors, except crim- 

 son, and if Lawson is entirely satisfac- 

 tory with you as a pink, the others will 

 be equally so in their respective colors. 

 There are White Lawson, which has been 

 on the market two seasons and has come 

 to stay; Variegated Lawson came out 

 last year. Red Lawson came out in 1904, 

 and there is a light pink Lawson of the 

 Daybreak shade cdming out this season. 



Harlowarden will do very well in the 

 same house with an occasional light dose 

 of wood ashes to stiffen the stem, which 

 is liable to come a trifle weak in such a 

 high temperature. If you will run your 

 house at 52 degrees there are plenty of 

 varieties that will thrive in that tem- 

 perature. Vesper, Lady Bountiful and 

 The Belle are all fine. Enchantress is 

 the best light pink. In scarlet the ideal 

 has not yet been reached, but Cardinal is 

 doing well almost everywhere and we 

 hope to get something out of this sea- 



son's introductions. In a pink lighter 

 than Laisson there is nothing up-to-date 

 except those coming out this season. 

 Fiancee was expected to fill the want 

 for this color and may do it yet, but it 

 will have to do better than it has this 

 season. A. F. J. Baur. 



TROUBLE WITH ESTELLE. 



What is the cause of Estelle carnations 

 bringing about fifty per cent semidouble 

 flowers? The others are perfect. The 

 plants are in a fine, healthy condition, 

 medium heavy soil, temperature 52 de- 

 grees to 55 degrees. Is this variety sub- 

 ject to this fault? They are raised from 

 late cuttings, also late planted in the 

 house. M. B. 



Estelle has always been more or less 

 subject to this trouble and, while under 

 certain conditions it would produce less 



of such blooms, yet I doubt whether you 

 will ever be able to cut all double blooms 

 through the whole season. It goes with- 

 out saying that the better the culture 

 the less such blooms will appear. Strong, 

 early cuttings, early planting and good 

 culture in general will help to overcome 

 it to a degree. 



Cardinal is a great improvement over 

 Estelle in that way, as it never come8 

 single, though it resembles Estelle a 

 great deal in general habit, etc. Unless 

 you have had extraordinary success with 

 Estelle in the past, I would advise you 

 to drop it and plant some of the newer 

 scarlet varieties, as they will pay you 

 much better and with less trouble. 



A. F. J. Baur. 



A NEW YORK PLACE. 



William Y. Velie and Fred A. Velio 

 are proprietors of the Valley View 

 Greenhouses, Marlborough, N. Y. The 

 town is a pretty one, on the Hudson, 

 within easy shipping distance of New 

 York, where most or the product finds 

 an outlet. Marie Louise violets and 

 fancy carnations are the crops grown in 

 the five houses, which have a total glass 

 area of 25,000 square feet. One of the 

 accompanying illustrations shows an out- 

 side view of the plant, the other an in- 

 vide view of a house of Enchantress car- 

 nations, the house 35x175, about 6,000 

 plants in all. As it has done every- 

 where, Enchantress has given splendid 

 results here, probably better than any 

 other variety. The houses are Lord & 

 Burnham material, embodying that 

 firm's devices. The illustration gives a 

 good view of the ventilating apparatus, 

 especially the worm which operates th& 

 shaft. 



THE NEW MONEY ORDER. 



The new form of money orders adopted 

 by the United States postoflice depart- 

 ment, is an improvement over the form 

 now in use. On the left-hand side of the 

 new order is a column of figures com- 

 mencing at $1 and running in fives to 

 $100. The clerk at the issuing oflBce 

 will tear this out so that it will show the 

 number next higher than the amount for 

 which the order is issued; this will pre- 

 vent the raising of the amount of the 

 order above the amount indicated in tBe 

 column of figures. With the old order* 

 the figures could be erased and others 

 substituted; even if an order of this 

 sort could not be cashed at a postoflice, 

 it might be passed on an individual. An- 

 other radical change in the order is that 

 the address of the person to whom the 

 order is made out is to be placed on the 

 order as well as his name. 



Establishment of Velie Bros., Marlborougb, N, Y« 



