U20 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



September 20, 1906. 



present business conditions require a 

 thorough business system; ihat no busi- 

 ness, and much less that of the grower, 

 can be conducted profitably unless all 

 details are well mastered, unless every 

 foot of space be turned to profit, unless 

 every man on the place be made to do 

 his full duty. To accomplish this task 

 successfully — and it is by no means an 

 easy one — one must, as a matter of 

 necessity, give to it his entire time and 

 undivided attention. 



And right here I wish to draw the 

 line between mere method and sound 

 business system. While the former aims 

 at accomplishing things as expediency 

 and circumstances may require, often de- 

 feating its own end, unless based upon 

 true merit, the underlying principle of 

 the latter is the result of years of ex- 

 perience, reduced to a science. 



The glib-tongued fakir, for example, 

 has a splendid method of his own of 

 marketing things to his own advantage. 

 To bring the example nearer home, the 

 itinerant nurseryman or agent offering 

 to the uninitiated a native wild shrub 

 for a Japanese novelty, guaranteed to 

 be perfectly hardy, at a fancy price 

 has the method right enough, but the 

 fundamental principle of a sound busi- 

 ness system is sadly lacking. 



The history of the successful business 

 man or manufacturer might be well 

 studied with profit by most of us. Nor 

 need we base our conclusions upon mere 

 speculation, when facts are on the sur- 

 face. The successful business man is 

 he who so systematizes his business, that 

 every department, be it large or small, 

 can show at a glance wherein the profits 

 or the losses lie. A business without a 

 system is like a ship without a rudder, 

 drifting with the tide in a haphazard 

 sort of way that will surely not en- 

 hance one's chances of attaining the 

 results desired. 



First Learn to Grow Stock. - 



The grower who can point with par- 

 donable pride to his own success has 

 first of all mastered the art of growing 

 good stock. His own experience prob- 

 ably has taught him that with intelli- 

 gent care and strict attention to every 

 detail, he can grow a geranium that will 

 easily sell at $1.50 to $2 per dozen, and 

 will give better satisfaction to his cus- 

 tomers, than the truck offered at half 

 that price, that a first-class rose at a 

 good price is sold more readily in the 

 open market at any season of the year 

 than the poor, measly thing offered for 

 next to nothing. 



Having learned by experience that 

 first-class stock, regardless of the higher 

 cost of production, pays well in the end, 

 his next step is to increase his facilities 

 and thereby increase his income; in 

 other words, he is not content to rest, to 

 let well enough alone, but like all prog- 

 ressive men of this progressive age, he 

 believes in expansion, in a large market. 



Up goes an additional range of houses, 

 well planned, splendidly built, more mod- 

 ern in all their appointments. Nor does 

 he find it profitable to hitch up at an 

 ungodly hour in the morning, in order 

 to reach town in time with his flowers, 

 to make his rounds from store to store, 

 to peddle his stock, as it were, at any- 

 thing it may fetch. He must be at the 

 helm himself, if his barge of trade is 

 to steer clear of all dangerous obstruc- 

 tions. With increased and improved fa- 

 cilities, his local market, good enough 

 in the days of yore, no longer satisfies I 



him now. Neither does the "hitching 

 up" modus operandi. He must find an 

 outlet for his stock other than that of 

 the olden times. Stock grown at Osh- 

 kosh or Kalamazoo is no longer intended 

 for local consumption only. Chicago or 

 Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo or Pittsburg, 

 want this stock. To reach these places 

 is but a simple matter now, for the man 

 in touch with market conditions, the 

 commission man, has evolved a system 

 whereby flowers are marketed, like any 

 other commodity, every day in the year 

 at prices regulated by the inexorable 

 law of supply and demand. Be it re- 

 membered, however, that the grower pro- 

 ducing high grade stock is sure of his 

 market under the most adverse condi- 

 tions; that while cheap truck is cast 

 aside, flowers of quality seldom, if ever, 

 go to waste. 



What is true of flowers holds equally 

 true of plants of all sorts. The weak, 

 spindly-looking apology for a geranium, 

 the seedy-looking fern, the drawn, ill- 

 shaped palm, are, as a matter of course, 

 not marketable. The man forcing such 

 stuff on the market, be his methods ever 

 so ingenious, will soon find out that one 

 cannot fool the people all the time. 



Commistion Man a Great Help. 



And here I can hardly refrain from 

 paying a tribute to the commission man, 

 the man who is not infrequently put 

 under the ban of suspicion, who is often 

 ridiculed, who is even classified as one 

 of the pests, such as red spider, scale, 

 club worms, etc., which the grower has 

 to fight continually in order to keep his 

 head above the high-water mark. This, 

 to say the least, is a great injustice to 

 the men who have revolutionized old 

 methods, who have evolved a business 

 system out of chaos, who are to a great 

 extent responsible for the present pros- 

 perous condition of our business. Has 



it ever occurred to the grower of a 

 generation ago that while he was over- 

 loaded and his stock was going to waste, 

 Mr. Smith, two or three hundred miles 

 away, was refusing orders for want of 

 stock, that while one suffered because 

 of an oversupply, the other one was the 

 loser on account of shortage? Has not 

 the commission man eliminated these 

 disadvantages to a great extent? How 

 often does he resort to such means 

 as the telegraph and the telephone in 

 order to move stock? Alert, progressive 

 and watchful, such are the qualities of 

 the average commission man. But for 

 him or his system, most of the growers 

 would be still groping in the dark, grow- 

 ing a little of everything and nothing 

 much or well in particular; but for the 

 commission man, many a grower would 

 be still peddling his stock for whatever 

 it might bring, regardless of the cost 

 of production; but for the commission 

 man's system, I venture to say, many a 

 grower, now enjoying the full measure 

 of prosperity, would have never achieved 

 his success. 



Must Watch Both Ends. 



It is one thing to be a good grower 

 and it is quite another thing to be on 

 the alert and to keep in touch with 

 market conditions as they arise daily. 

 The man who attempts the Jack of all 

 trades methods is sure to become master 

 of none. One end or the other, and 

 not infrequently both, must suffer in 

 consequence. 



If one's place be large enough to war- 

 rant it, let him establish his own com- 

 mission house, as several growers in 

 Chicago and in New York did, but the 

 two ends, that of the growing and that 

 of the selling, must be kept apart; in 

 other words, there must be two heads, 

 one at each end, else success is impos- 

 sible. 



SEASONABLE SUGGESTIONS. 



Fuel and Fireman. 



As the season for steady firing ap- 

 proaches, preparations should be made 

 to have everything in order so that no 

 part of the work which can be done now 

 will be left out. 



The coal supply should by this time 

 be a settled question, so that no un- 

 certainty during cold weather may come 

 up, as we are far from certain how 

 we may be treated by the powers that 

 be unless we have a signed contract — 

 and not even then. 



A very important subject at this sea- 

 son is the selection of a night fireman. 

 The day fireman we have always under 

 our eye, and can in a measure control 

 him, so that he cannot get far astray, 

 but with the night man it is entirely dif- 

 ferent. We have to delegate our power 

 to him for at least ten out of the twenty- 

 four hours, and if he is incapable or 

 faithless to his trust he can do more 

 damage in these few hours than can be 

 recovered in a season. 



A nightman must above all things be 

 sober, conscientious and truthful. He 

 must also possess the requisite amount 

 of knowledge of how and when to ven- 

 tilate and apply heat in regulating the 

 temperature and keeping it up to the 

 point indicated, so that by a careful 

 manipulation of valves and ventilators 

 he may be able to keep a uniform tem- 

 perature and a pure, fresh atmosphere. 



