June 25, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



n 



The Columbia Avenue Store of Charles Henry Fox, Philadelphia. 



opened the Sign of the Rose. His idea 

 in the first named shop was purely a 

 commercial one. Plants were bought in 

 quantity and sold at a good profit, but 

 for what seemed to the purchaser to be 

 a low price for cash. The customers 

 were largely made up of the working 

 classes, who came in the evening, read 

 the price on the tags and paid for and 

 carried off their purchases, saving much 

 expense in bookkeeping and delivery. At 

 that time it was the fashion to have 

 bargain sales. Plants were offered at 

 odd figured prices, somewhat as it was 

 done in the department stores. Today, 

 however, people have become tired of 

 bargain sales and odd figured offers. 

 The special sale is now popular, a plant 

 usually offered at $1 being sold at 75 

 cents, and occasionally 50 cents, prices 

 made possible by a retailer's purchase 

 in quantity. 



In the same way funeral designs are 

 made up at popular prices. Those who 

 desire a small or inexpensive design are 

 satisfied by the wreaths, crosses, etc., 

 shown them at . Fox 's. The conditions 

 in the flower market have made it possi- 

 ble to buy short-stemmed flowers at low 

 prices, and these flowers are quite as 

 satisfactory in many funeral designs as 

 higher grade stock and can be offered 

 profitably at far lower prices. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. Fox, the 

 Review will publish a series of photo- 

 graphs of funeral designs. The photo- 

 graphs, copyrighted by Mr. Fox, were 

 taken from his original work, and will 

 later be used in an album. We hope 



that they will interest our readers and 

 perhaps be an inspiration for some of 

 them to further advance in artistic work. 



Phil. 



FREIGHT RATES. 



On Greenhouse MateriaL 



The John C. Moninger Co. has filed a 

 petition with the Western Classification 

 Committee, seeking a change in classi- 

 fication which will effect a reduction in 

 the freight on greenhouse materials. In 

 part they say: 



' ' To points in western trunk line ter- 

 ritory, and to points west of this terri- 

 tory, we have found by experience where 

 we have been obliged, in making up car- 

 loads, to apply the L. C. L. rates of sec- 

 ond class on the common unglazed sash, 

 the L, C. L. rates of third class on the 

 common pine moldings and the L. C. L. 

 fourth class rates on balance of the list, 

 that it makes shipping prohibitory, re- 

 sulting frequently in loss of sales by us 

 and loss of revenue by the transportation 

 lines. To all these points we cannot suc- 

 cessfully ship and compete with local 

 dealers and the result follows that the 

 man who is going to put up greenhouses 

 builds them with locally improvised ma- 

 terials on which interested lines did not 

 get a revenue or handle as freight. Far 

 western points cannot be reached, as they 

 use cedar, fir and other local woods for 

 the houses, having the material made by 

 local planing mills, whereas with a fifth 

 class rate we could get the business. Our 

 class of goods are the goods that the 



greenhouse man wants for his houses and 

 if it were not for the excessive freight 

 charges he would buy them rather than 

 put up something inferior in construc- 

 t»o" and Jn quality of materials used. 

 A fifth class rating on greenhouse ma- 

 terials would result in increased tonnage 

 for the railroad lines and would tend to 

 educate the people in the territory men- 

 tioned toward buying goods in this mar- 

 ket. It would lessen their dependence on 

 local industries that are not equipped to 

 furnish the goods that a man wants, but 

 which he is forced to buy on account of 

 the excessive tariff on this class of goods 

 The application of a fifth class rate 

 would enlarge our business, along with 

 the business of several other firms in 

 this market who are making and selling 

 the same class of material. 



' ' We give here two specific cases where 

 shipments were made and these will show 

 at a glance the difference between ship- 

 ping as mentioned in the first part of 

 this letter and shipping under the official 

 classification. 



"A carload of greenhouse materials 

 made up as follows is to be shipped to 

 Denver, Colo.: 



Rate. 



Lumber, 10,000 lbs $ 97 



Molding, 3,000 lbs Vo*; 



Sash, 600 lbs .' ' {q^ 



Castings, 950 lbs 97 



Glass, 10,500 lbs 97 



Putty. 500 lbs '.'.'.'.'..'" '97 



Pipe, 1,250 lbs ["' gj 



"With these rates it is almost impos- 

 sible for us to get much Denver business. 



