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The Weekly Florists^ Review . 



Fbbbuaby 25, 1909. 



Fandl'f Floral Fan. 



customer is sure to come back, and come 

 back to stay. 



Modem Requirements. 



A man who goes into the florists' busi- 

 ness today is in it to stay. To do a pay- 

 ing business now, a man must invest con- 

 siderable capital in fixtures and what we 

 call dead stock ; that is, a certain amount 

 of stock that must always be in your 

 possession to do your business properly. 

 You can, of course, open a small store at 

 a small expense for fixtures and stock, 

 keep your expenses in the way of labor 

 down as low as possible and you can 

 make a living. I would say to that man, 

 keep out of it. You do not belong th^re. 

 To be successful in these times as a 

 florist, a man must have a presentable 

 place to do business; he must have it 

 well stocked; he must have enough and 

 eflScient employees; he must have green- 

 houses to store the goods necessary for 

 his business, or he must hire them, thus 

 reducing his profits; he must have or 

 hire land for his landscape and garden 

 work; in fact, he should be in a position 

 . to tell his customer he can fix up his 

 grounds or his garden as well as he can 

 his table, and the customer nowadays 

 not only wants it, but expects it; if you 

 cannot do it for him he goes to the other 

 man and the other man does it; he also 

 sells flowers, and he sells them to your 

 former customers, but yours no more. 



I do not for a moment say that all 

 these facilities are necessary the day 

 you start in business, but it should be 

 every man's ambition to be the man. 

 Every man entering the business from 

 now on must have the ambition to be the 

 proprietor of a place where everything 

 in any manner connected with horticul- 

 ture can be obtained for the asking. The 

 business is as yet in its infancy. It will 

 get its set-backs the same as any other. 

 Lean years will appear now and then 

 and the florist will feel it keener than 

 other lines, because it is in part a luxury, 

 but it will keep step now with all other 

 industries and will average equally pros- 

 perous. 



You here who have the advantage this 

 college offers tor obtaining the practical 

 knowledge of the cultivation of plants 

 and flowers, the soil in which they return 



the best results, climatic conditions under 

 which they should be cultivated, etc., 

 have a decided advantage at the very 

 beginning of your business career. You 

 are starting off with a knowledge that it 



has taken your competitor years and 

 years to acquire, and you know condi- 

 tions which in the nature of things it 

 would not be possible to know except in 

 a place of this kind. 



Wotk for the Dull Season. 



The outdoor work of the florist is 

 gradually assuming large proportions 

 and is deserving of his best efforts. It 

 is a well-known fact that what is called 

 the store business of the florist is good 

 only from about the first of October 

 until the first of May; the rest of the 

 year the florist who does nothing but a 

 Htore business has hard work to make 

 both ends meet, generally using up his 

 profits to pay necessary expenses during 

 the summer. Many years ago I saw the 

 necessity of making the dull months 

 profitable instead of a source of expense 

 and, much to my surprise, found condi- 

 tions were such that I would find no diffi- 

 culty in providing work for men who 

 would otherwise Save to remain idle. It 

 is necessary to say here that experienced 

 labor is diflScult to obtain, and when you 

 get a man that knows his business it is 

 more profitable to keep him than to let 

 him go for a couple of months or so when 

 you really have nothing for him to do. 



I found upon investigation that there 

 were a great many men, say men who 

 had a small, profitable business, men who 

 fiUed good positions in large establish- 

 ments, superintendents of manufactories, 

 etc., who were purchasing small places 



Fandl's Germania Wreath. 



