December 30, 1909. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



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THE RETAIL 



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FLORIST 



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CHRISTMAS TRADE. 



It could not be otherwise than that an 

 i ::tremely large volume of business would 

 to done for Christmas, but the reports 

 (i I not indicate anything of a record- 

 !;eaking character in the middle west 

 inid west. It was better in the east. 

 Jvetty nearly everyone appeared to have 

 i'W the business that could be handled, 

 b it in the end there proved to be enough 

 s.'ock to have supplied quite a bit more 

 Easiness, and the total of sales did not 

 jr.ake the increase which had been ex- 

 pected. It was a good Christmas, with- 

 out a doubt, and with a large number 

 of individual establishments it was much 

 better than any preceding, but, on the 

 whole, the business probably did not 

 greatly exceed that of last year in money 

 value. 



Many explanations are given for the 

 failure to realize sanguine anticipations. 

 There certainly were more flowers avail- 

 able for Christmas than in any other year. 

 But this very abundance of material oper- 

 ated disadvantageously ; it had not been 

 foreseen and considerable stock failed to 

 find the satisfactory sale it might have 

 had if conditions had been a little more 

 accurately gauged in advance. The sea- 

 son which turns the most money is the 

 one in which demand is so close on the 

 heels of supply that the odds and ends 

 are sold, not the one in which stock is so 

 plentiful that the special long, fancy, 

 high-grade stock fails to realize its full 

 value. 



There are those who say that the re- 

 tail business suffered because of too much 

 prosperity in the country. These are the 

 ones who found that the Christmas busi- 

 ness in the hard-times years was sur- 

 prisingly good. In those years it was ex- 

 plained that the people accustomed to 

 spending large sums for Christmas, find- 

 ing themselves pinched, instead of mak- 

 ing hundred-dollar gifts of jewelry made 

 five-dollar or ten-dollar gifts of flowers. 

 This year the statement is that the free 

 spenders again had the price of jewelry 

 and neglected the florists. 



Another explanation is that the public 

 has now come to be well aware of the 

 increase in the price of cut flowers at 

 Christmas and prefers to buy its cut 

 flowers at other times. In support of this 

 argument, it is pointed out that the plant 

 •business is steadily increasing, and made 

 another gain this year. One interesting 

 r»unt is that the retail florists are be- 

 g; lining to comment on the advances in 

 !• ices which the plant growers have been 

 >i aking of late. 



J^nt the largest adverse factor in the 

 ^iiristmas business was the great storm 

 ^iiich swept over the country last week, 

 ^y^- storm was general, extending from 

 I' <^ Rocky mountains to the Atlantic sea- 

 ^<ird. Beginning in the southwest, it 

 5^ lick some important flower consuming 

 ^'''•^3 two days in advance of Christmas. 

 1' :>a8sed over the Mississippi valley De- 

 ^' iber 24 and 25, largely curtailing the 

 ^' iness of the day before Christmas, 



usually the best retail day in all the year. 

 And it cut off the Christmas morning 

 buying almost altogether. In the ex- 

 treme east the trade was fortunate in 

 that the storm did not come until after 

 the Christmas business had been done, on 

 Christmas day and the day following, 

 when many eastern cities had the heaviest 

 December snowfall ever recorded. The 

 best reports come from the east, from 

 the cities that were not affected by the 

 blizzard. Farther west the storm not 

 only interfered with buying, but it 

 added to the work of wrapping and de- 

 livery. It is said that the snowfall re- 

 duced the efficiency of a delivery outfit to 

 one-third what it would have been in 

 milder weather and without snow. 



But, taking it by and large, the Christ- 



gested to one inventive retailer that ho 

 might be able to do business by filling 

 larger receptacles for use somewhere else 

 than on the dining-table. The result was 

 that he took some twig baskets, fitted 

 with tin pans, and filled them with small 

 plants, principally ferns, but including 

 small palms, cyrtomium, dracsenas, pan- 

 danus and similar stock. Displaying 

 three or four of these about the store, 

 each one as different as possible from 

 the others, he found they not only sold 

 well, but, just like the fern dishes, the 

 baskets came back in time to be refilled. 

 Now this retail florist keeps these baskets 

 before his customers — grown-up fern 

 dishes, one of his customers called them 

 — just as he keeps fern dishes on his 

 counters. 



DECORATING IN SMALL TOWNS. 



Estimate of Cost. 



No matter what the occasion may be, 

 whether a new cafe is being opened, so- 

 ciety is having some doings, or the belle 

 of the village is to be married, you will 

 always find that some florist has had his 

 finger in the pie. Although the above- 

 mentioned affairs call for entirely differ- 

 ent kinds of floral work, we will now con- 

 fine ourselves to the decorations for the 



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Basket of Foliage Plants. 



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mas business should be considered gen- 

 erally satisfactory. If it made no new 

 records for the trade at large, it cer- 

 tainly would have to be called good busi- 

 ness, viewed from whatever point. 



^ GROWN-UP FERN DISHES. 



In aU the work of the retail florist 

 there is nothing he is of tener called upon 

 to do than to fill fern dishes for table 

 use. The popularity of the fern dish sug- 



home wedding of the prettiest lass in the 

 village. 



Years ago the florist in a small city had 

 not the opportunity of knowing just what 

 was wanted in the way of decoration for 

 affairs of this kind, which are not a 

 daily occurrence in the country, but with 

 the advent of the trade paper and the 

 convenience of getting into the nearest 

 larger city on the intcrurban lines, our 

 rural brother is far better informed. 



First of all, what should we charge for 



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