1 



HaPTKMBKB 3, 1914. 



The Florists' Review ^ 



SHOWING 'EM 

 i^ WHO YOU ARE 



Beautiful home grounds are a form of advertising that amply 

 repays the Retail Florist for time and expense spent thereon 



sign 



ID you ever happen upon a 

 sign-painter whose name 

 was so intricately and so 

 artistically drawn upon his 

 plate-glass window that you 

 inunediately said, "That's 

 the man to p^int my}new 

 Or, on the other hand, did you 

 ever meet a doctor who had such a bad 

 cold that you didn't trust him to cure 

 your attack of pneumonia? The idea in 

 both instances was that the ma^ who 

 could do best by himself would most 

 likely serve you best. That is the 

 reason that physicians strive to look 

 fat and healthy, and the reason why 

 sign-painters use all the flourishes of 

 which they are capable when they cover 

 their shops with signs — to show the 

 public how good in their particular line 

 they are. 



Of course, there 

 are doctors who are 

 sallow and peaked, 

 and sign-painters who 

 do not paint any 

 signs at all over their 

 own doors, but nei- 

 ther of these kinds 

 of men is prosperous. 

 The late William 

 Scott gave some re- 

 markably good ad- 

 vice in that house- 

 wifely metaphor of 

 his, "Wash all you- 

 've got, and hang out 

 all you wash," the 

 inference being that 

 the neighbors will 

 judge the size of the 

 linen closet by the 

 quantity of washing 

 on the line. 



Making a Showing. 



It is a good plan 

 for the florist to fol- 

 low the same princi- 

 ple and make as good 

 a showing as possible 

 in those things by 

 which his profession- 

 al ability is judged. One of the most 

 important of these is the florist's own 

 home grounds. Here is the florists' op- 

 portunity to show the passing people 

 how skillful they are; yet there are 

 8<ime florists' residences which look as 

 tliough their owners spent their entire 

 time somewhere else. Perhaps that is 

 tfie idea they wish to convey — that 

 tliey have so much business they cannot 

 b'>ther with such ordinary things as the 

 gass on their lawns. If so, they are 

 1 the wrong track. The business 

 s" ould be running so smoothly that the 

 P oprietor can spare time enough to 

 ^ ke pride in his own grounds. 



There are many florists — and the 

 I' imher should be larger — who use all 



the advantages of their horticultural 

 knowledge and resources to set the 

 mark of the neighborhood in the mat- 

 ter of well-kept home grounds. They 

 preach home beautification by their 

 own practice. When the discussion of 



Se^ ".homd beautiful" eeknes up^f^fir 

 . aces are referred to as illustrationa 



and examples. 



%»rofit 



in It. 



f 



There are many who do this merely 

 for the sake of personal pride and en- 

 joyment, but they come to realize that 

 there is money in it. As a form of ad- 

 vertisement, so far as effectiveness is 

 concerned, beautiful home grounds are 

 second to none. Those who see what 

 fine grounds Florist So-and-so has at 

 his home conclude that he is the man 



The Advertising Gird of a Belleville, III., Florist. 



to go to for advice when they are put- 

 ting in some plants on their own 

 grounds. They also come to believe 

 that the man who takes such pains to 

 have his home look well will take par- 

 ticular pains with their daughters' wed- 

 ding decorations or their friends' fu- 

 neral flowers; at any rate, they reason, 

 he will probably do better than the flo- 

 rist not far away who does not take 

 the trouble to sow grass seed enough or 

 use water enough to keep the lawn 

 green. 



There is more in it than this, too. If 

 a person, while walking down the 

 street, notices a residence surrounded 

 by grounds better kept and more beau- 

 tiful than any others in the neighbor- 



hood, he naturally inquires, at first op 

 portunity, who lives there. Surely it is 

 some prominent or wealthy person who 

 keeps up his grounds like that; and all 

 of us take- a peculiar kind of pride in 

 knowing something personally aboii) 

 ggy9minent<):|^,j^ealthy people, even if 

 it is no more than •where they live. 

 The mind is made ready to remember ! 

 the name of the prominent person, and 

 thpugh the inquirer may be a little dis- 

 appointed at first to find the owner is 

 some one about whom he sees little in 

 the papers, yet he will, because of that 

 unconscious preparation, remember the 

 name, and when he passes the florist's 

 store on the street car, he will remark 

 to the friend with him that the pro 

 prietor has an exceedingly pretty place 

 over on This-or-That street. It may not 

 be long before he is 

 ordering flowers from 

 the man with the 

 beautiful grounds ; 

 the two are not so 

 far apart as they at 

 first seem. 



Developing Business. 

 The man benefits 

 himself and his trade 

 most who not only 

 strives to get present 

 business for himself 

 but tries to develop 

 new business. And 

 the latter is one of 

 the most important 

 things achieved by 

 the florist who sets 

 the pace for his town 

 or his neighborhood 

 in the matter of beau- 

 tiful home grounds. 

 The love of beauty is 

 as natural to human 

 beings as the desire 

 for food; but the ap- 

 preciation of some 

 kinds of beauty, like 

 the desire for some 

 kinds of food, comes 

 as the result of the 

 working of external forces. It takes a 

 poke in the back to make some people 

 know they would like to have flowers, 

 plants and trees in their yards, but 

 after they once get them, they will be 

 back for more and become the florist's 

 most regular patron. The poke in the 

 back is often administered mentally by 

 the sight of a home surrounded by 

 grounds such as these people would like 

 to have. 



Education in one line, too, brings 

 learning in another. The person who 

 18 aroused to the use of flowers and 

 plants in his yard will soon want flow- 

 ers inside the house in the winter. So, 

 indirectly, a florist may gain a per- 

 manent patron, whom he could not have 



