30 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



Dbcbhbeb 14, 1911. 



A Good Example of the Mixed Basket of Plants. 



make money on the plants. Another 

 thing which has been in favor of the 

 plants was that the stock is less perish- 

 able; orders can be put up in advance 

 and delivered the day before Christmas, 

 while with cut flowers it usually is a 

 case of putting up orders in the early 

 hours of Christmas morning and mak- 

 ing immediate delivery. 



The changing times rather remove 

 the objection of inadequate supply of 

 cut flowers. Of recent years there have* 

 been enough, or nearly enough, and 

 with the great increase in glass the 

 chances of any extreme shortage are 

 reduced to the minimum. In these mod- 

 ern times there seldom is a . holiday 

 when stock is not to be had in the big 

 wholesale markets. Furthermore, prices 

 are not so high as they once were. 

 Perhaps one pays as much for a rose, 

 but he gets a much better rose, and the 

 same is true of practically all other 

 cut stock. A good many florists who 

 once put most of their energy into push- 

 ing plant arrangements are now turn- 

 ing once more to cut blooms. This is 

 especially true of those high class 

 stores which want to do just a little 

 differently from what is done by their 

 less pretentious competitors. 



CENTERPIECE OF POINSETTIAS. 



The illustration on this page is an in- 

 teresting example of what the camera 

 sometimes does to a really attractive 

 arrangement of plants or cut flowers. 

 The subject was a table centerpiece of 

 poinsettias and in the original it was 

 ideal for the purpose. But the picture 

 fails to show the proportions. To be- 

 gin at the beginning, the basket was 

 one of those Japanese affairs that have 

 had so good a run the last year or so. 

 It was dark red, or reddish brown, in 

 color and not over four inches deep. 

 With a pan to confine the moisture and 

 planted full of poinsettias only a few 

 inches high, with a dwarf araucaria in 

 the center, it made a distinctly all right 

 centerpiece for a Christmas table. The 



color combination was excellent, the 

 color of the basket going well with the 

 red of the poinsettia bracts as well as 

 with the foliage, and the araucaria 

 helped out, for it broke the flatness of 

 the arrangement as well as working 

 into the color scheme. But the camera, 

 which of course could not catch the 

 colors, failed to carry a correct idea 

 of the form of the arrangement. It 

 was low knd wide, for a large round 

 table. Because a view straight from 

 the side gave no suggestion of the at- 

 tractiveness of the top view, the pho- 

 tographer tipped the basket a bit, to 



get a little of the effect of the view 

 from above, with the result that the 

 finished picture greatly increased the 

 apparent height of both basket and 

 plants. It looks as though it was as 

 high as it was wide, though in reality 

 the height was not much more than 

 half the width. 



TELLING THE STORY. 



One of the places at which the flower 

 trade is weak is in telling the true 

 story of the merchandise to prospective 

 customers. How many salesmen know 

 the history of the goods they offerf 

 Quite a few, undoubtedly, but it is a 

 commonplace with them. How many 

 of them make use of the story in in- 

 teresting their customers? Hardly any. 



The big city department stores make 

 a study of the science of selling. The 

 department managers study their lines; 

 they pick out the interesting points, 

 and sales people and advertising staff 

 are instructed. It's always a big help. 

 And sometimes it results in a story 

 like this in a Chicago daily: 



* ' There is hardly a family in all Chi- 

 cago that won 't want a real live Christ- 

 mas tree in the house Christmas morn- 

 ing, so the store has secured 30,000 of 

 them. They are the genuine Norway 

 spruce, the most popular of all ever- 

 greens for Christmas trees. They are 

 5 years old, twenty-four inches in 

 height, carefully grown nursery stock, 

 imported from France when 3 years old 

 and transplanted in Miami valley, 

 Ohio, for the last two years. Nursery 

 stock was chosen because it is hardier 

 and more uniform in shape than the 

 wild or natural trees." 



These are the now popular table 

 trees. Of course the grown-in-France 

 business is the merest commonplace of 

 the nursery trade in evergreen seed- 

 lings, but it was the point that caught 

 the newspaper's attention, as it would 

 the attention of many others. 



Centerpiece for a Christmas Table. 



