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FBBBUABY 8, 1912. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



13 



Store of Charles Bartcher, Denison, Iowa. 



This particular community is so largely 

 given over to mercantile and manufac- 

 turing pursuits, with accompanying 

 thoughts of inert merchandise, tons and 

 yards, bargain sales and advertising plans, 

 shafts and wheels, gears and sprockets, 

 plugs and sparkers, and so on, that it is 

 practically impossible for the average 

 layman to appreciate adequately the de- 

 cidedly different business atmosphere in 

 which the florist lives and toils. Still, 

 the layman must not assume that it is 

 a case of "all among the roses," but 

 should remember that the plants and 

 flowers come only as a result of unceas- 

 ing vigilance and toil with soil and fer- 

 tilizers, air and water, cloud and sun- 

 shine, heat and cold, coal and ashes, 

 pests and perversities of nature in- 

 numerable. 



Area of Glass. 



In the Springfield flower district the 

 area of glass amounts to approximately 

 one million square feet, which does not 

 seem a large figure in comparison with 

 the fact that one concern in Chicago has 

 about one-half more in size of houses, 

 but it should be borne in mind that these 

 are planted for cut flowers, whereas the 

 local houses are filled with plants in 

 small pots, so that th^ aggregate of 

 plants grown here is beyond anything 

 filsewhere on earth. At a conservative 

 estimate, the local product reaches some- 

 thing like fifteen millions of plants an- 

 nually, nearly one-half of which are 

 roses. 



Hardy shrubs are being grown in con- 

 stantly increasing varieties and quan- 

 tities, the present crops including such 

 items as 500,000 phlox, 250,000 peonies 

 and 35,000 Japanese and German iris. 



The importation of bulbs and roots to 

 the value of about $25,000 is rendered 

 necessary by the demands of the retail 

 mail order catalogue trade and for this 

 same purpose as many as 15,000 Camellia 

 Japonica are required, which is quite 

 likely to be equal to the importations 

 for all of the remaining United States. 

 Importations of azaleas are on the de- 

 crease, for the reason that the average 



housewife is not suflSciently conversant 

 with the method of care necessary to 

 success with these beautiful plants. 



The Catalogue Trade. 



The sale of the products of the various 

 florists' concerns in this locality requires 

 the printing and mailing of something 

 like one and one-fourth million cata- 

 logues annually, which helps materially 

 to make matters interesting for the pub- 

 lishers and postoflSce employees. There 

 is somewhat of a tendency to reduce the 

 size of catalogues by cutting out elabo- 

 rate descriptions and large cuts, which 

 are not so essential as in former years. 

 The issue of retail catalogues from this 

 locality is now confined practically to 

 what is known as the * ' Big Four ' ' group 

 of florists, a few of the less successful 

 catalogue florists haviijg failed to survive 



the division of business with competitors 

 springing up all over the country, and 

 their places have been taken over by 

 larger concerns in need of more houses 

 or devoted to growing for the wholesale 

 trade exclusively. 



As Compared with Other Trades. 



An estimate of the gross sales of all 

 florists' establishments hereabouts might 

 apparently seem rather small in com- 

 parison with figures which could be com- 

 piled from mercantile and manufactur- 

 ing statistics. But it should be remem- 

 bered that the merchant handles a vast 

 amount of stock on an extremely small 

 margin and frequently some at a posi- 

 tive loss, and the manufacturer buys his 

 raw material and passes it through 

 numerous processes before placing it up- 

 on the market at a profit not always suf- 

 ficiently large to overreach the selling 

 and overhead expense. The florist knows 

 neither raw nor manufactured material; 

 practically everything that he sells is a 

 thing of life, each stock, plant, root, 

 bulb and seed becoming the parent of in- 

 numerable offspring. Like "leaven hid 

 in three measures of meal," the process 

 of multiplication is limited only by the 

 labor applied, the soil, heat, light and 

 moisture provided, and the space under 

 glass available. Consequently, the ratio 

 of profits to gross receipts is proportion- 

 ately greater than in the ordinary lines 

 of commerce. The same would be true 

 as to an estimate of the number of em- 

 ployees, since the florists' results depend 

 only in part on human labor, which 

 serves merely to place the seed, bulb, cut- 

 ting or plant in its proper environment, 

 after which nature, aided by constant 

 and competent watch-care, is expected to 

 do the rest. 



The Florist's Natural Enemies. 



Like the farmer, the florist has enemies 

 as numerous and as persistent and an- 

 noying as those of old Nehemiah. All of 

 the elements at times conspire against 

 him in turn — heat, cold, cloud, sunshine, 

 drought, moisture. His work is attacked 

 by grubworm, angleworm, eelworm; by 

 red spider and green fly; by miller and 

 leaf-roller; by black-spot, mildew and 

 fungus; by nematode and club-root. But 

 for all such there is usually a preventive 



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