Febboaby 22, 1912. 



The Weekly Florists' Reviev»r, 



WHERE SOME OF <»s 



US ARE LAME 



^^W 



IT IS said that a "knock is as good 

 as a boost," and if the saying is 

 true, there are going to be a good 

 many boosts in this paper. 



The growth of floriculture in our coun- 

 try during the last twenty years has 

 been phenomenal — I believe unparal- 

 leled in the history of any other busi- 

 ness. For many years the demand as a 

 whole has kept abreast or ahead of the 

 supply. Men all over the country have 

 succeeded — have acquired wealth — 

 through the growing and selling of flow- 

 ers, whose crude and antiquated meth- 

 ods of business could only have spelled 

 disaster in any other line. The signs 

 are plain that this condition is not to 

 continue and we must adopt the com- 

 mon-sense methods which are found nec- 

 essary in all other business, or many of 

 us are going to get hurt in the near 

 future. 



Slipshod Methods. 



Pel haps the one thing in which more 

 of us are lame than in any other is in 

 «Iipshod methods of bookkeeping. How 

 many keep careful records of receipts 

 and expenditures week by week and 

 month by month, posted up side by side, 

 60 that we can get a comparison be- 

 tween t^is week and this month and 

 those of last and previous years! And 

 yet there is nothing that calls our at- 

 tention to errors, and also to successes, 

 «o easily and so surely as such a simple 

 table. 



The trade may be divided into three 

 general classes: 



1. The wholesale grower, disposing 

 of practically all his product to other 

 florists, either direct or through com- 

 mission houses. 



2. The grower, generally located in 

 the residence districts, the suburbs or 

 in the smaller towns, who grows his 

 own plants and flowers and retails them 

 himself. 



3. The city store man, who grows 

 nothing, but buys in the open market 

 the stock necessary to supply his retail 

 trade. 



We all know the grower with the 

 dirty, sloppy, tumble-down houses. Does 

 he ever succeed f It is hardly worth 

 comment. The man who has not ambi- 

 tion enough to keep himself and his 

 place clean is the one who is always 

 complaining that there is no money in 

 the business any longer, and there isn't 

 — for him. 



The Grower and the Seller. 



Perhaps the commonest mistake made 

 by the wholesale grower is in attempt- 

 ing both to grow and market his own 

 crop. The ability to sell well, and the 

 ability to grow expertly, are not always 

 found in the same person; and even if 

 they are, the time lost in getting the 

 goods to the market, dickering with 

 the buyer and collecting the proceeds 

 is often paid for dearly, by loss from 

 lack of close attention to the growing 



A. paper by W. N. Rudd, of Morgan Park, 111., 

 read before the Detroit norlsts* Club, at Detroit, 

 Mich., February 19, 1912. 



end. Of course, if the extent of the 

 business will warrant it, a well organ- 

 ized and efficient selling department, 

 distinct and apart from the growing 

 end of the business, pays, and pays 

 well. 



The wholesale grower with moderate 

 or small areas of glass will do better to 

 consign his stock to a reliable selling 

 agency and put in all his time in grow- 

 ing it better, and growing more of it, 

 and getting it in at the time when it is 

 worth money. Does it not almost al- 

 ways happen, when you visit one of 

 those men who peddle their own stock, 

 that he explains the miserable condition 



The Editor Is pleased 

 \7tien a Reader 

 presents his ideas 

 on any subject treated in 



yd^ 



As ezi>erlence is the best 

 teacher, so do we 

 leam ^stest by an 

 exchange of experiences. 

 Many valuable points 

 are brouffht out 

 by discussion. 



Good penmanship, spelling and 

 (nrammar, though desirable, are not 

 necessary. Write as you would talk 

 when doing your best. 



WK SHAIX BK GLAD 

 TO HKAR FROM TOU 



of some lot of stuff in the house by say- 

 ing that the boys let it get a littie too 

 this, that, or the other, while he was 

 away ; and aren 't the boys always doing 

 it when the boss is away half the timet 



Poor Prices and Ancient Varieties. 



To be sure, there are some dishonest 

 commission men, but as a class I ven- 

 ture the statement that they are as hon- 

 est as the men who ship to them. The 

 man who doesn't play fair with his 

 commission man and then complains be- 

 cause the commission man does not play 

 fair with him is a foolish fellow in- 

 deed. 



Many of us are selling carnations for 



2 cents when good stock is bringing 



3 cents. Our fuel, repairs, maintenance 

 and all overhead expenses are the same 



as the other fellow 's and he is only put- 

 ting a little more into labor and extra 

 care — a very little more as a percentage 

 on his other expenses. That extra cent 

 is just fifty per cent more than we are 

 getting, and that fifty per cent is nearly 

 all clear profit — which we don't get. 



How many of us are growing back- 

 number varieties simply because it costs 

 something to stock up with the newt 

 And yet, how little the cost compared 

 with the difference in receipts for a 

 whole season! And the good new things 

 always sell in the time of a glut for 

 some price. Not that we are to plunge 

 on new and untried things, but we must 

 watch the first year and jump in the 

 second year in the things which make 

 good. Less than two years back, the 

 writer saw Portia carnations shipped to 

 a Chicago commission house! Enough 

 said. 



The Orower-Betailer. 



Perhaps the slowest, the least busi- 

 nesslike and the least up-to-date of our 

 three classes are the men who both g^ow 

 and retail their own stock. This is nat- 

 ural. In many cases they have been 

 without competition. They have CTOwn 

 up with their surroundings and rallen 

 into a good business among people who 

 have had no chance to know what good 

 stock is and meekly accept whatever 

 is handed to them. They can force the 

 sale of poor or ordinary stock and have 

 gotten into the habit of growing that 

 kind of stock and will tell you that 

 "their trade won't pay for good 

 stock." There is nothing more false 

 than this. There is hardly a community 

 in the land in which there are not a 

 large class :who will buy good stock and 

 pay good prices when they are taught 

 the difference. To be sure, there is 

 everywhere a class who want cheap 

 flowers, but, with all our care, the best 

 of us will have plenty of second-grade 

 stock and the markets from Maine to 

 California are piled high with it, and 

 through a good share of the year at 

 prices less than the cost of growing. 

 How these old mossbacks do squirm 

 when a real live man opens up across 

 the street or in the next block, and how 

 soon they find that their trade will pay 

 for good stock and will go to the other 

 fellow to get it! 



The Expert Retailer. 



The retail store man is, properly, not 

 a florist at all^ but a merchant, and if 

 he adapts to his own needs the methods 

 of successful retail merchants in other 

 lines, he succeeds. If he doesn't, he 

 goes broke. The day of the man with a 

 second-hand ice-box, a cracked marble- 

 topped pine counter, and a couple of 

 bunches of flowers (bought on credit at 

 double price by reason of the risk of 

 non-payment), is gone. The retail flower 

 merchant must have capital today. 

 Good locations, fine fixtures and attrac- 

 tive conditions cost money. Ability to 



