A review of the leading seed and 
nursery catalogs shows a number of 
different plans of presentation of 
dahlias. Some dealers are presenting 
extended lists of 50’ to 150 or more 
different varieties while others are 
limiting their offers to a much smaller 
number of kinds. Some of the more- 
extended lists, like Burpee’s, classify 
according to types of bloom, as, 
cactus and decoratives, pompons, 
etc., while others, like Vaughan, 
classify chiefly according to color, 
as, pink tones, red tones, orange 
tones, autumn tones, yellow tones, 
lavender and; violet tones, with list¬ 
ing of outstanding new varieties and 
of show or ball shaped, miniatures 
and pompons classed by type. 
Some of the growers, like Condon, 
feature new varieties like Bright W. 
Morrow and Hunt’s Velvet Wonder 
by color on one page with other new 
ones and standard varieties in black 
and white in the main section of their 
catalog. 
On the whole, 1 think there is 
considerably more space being de¬ 
voted to dahlias each year, two, three 
and four pages of them now appear¬ 
ing in quite a number of the leading 
catalogs. 
Many of the dealers, especially 
where many varieties are offered, 
still list them individually; but ap¬ 
parently more and more dealers are- 
offering ready made collections pre¬ 
senting a carefully selected assort¬ 
ment of types and colors at a popu¬ 
lar price. The advantage of this 
method of listing, especially where 
you are contracting for your supply, 
is in the fact that the same quanti¬ 
ties are used of each variety and, 
therefore, the total number of col¬ 
lections represents the total number 
of each variety required. For in¬ 
stance, if you estimate a sale of 100, 
1,000 or 5,000 collections your con¬ 
tract will cal! for that number of 
roots of each variety and your orders 
will leave your stock perfectly bal¬ 
anced, whereas if you follow the in¬ 
dividual listing one variety might 
outsell another to such an extent that 
you would have a lot of roots of one 
kind left over and perhaps run short 
on another. 
To offset this possibility and to 
aid in balancing stock many of the 
dealers are offering a gift tuber, in 
some cases where the complete collec¬ 
tion is ordered and in others where 
two or more complete collections are 
ordered. 
I believe that the latter method is 
DAHLIAS IN THE 
Dealer 
Space 
Devoted 
Alneer Bros. 
page 
Benton County Nurs. 
1 
page 
Buist 
2 
pages 
Burgess 
2 
pages 
Burpee 
2 
pages 
Condon 
3 
pages 
Be Giorgi 
% 
page 
Breer 
2 
pages 
Farmer 
'¥2 
page 
Field 
% 
page 
Ford 
ll 
page 
Henderson 
3 
page.? 
Inter-State Nurseries 
2 
pages 
Kellogg 
3 
pages 
Kunderd (catalog) 
1 
page 
Kunderd (broadside) 
100 ; 
sq. ins. 
Long- 
2 
pages 
Magnolia 
2|3 
page 
Maule 
1/2 
page 
May 
11/2 
page 
Montgomery Ward 
1|3 
page 
Olds 
2|3 
page 
Park 
5 
pages 
Pike 
2!3 
pages 
Russell-Heckle 
% 
page 
Salzer 
2 
pages 
Scott 
3|5 
page 
Sears, Roebuck 
’¥2 
page 
Shumway 
2 
pages 
Simpson 
.g 
pages 
Sonderegger 
1 
page 
South Michigan Nurs. 
1 
page 
Swedberg 
1/2 
page 
Tait 
2,|3 
page 
Templin-Bradley 
2|3 
page 
Vaughan 
4 
pages 
Will 
¥2 
page 
the best of all and if we were issuing 
a retail list we should ceitainly limit 
our offer to two or three popular 
priced collections of four to six var¬ 
ieties each and offer some special 
variety free where two or more col¬ 
lections were ordered. We have 
recommended this method to our 
customers and almost invariably it 
has increased their sales besides help¬ 
ing us immensely in keeping our stock 
balanced and thus avoiding any sur¬ 
pluses or shortages which would be 
almost certain to occur under our 
plan of accepting a reservation order 
based on your estimate of your re¬ 
quirements. 
Another plan that we are strongly 
recommending to our customers is 
the use of a mid-season broadside. 
We have seen this tried out with a 
re-presentation of the same list as 
used in the catalog and also of a 
different list, and in every case this 
broadside has outsold the catalog. 
1939 CALAL06S 
Color 
B. & W, 
No. Varieties 
must. 
must. 
Listed * 
1 
15 
2 
14 
2 
45 
1 
3 
38 
1 
90 
”2 
8 
31 
1 
35 
4 
72 
1 
22 
9 
2 
SO 
43 
9 ” 
78 
4 
_ 
16 
6 
16 
2 
25 
4 
_ 
13 
2, 
49 
1 
__ _ 
11 
_ 
1 
34 
6 
1 
23 
16 
_ 
10 
_ 
2 
22 
_ 
6 
96 
_ 
2 
31 
^ _ 
2, 
19 
__ _ 
3 
126 
— — — _ 
1 
22 
— ~ ~ . 
7 
11 
~ _ 
7 
32 
_ _ _ 
3 
50 
_ _ __ 
2 
35 
1 
4 
4 
X 
1 
X 0 
24 
_ 
1 
11 
1 
4 
155 
_ 
2 
6 
