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Most of our customers are expert 
catalog men, and while it is not our 
intention to presume to tell these men 
how to present their goods, yet when 
we have before us dozens of catalogs 
in which dahlias are presented in al- 
most as many different ways, and at 
the same time have the orders which 
show the number of roots each cata- 
log has sold, we feel that we are in a 
position to form a more or less sound 
opinion regarding the relative merits 
of the different methods of presenta- 
tion. Pictures, not necessarily in nat- 
ural colors always, but good repre- 
sentative illustrations suggesting the 
size and form of bloom always attract 
attention. Descriptions which elab- 
orate even briefly on the merits of a 
variety will always outsell the con- 
ventional description of type and 
color alone. Price does not seem to 
make so much difference but it would 
seem that where one dahlia is priced 
at 20c, another one at 39c and another 
one at 50c there should be some com- 
ment made which would show that 
there is really a difference in value to 
correspond with the difference in 
price. 
Probably the most popular and the 
most profitable method of offering 
dahlias is in the form of unit collec- 
tions of four, five or six roots to sell 
at $1. Where two or more collections 
are offered the use of a gift tuber — 
one of the newer varieties costing 
10c, 12c or 15¢c or more — to be in- 
cluded free where two collections are 
ordered usually brings an order for 
$2, instead of $1 and the cost of the 
gift tuber is really saved in the cost 
of packing and mailing two collec- 
tions instead of one. Where this 
method is followed the gift tuber is 
usually quite strongly featured with 
the point that it would ordinarily cost 
$1 or $2 if ordered alone and, if pos- 
sible, an illustration of the gift variety 
should be shown even if one of the 
other illustrations has to be omitted. 
One of the great advantages in 
offering dahlias in the form of ready- 
made collections, especially where you 
are contracting for your supply, is in 
the fact that the same quantities are 
used of each variety and, therefore, 
the total number of collections rep- 
resents the total number of each va- 
riety required. For instance, if you 
estimate a sale of 100, 1,000 or 5,000 
collections your contract will call for 
that number of roots of each variety 
and your orders will leave your stock 
perfectly balanced, whereas if you 
follow the individual 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. 
_ Some customers hesitate about us- 
ing a full page or more of space for 
dahlias when they think nothing of 
allowing a page for cherries, plums 
or pears, yet we would venture to say 
that a well written page devoted to 
dahlias will bring more real money 
than the same space devoted to any 
one of the items mentioned if the 
catalog is appealing purely to the 
home gardener. Of course, where the 
catalog appeals to the commercial 
grower larger returns would naturally 
be expected from commercial items. 
DAHLIAS IN THE 1942 CATALOGS 
Dealer Space 
Devoted 
Ackerman Y% page 
Alneer Ye page 
Archias % page 
Benton County Nurs. vs page 
Buist 1% pages 
Bunting % page 
Burgess 143 pages 
Burpee 2 pages 
Colorado Seed Co. 2 pages 
Condon 3 pages 
De Giorgi 3%, page 
Farmer %% page 
Field We page 
Garden Store Ww page 
Inter-State Nurs. 2 pages 
Kellogg 3 pages 
Krider % page 
Kunderd (catalog) 1 page 
Kunderd (broadside) w% page 
Magnolia 2%, page 
Maule te page 
May 2, page 
Mitchell 5 pages 
Montgomery Ward we page 
Naughton 1% page 
Olds 22 page 
Park 2 pages 
Russell-Heckle We page 
Salzer 1 page 
Satex % page 
Scott % page 
Sears, Roebuck Ye page 
Sherk % page 
Shumway 2 pages 
Simpson 3 pages 
Sonderegger 1 page 
Tait % page 
Templin-Bradley % page 
Vaughan 3 pages 
Whitten 1 page 
Will % page 
An Excellent Pink 

CLARA CARDER 
This is a large cyclamen pink 
Honor Roll decorative that we can 
highly recommend to our customers, 
but at 12c they won’t last long. Order 
now. 
Color B. & W. No. 
Tllust. Tllust. Varieties 
Listed* 
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23 
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*Mixed and unnamed dahlias are not included in this listing. 
