General Trade Edition 

Dic =DUNG 
There is no soil, however barren and unproductive, that cannot, by well digging and dunging, be made 
fertile and prolific——Adapted from Cervantes DON QUIXOTE, Part II, Chapter XII. 
Sales and Service Bulletin 


VOL. 14 
WAYLAND, MICHIGAN, U. S. A., SEASON OF 1945 
NO. 1 


THE DAHLIA SITUATION THIS YEAR 
I am taking the liberty to quote 
from a letter written by my friend 
W. L. W. Darnell of East Moriches, 
Long Island, on August 9th: 
“Have been so short of help and so 
rushed because of the long drought 
beginning about June Ist, that I found 
I knew no more than you do about 
conditions here, so have spent three 
days driving about the Island to get 
a look at crops as is. The prospects 
are none too bright, and from my 
judgment after a trip through part of 
New Jersey I think stock of all 
dahlias will be as short as during last 
spring. Those who plant late have 
some still out of ground, and on many 
cut-flower growing plots even early 
planted roots are just coming into 
bloom. We have had only one rain 
since June 20th, and the present moon 
is too dry for any hope of wet for 
awhile. Plantings are smaller, as a 
lot of planting stock was sent out for 
resale last year, because of a very 
short crop. 
“Though Jersey’s Beauty went up 
to 20¢ at the end of the season, I 
think it was more of a gesture than 
a fact. The price seemed to be any- 
thing that the trade would bear, and 
no doubt the trend will be the same 
this year. I had to pay 15¢ for 2500, 
but never again. I’ll stop selling the 
variety before I’ll buy any more at 
such prices. All pompons were about 
10¢, and some more during May, and 
I had to pay 10¢ for reds for one of 
my customers who ran far ahead of 
his original order. And I had to cut 
one order half the Beauty, 5000, as 
three of the men I had bought all 
stock from lost a lot, and their cut 
per row was just about 50% of nor- 
mal. 
“The real trouble this coming sea- 
son will be the exaggerated ideas ac- 
quired last spring, but there is no 
doubt prices will be too high for a 
lot of the old trade. Some of it can 
be lost without regret from me, as I 
lost money on all the $9,200.00 worth 
of roots I bought last year, and the 
amount of stock that failed was be- 
yond any experience of mine since 
growing a dahlia. And some of the 
new advertisers in the Trade Mags. 
did have peculiar ideas of stock fit 
for resale, and much more peculiar 
ideas of values. In some cases the 
old varieties discarded by most seed 
catalogues were higher in the list 
than newer and much scarcer dahlias, 
and I’ll hate to see some of the varie- 
ties I bought to grow. I think their 
blooms will surprise if the foliage is 
an indication. I am glad you have 
such a good planting, and hope you 
will be self-supplied with most of 
your needs. Buying for resale is go- 
ing to be a headache.” 
As usual Mr. Darnell gives us about 
as accurate a report on conditions as 
they actually exist as can possibly be 
made. We can only add that condi- 
tions in the east are approximately 
the same as in other parts of the 
country, which means that dahlias 
are sure to be scarce this year, prices 
generally a lot higher, and quality 
averaging below normal. 
As to Jersey’s Beauty, while we 
consider this variety the most popular 
dahlia grown for cut flowers there 
are a number of other varieties in the 
pinks and near pinks which we believe 
will prove more satisfactory to the 
average grower than Jersey’s Beauty 
and which will be available at much 
lower prices this year. We sold Jer- 
sey’s Beauty last year at a nickel but 
when price goes to 15¢ or 20¢ it is 
absolutely impossible to sell it to cus- 
tomers who expect to list it as a part 
of a dollar collection. 
The box situation this year is even 
worse than it was last year. New cor- 
rugated shipping containers are ab- 
solutely unobtainable and for this 
reason we have had to discontinue our 
Boxed Dahlias for Counter Trade un- 
til boxes become available, when these 
lines will be resumed. 
While we are growing about the 
same quantity of dahlias as we did 
last year a large part of our crop has 
already been contracted before this 
price list goes to press. Many varie- 
ties are completely sold out and others 
very nearly sold. To avoid unneces- 
Sary correspondence we checked over 
our list just before sending it to the 
printer (August 25th) and thus our 
list will enable customers to see what 
stock is still available. This will soon 
be taken up and we ask our custom- 
ers to get their reservation orders in 
without delay to avoid disappoint- 
ment. Last year we returned thou- 
sands of dollars to customers whose 
orders we were unable to fill either 
because stock was sold out or be- 
cause labor conditions made it impos- 
sible for us to handle such orders 
with our usual promptness. We were 
sorry that we had to disappoint so 
many of our old customers but we be- 
lieve that most of them were aware 
of the conditions under which growers 
have been working and will bear 
with us in our shortcomings until the 
war is ended. 
With labor conditions as they are 
those who are in the habit of ordering 
a few roots only of each of an ex- 
tended list of varieties must not ex- 
pect as prompt service as we were 
able to give before the war. We have 
many varieties and these are all 
stored in separate bins. The clumps 
are processed from these bins in the 
order in which they were stored. 
Some of the varieties are not reached 
until the latter part of the season and 
where many varieties are ordered to 
be packed in a single shipment such 
orders will have to be held until the 
last because labor conditions make it 
impossible for us to cut out each order 
by itself. 
As a matter of fact, we never could 
see any necessity for the retail dealer 
listing a hundred or more different 
varieties just because we grow hun- 
dreds of varieties for our wholesale 
trade. A few well chosen varieties 
will almost always result in a greater 
volume and less trouble because of the 
sale of a larger number of each 
variety. 
1945 Prices—pgs. 4,5 & 6 
