THE SALE OF SEEDS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 118, 21 May 1928, Page 10

THE SALE OF SEEDS

FRUITERERS PERTURBED Although it is usual to find garden seeds and bedding-out,plants displayed for sale in fruiterers' shops, under the florists' award in the Shops and Offices Act of 1920 all business premises where such seeds and seedlings are exposed for sale are required to observe the closing hours as sot down for florists. This provision of the Act has been honoured more in the breach than in the. observance, and fruiterers have come to take it as a matter of course that they may sell such goods and yet observe the closing hours as set for fruiterers and not florists. In vChristehurch, however, all shopkeepers selling seeds have recently been notified that they will be expected to close their shops with the florists. In conversation with a "Post" reporter in connection with the matter this morning; Mr. A. Lynne, general secretary of the New Zealand Small Shopkeepers' Association, said that the regulation would probably be enforced in the other cities before long and would result in considerable hardship to the many suburban nurserymen supplying the fruiterers, besides much inconvenience to the gardening public. "There are only seven florists in Christehurch," he said, "and it would be impossible for them to cope with the business. The manager of one of the leading nurseries in Christehurch informed me that already they have thousands of pounds' worth of seeds and bedding-out plants held up. Saturday afternoons and after the ordinary business houses have closed is the time when the working man does his gardening, and he does not always find it possible to purchase his seeds and plants while the shops are open." He felt that the matter was of greater importance than the sale of tobacco by the small shopkeepers.