FLOWERS
Every city in the United States affords an opportunity for flower
gardening and nurseries, but a study must be made of the market in
order to know what is best to raise and where to raise it.
The choice of crops depends on the popular taste. The flowers which
are now in greatest demand are the rose, carnation, violet, and
chrysanthemum.
Near every large city there are hundreds of florists with glass
houses, some covering twenty acres or more. There were over 2000
acres of flower land under glass reported at the last census. As
almost all industries to-day are specialized, so is floriculture; in
one place we see ten acres of glass given over to the rose, in
another thousands of dollars devoted to the carnation or the violet,
while one grower in Queens, Long Island, has 75,000 square feet of
glass for carnations.
The specialist who devotes his thoughts and energies to raising one
flower can produce better results than if he raised a variety. He
has only one crop to market, and can do it more successfully than
with a number of crops. If he raises enough to make himself a factor
in the market, he can sell direct instead of sending his product to
a commission man, thereby receiving better prices.
Little capital is required to start; intelligent effort is the road
to success. Very few, indeed, who are now leaders in floriculture,
started with more than $500 capital, and many with much less. One of
the largest growers of roses in the United States, whose plant
covers more than ten acres, did not have $500 when he started, and
many others not so well known are making handsome livings and have
accumulated thousands of dollars of property from a start of less
than $500.
But practical knowledge is much more necessary than in raising
vegetables, as small mistakes will have more serious results.
Therefore, if you have some capital and wish to go into flower
raising, it will pay you, if circumstances permit, to hire out to a
florist, even at small wages, till you have learned the
business--even though you have raised flowers successfully in a home
garden.
Mr. Frank Hamilton, manager of C. W. Ward's of Queens, tells of at
least a dozen men, who have been in their employ during his
twenty-five years' experience, some of whom got only twenty dollars
a month at first, and afterwards started in a small way for
themselves, who are now making a substantial living.
Although the market depends largely on the wealthy class in the
large cities, many florists devote considerable time and space to
flowers which are bought by the poorer class of city dwellers who
have no space or time to raise their own.
There are always good markets somewhere for the crop, and it is not
an uncommon thing to ship flowers from New York to Chicago, Buffalo,
Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, or vice versa. The
chances of success for a lover of flowers are better in this
business than in any in which one with a like amount of capital can
engage. If the business at first is not large enough to use all his
time he will find no trouble in securing employment in his immediate
vicinity. There are always some who want such a person to care for
their lawns or to give some time to their conservatories.
In the last ten years the business has doubled, and while many have
gone into it, the profit they are making indicates that supply has
not kept pace with demand, and that it is not likely to be overdone
the near future.
Professor B. T. Galloway, in an article in _The World's Work,_ says,
"An acre of soil under glass pays fifty times as much as an acre
outdoors. There are annually sold in this country six to seven
million dollars' worth of carnation flowers There are no less than
eight to ten million square feet of glass in the United States
devoted to this flower alone."
Although Mr. Rockefeller's place at Tarrytown is the largest
competitor in the New York market for violets, there is no local
monopoly in that, and the local producer with personal attention can
do well.
In the _Country Gentleman_ an account is given of a violet farm on
the north shore of Illinois, where two women are supplying local
florists.. One of them says: "We started our farm last spring in the
face of most discouraging prophecies from our friends and the
keenest competition of violet growers of New York. But we believed
we could be successful. We had studied the best scientific methods
of growing the plants, had imported the best soil obtainable, and
built a greenhouse fully adapted to our needs, so we just went ahead
and we found it to be a paying proposition.
"Our first experiment was in using cuttings from the violet farm of
a lady at Lansing, Michigan, who has been a most successful grower.
These did not thrive, and we next imported 3000 cuttings from the
Tarrytown neighborhood, where violet culture has been most
successful.
"The first rule is to keep the temperature of the greenhouse between
forty-five and fifty degrees. Violets are spring flowers, and wither
and droop if the temperature is not at the right degree. Most people
think the double violets have no fragrance because most of those
that we get lose their fragrance in transit.
"We supply 2000 flowers a week, and as they reach our patrons within
two or three hours at the most from the time of cutting, they retain
their fragrance. They are also larger and of a deeper color than the
New York flowers. Next year we hope to go in on a much larger scale.
"While the work is not hard, it requires infinite care and vigilance
when the little plants are growing. As a career for a woman, violet
growing offers greater inducements than anything I can think of."
Then, surely, others can succeed in other flowers at other places.
While there is little choice between the standard styles of
greenhouses for violets, there should be abundant provision for
supplying fresh air, either from the sides or top, whichever is
chosen. The system of ventilation should admit of operation either
from the inside or the outside of the house, as fumigation with
hydrocyanic acid gas is sometimes necessary, in the fumes of which
it is impossible to enter, unless with a gas mask.
The arrangement of the house should secure the greatest possible
supply of sunshine in December and January, and the least possible
during the growing season, when, as Miss Howard points out, it is
necessary to secure as low a temperature as possible, so as to
obtain good, vigorous, healthy-growing plants. The best site is a
level piece of ground, or one sloping gently to the south.
Of the diseases to which cultivated violets are subject Mr. P. H.
Dorsett, of the Department of Agriculture, names four as especially
dangerous: Spot disease, producing whitish spots on the foliage;
root rot, apt to attack young plants transplanted in hot, dry
weather; wet rot, a fungus apt to appear in too moist air or where
ventilation is insufficient; and yellowing, of the cause of which
little is known. Any of these diseases is difficult to exterminate
when it once gains a foothold. The best thing to do is to get
strong, vigorous cuttings, and then to give careful attention to
watering, cultivation, and ventilation, and the destruction of dead
and dying leaves and all runners as fast as they appear.
Among insect enemies, the aphids, red spiders, eel worms, gall
flies, and slugs may be mentioned. Most of these can be easiest
controlled by hydrocyanic acid gas treatment.
Chrysanthemums, especially of preternatural size and bizarre
colors--the college colors at football games, for instance--are in
great demand. They are extremely decorative, and their remarkable
lasting quality insures their permanent popularity. I have heard
that the unexpanded bud can be cooked like cauliflower for the
table; but we have not learned to use them in that way. In Japan and
China the leaves of the chrysanthemum are esteemed as a salad. One
attempt has been made by English gardeners to introduce this use of
them into England, but it was unsuccessful.
The annual shows of chrysanthemums and of roses indicate the
importance of the business.
It is not generally known, but the poppies are coming into favor for
cut flowers in spite of the fact that they do not keep very well.
Miss Edith Granger avoids this difficulty, as she explains in the
_Garden Magazine,_ "by picking off all blooms that have not already
lost their petals in the evening, so that in the morning all the
open flowers will be new ones. These are cut as early as possible,
even while the dew is still upon them, and plunged immediately into
deep water."
You need not be discouraged by the low prices at which flowers,
especially violets and roses, are often offered in the streets.
Those flowers are the discarded stock or delayed shipments of the
swell florists. You will find that those flowers are fading, or
revived with salt, and will not keep.
That they are so peddled, shows that everybody, at hotels, dinners,
funerals, weddings, in the home, and the young men for the young
women, want flowers, the loveliest things ever made without souls.
We have only to supply such a want to find our place in life.
As a side line the common flowers will bring good prices;
mignonette, bachelor buttons, cosmos, and even nasturtiums, which
you can't keep from growing if you just stick the seed in the
ground, or lilies of the valley, which you can hardly get rid of
once they start, never go begging, if they are fresh.
A favorite flower with many is the sweet pea, which can be grown out
of doors in the summer time where you have a good depth and quality
of soil.
I have seen May blossoms and autumn leaves on the branch and even
goldenrod brought into town and sold at good prices.
Enterprises often look attractive at a distance; for instance,
raising orchids, especially as some of the flowers remain on the
plants ready for market for weeks and bring high prices. But to ship
flowers at a profit they must be in quantities, else the expenses
eat up the returns, and they must be shipped with considerable
regularity, else you lose your customers. To get such a supply of
orchids would take a very large capital and involve so much labor
that it is doubtful if more than good interest could be realized on
it.
Many florists make money by keeping constantly on hand ferns, palms,
and other plants like rubber trees, which they rent out for social
functions, weddings, and other occasions. Most florists in the
larger cities have also quite a thriving business in tree planting,
which is everywhere on the increase. A highly specialized department
of horticulture is that of raising young trees and plants to sell
for improving grounds, planting orchards, or similar uses. The
nursery business bears much the same relation to the commercial
florist or orchardist as seed growing does to the market gardener.
Certain communities, through favorable soil or climate, are best
adapted to the production of nursery stock. Consequently, one finds
this industry most highly developed in scattered localities. It is
true that people with small capital should not tackle a business so
technical as this.
The business of bulb production is another highly specialized
department. In certain sections of Holland large areas of the rich
lowlands are given over to bulbs of various kinds of lilies, nearly
all of which are propagated in that manner. To attain perfection, at
least in the North, most bulbs require deep, rich, warm, and highly
manured soils; and assiduous attention at every stage. In many plant
specialties, the gardeners of Europe still far surpass our own,
because conditions there have forced them to make use of every
available means to increase production. The immense price that
European gardeners have to pay for land has been a most potent
factor in forcing them to seek out and apply the most ingenious
forcing methods. The time is upon us here in America also when we
must find out the highest use of land and apply it to that use.
As the aesthetic qualities of our people become more highly
developed, the business of raising flowers must become of increasing
importance, and will readily reward any one who goes into it
conscientiously. Flower growing is peculiarly adapted to women,
since the work is light There are few disagreeable features, unless
it be the handling of the manure incidental to the best results.
Still, the enjoyments of agriculture depend upon individual tastes.
I have seen "lady gardeners" picking strawberries with the footman
holding up an umbrella to screen them from the sun.
Some women would like that, some not.