As soon as they are picked the flowers are put in water in the glass-houses. The bunching and tying is chiefly done by the women and children, and is paid for at the rate of threepence for a hundred bunches. A quick worker can make fifteen to twenty shillings a week. Some of them tie them in their own homes, and you may see cartloads and barrowloads of flowers, in boxes or baskets, being delivered at the cottage-doors loose, and fetched again later on, neatly tied, twelve in a bunch, and ready for packing. The flower-houses on the day before the steamer leaves are a sight to behold--banks of daffodils and narcissi, wallflowers and anemone fulgens, tier upon tier. Afterwards they are packed in shallow wooden boxes, each containing three, five, or six dozen bunches; and at busy times the lights of the houses burn far into the night, showing that packing for next day’s steamer is still going on within. And the tap, tap of the hammer of the box-maker is constantly heard at all hours throughout the flower-season. The weather is of course a very important factor in the success or failure of the flower crop. A wet summer may prevent the bulbs from ripening; a strong gale in early spring may ruin thousands of flowers. The salt spray in a storm is swept right across the islands, spotting and blackening the blossoms so that they are unfit for the market; and although at a little distance a field may look delightful, it may prove on examination to be worthless, full of damaged flowers. So it is easy to understand why the growers prefer to pick the buds half-blown than to run the risk of their destruction. There is a great difference between year and year in the abundance of the harvest. To give two examples: In the season 1908-9 there was no great show of flowers, but picking began about the middle of December, and went on continuously for four or five months. Prices kept up particularly well, owing to late frosts in the Riviera, and Scillonians were well content. They were proud to boast of having supplied the Battle of Flowers at Nice when the French gardens were under snow, in spite of the heavy protective duty that has to be paid. The following season, 1909-10, was quite a contrast. It was a record year for quantities, but the harvest began much later. The flowers came on with a rush in February, and all kinds seemed to be in bloom at the same time, and to bloom as they had never bloomed before. They were, in fact, too plentiful. “There’s a boolk o’ flowers,” as one man put it, “but they ain’t fetching no such tremendous price.” It was thought that the floods in Paris also helped to bring down the prices, for people were in no mood for buying flowers there, and the surplus supplies were shipped to England.