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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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