No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 225 



to succeed will grow greater with each succeeding year — especially 

 does this apply to the grower of flowers. It is not only necessary 

 to know the necessities of plant life as thoroughly as it is possible 

 to know them, but it is also necessary to have a thorough business 

 training, with the commercial instinct well to the fore, and an abun- 

 dant amount of executive ability to carry out every essential detail 

 in a growing establishment to a successful conclusion. 



The retail florists in the larger cities are aristocrats in their bear- 

 ing and methods, with their tastefully embellished delivery wagons, 

 their automobiles or teams of high steppers, and with their assist- 

 ants in livery, emulating that which is worn by those occupying simi- 

 lar positions with their customers; all of which has been brought 

 about within the past ten years by superior business ability, and by 

 being strictly abreast of the times. 



An intelligent, well educated boy raised on a farm and who is 

 not afraid to work and has the right stuff in him to make a good 

 farmer will make a first class florist. Some of the best and most 

 successful florists to-day are those who were raised on a farm. 



Many of our most successful florists have the commercial instinct 

 more highly developed than they have an innate love for flowers, and 

 this essential characteristic for commercial purposes must be more 

 pronounced in the future than it has been in the past, because the 

 competition is sure to become keener. Well do I remember the time 

 when it was stated with great assurance that no person who had 

 not a Natural and real love for flowers could ever succeed as a 

 grower thereof. This may have been true before commercial flori- 

 culture had assumed its present proportions, but it is not true to-day. 



A "rosy-pink" view of flori-culture, as a profession, has been in 

 some degree attempted. It must not be understood, however, that 

 there is no "yellow" or "blue" side to the business, because there 

 is, for no glass that is made has yet been sufliciently annealed to 

 make it elastic or pliable enough to yield gracefully without a 

 fracture to the pelting force of a vigorous hail storm. Nor can the 

 structure be so well built as to withstand the tempest. The adverse 

 elements in a few minutes could destroy, and have destroyed fre- 

 quently, what a florist had spent his whole life in accumulating. 



15—7—1900 



