JULY 6, 1S99. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



119 



Herbaceous Gardens, New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx Park, New York. 



To Dr. Britton is due the credit of 

 the establishment of this great univer- 

 sity of plant learning. He has quietly 

 induced most of the rich residents of 

 New York to become interested, until 

 now the society consists of 750 annual 

 members who pay $10.00 yearly, 70 

 life members who have paid $100.00, 11 

 fellows who have given $1,000, and 20 

 patrons who have donated from $5,- 

 000 to $25,000. The society collected 

 nearly $300,000, and the city gave 

 $500,000. 



Samuel Henshaw is head gardener. 

 He is one of the oldest gardeners in 

 the country, full of the most interest- 

 ing knowledge and anecdotes. He has 

 been closely identified with horticul- 

 tural New York since the days 

 when florists here could be counted on 

 one's fingers. He has been president 

 of the Florists' Club, and is living in 

 hopes of having the Botanical Gardens 

 the center of attraction for the boys 

 here. It is intended to have exhibi- 

 tions in the museum building, in which 

 the craft will be invited to take an in- 

 terest. Mr. Henshaw has but recently 

 returned from a botanizing visit to 

 Porto Rico, bringing back with him 

 several thousand rare seeds. Mr. and 

 Mrs. A. A. Heller are making a thor- 

 ough investigation of the flora and 

 vegetable resources of Porto Rico for 

 this garden, and very interesting re- 

 sults are looked for. 



Should the S. A. F. convention be 



held in New York next year, it is Dr. 

 Britton's intention to invite the so- 

 ciety to visit the gardens, and a most 

 interesting place it will be by that 

 time. J. I. DONLAN. 



ESTABLISHING BUSINESS AS A 

 GROWER. 



B\ W. H. Elliott. 



[Read before the Gardeners' and Florists' Club 

 of Boston. J 



When a grower has worked at the 

 business long enough to get a thor- 

 ough knowledge of the line he is en- 

 gaged in and has saved, or is for- 

 tunate enough to have sufficient money 

 to start a business, it will then be 

 time for him to consider the advisa- 

 bility of starting for himself. The 

 amount of money that would be nec- 

 essary to properly start a grower in 

 business would depend on whether he 

 would buy, build or lease a place. As 

 buying or leasing would be a means 

 of procuring an established business 

 and would in that way do away with 

 many of the difficulties encountered 

 by a person starting business, I will 

 confine my remarks almost wholly to 

 those who wish to build instead of buy 

 or lease A large enough place would 

 be required to support a man and his 

 family, if he has one, also to make 

 a reasonable profit above that, so as 

 to give him a chance to make 

 headway in his business. This would 



require at least 5,000 feet of ground 

 space covered. This amount of glass 

 would not allow of much help being 

 hired. It would, of course, be much 

 better if a grower could have a place 

 somewhat larger. 



The amount of money required to 

 build a place of this kind would de- 

 pend a great deal on what arrange- 

 ment could be made about procuring 

 land. Before saying more about that, 

 I wish to state about what a man 

 should grow. A person would best 

 grow what he has the most knowledge 

 of, and is able to grow the best. A 

 mistake which is often made is to 

 grow what somebody else is growing, 

 because it is supposed that they are 

 making a very large profit with very 

 little trouble or expense, whereas they 

 are really doing no better than in the 

 line which the grower has a thorough 

 knowledge of and is thereby led to 

 think that the drawbacks in that line 

 are greater than in any other. It 

 makes little difference what a person 

 grows in these times if he only grows 

 it well. The best flowers of all kinds 

 find a ready market, the poorer flow- 

 ers of any kind are hard to sell. It 

 is a mistake to try to grow everything. 

 Make a specialty of some one thing, 

 and your chances of success will be 

 much greater. 



Land Required. 

 The question of land is the most 

 important to consider in the first 



