March 23, 1907 



HORTICULTURE 



Commercial Chrysanthemum Culture in France 



369 



Visitors t o 

 Paris and also 

 to other large 

 towns in France 

 such as Lj'ons, 

 Marseilles. Bor- 

 deaux, etc., dur- 

 ing tlie autumn 

 months miist of- 

 ten have noticed 

 in the florists" 

 shops and in tht^ 

 flower markets 

 the extensivo 

 way in which 

 the chrysanthe- 

 mum is exhibited for sale. In the florists' shops of tiic 

 better class one notices chiefly the large quantiiies of 

 big blooms that are arranged in various artistic ways; 

 in the markets it is chiefly pot plants of freely uowered 

 varieties and bunches of cut blooms that can be pur- 

 chased for a few sous. 



The vendors of these are seldom or never the growers. 

 It is a trade exclusively in the hands of those who grow 

 for market or for the florists, many of whom, deal 

 directly with the growers. In England our chrysanthe- 

 mum specialists such as Jones, Davis, Cannell, Wills and 

 others have very fine collections of chrysanthemums in 

 flower all through the season but the blooms are not 

 grown for the purpose of sale but are chiefly for the 

 purpose of exhibiting at the shows by way of advertise- 

 ment for the sale of plants and cuttings and for the pro- 

 viding of an autumnal display to which their customers 

 are freely invited. It is one of the pleasant features of 

 the chrysanthemum season here to be able to go the 

 round of the trade growers and importers and inspect 

 the novelties at the time of their flowering. 



In France, however, this custom is not so general and 

 while in England the visitor can at any reasonable hour 

 during the day time walk into any of our nurseries 

 where the chrysanthemum is grown and inspect the col- 

 lection it would be practically impossible to do so in a 

 French nursery without a special invitation or permit. 

 I remember on one occasion making a long journey to 

 see a collection in the north of France and when I ar- 

 rived the proprietor was away from home. All my 

 prayers and entreaties as a visitor from England were 

 of no avail to the man in charge. I had no "authoriza- 

 tion" and therefore the thing was impossible. 



Paris is perhaps the greatest market for chrysanthe- 

 mums in Prance and it is curious that plant dealers 

 and raisers of new seedlings should also grow blooms 

 for supplying the market and the florists. But this is 

 probably explained by the fact that their trade in plants 

 and cuttings is much more limited than that of our 

 growers in England, tlie small amateur grower in 



^~=^ France being al- 

 most a negligible 

 quantity while 

 in England he is 

 a most impor- 

 tant factor in 

 tlie trade chrys- 

 anthemum 

 growers' busi- 

 ness, so much so 

 that a trade 

 grower will sel- 

 dom enter into 

 competition for 

 the prizes offered 

 at our shows 

 with the amateurs who are his best customers. 



Ernest Calvat, besides being a large raiser of novel- 

 ties, is also a big trade grower of cut blooms. They are 

 always immense exhibition flowers cut with stems about 

 8 feet long and are despatched to Paris and other places 

 in immense numbers. Anatole Cardonnier is another 

 of the well known growers of big blooms for the Paris 

 market, and for all the high-class florists, his despatches 

 beginning about the 8th of September and lasting till 

 about the middle of November. He has a fine estab- 

 lislrment at Bailleul in the north of France where he 

 grows other things such as forced fruits, etc., and in 

 every respect his Grapperies der Nord is a model estab- 

 lishment, and worthy of a visit. 



In and around Paris the market is principally 

 supplied by two kinds of growers. One class is com- 

 posed of those little nurserymen who cultivate other 

 things and simply fill up the end of the season by 

 growing chrj^santhemnms in the open and cutting what- 

 ever bloom they get from plants that have had no special 

 attention paid to them. The other class are men who 

 grow big blooms under glass. By this term is meant 

 merely glass shelves, for a proper showhouse such as we 

 understand it is not necessary and probably could not be 

 well afforded. 



To an English eye these glass shelves are the queerest 

 constructions in the world. They are dreadfully prim- 

 itive and when it rains the water pours through the 

 roof soaking the plants, the blooms and the ground 

 beneath. They form a striking contrast to the well 

 built span roofed houses in which our English growers 

 house their plants. 



An English grower will generally say he has a house 

 or houses so many feet by so many as the case may be. 

 The French grower reckons his by the number of 

 frames. It is a curious experience to visit one of these 

 jilaces, and an uncomfortable one, too. First of all a 

 number of rough posts are driven into the ground at in- 

 tervals, cross pieces are then placed on top, sloping so 

 as to make a kind of ridge and furrow j on these are 



