THE PROFITS OF FLORICULTURE. 21 



penses in winter, or until sales open in spring. If the 

 plants have been handled with even average skill, the 

 sales should by June give a profit of at least fifty per cent, 

 on the capital invested, supposing the plants to be sold 

 at the average retail rates. 



I am not prepared to say what the profits on the capi- 

 tal invested are when business is done on a large scale, 

 the articles grown, the manner of selling, the economy 

 of management, being so varied that in this, as in all 

 other occupations in life, we have all degrees of success. 

 But the broad fact is beyond question, that the profits of 

 the business will compare favorably with the general run 

 of business in which the same capital is invested. 



One fact, very flattering to our florists in this country 

 is, that although our plants on an average are sold lower 

 than they are in England, and our new plants at less than 

 one-fourth of the prices obtained there, the business is 

 more profitable here than there. "Why is this ? the 

 reader may doubtingly ask. Simply that our necessities 

 with regard to labor compel us to apply our common 

 sense to the work, and we cut loose from many of the 

 established rules with which many of the English florists 

 are yet stupidly trammeled. 



In two of the London establishments in 1872, having 

 each about 100,000 feet of glass, the average number of 

 hands employed during the year was fifty. The same quan- 

 tity of glass would be worked here in a style quite equal 

 to theirs, as far as the quality of the plants goes, with less 

 than one- third of that number. I am informed by a 

 gentleman who was for many years connected with one 

 of these English establishments, that the profits did not 

 exceed ten per cent, of the sales. I am afraid that the 

 smallest operator of us all here, would soon quit the work 

 if it gave no better results. 



For the past fifteen years, cut flower growing, partic- 

 ularly the growing of Kose-buds in winter, has been more 



