WHAT FLOWERS WILL GROW IX THE SHADE ? 261 



Iii this respect there is some analogy between plant 

 and animal life, and it teaches us the importance of light 

 for our own healthy development. Certain it is that our 

 green Douse and garden operatives will compare favor- 

 ably with any other class of workmen, so far as health is 

 concerned. In the past thirty years I have had an aver- 

 age of fifty workmen daily. During that time but three 

 have died, and six only have been seriously sick, and 

 some three or four veterans who are growing grey in the 

 service, have never lost an hour by sickness. I doubt if 

 it would be easy to find the same number of workmen 

 employed out of the sunlight, who could show such 

 health as these sun-browned boys of ours. 



CHAPTER LI. 

 SUCCESSION CROPS IN THE GREENHOUSE. 



Whether the Florist's business is carried on in a small 

 way or on the most extensive scale, to make it profitable 

 it is essential to have the green-house benches filled as 

 often as practicable with succession crops; simply taking 

 one crop off the benches will result at the present rate of 

 prices in very meagre profits indeed. In my own prac- 

 tice, we have for many years taken never less than two 

 crops off of every foot of bench space, and in many of 

 our houses three, and in some particular families of plants 

 such as Coleus, Verbenas and Heliotropes, as many as 

 six crops are taken off of every foot of space. 



To get more than two crops one must have an order 

 business, which runs over five or six months of the sea- 

 son, but even a florist who has only a local retail plant 

 trade or the open market to sell in should always be able 

 to use every foot of his green-house space twice. In 

 most towns the sales of plants whether in market or 



