262 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



locally, begin in April and extend to June, a period of 

 eight or ten weeks. As soon as the greenhouse space 

 gets emptied towards the end of April or first weeks 

 in May, succession crops from seedlings or cuttings 

 should be on hand to be potted and shifted on so that 

 the green-house benches may be as full by the middle or 

 end of May, as they were in the middle of April, so that 

 the season may be lengthened with salable stock to the 

 middle of June. Of course to do this extra labor must 

 be had at the proper time. This is not always to be ob- 

 tained at the time needed, but it is always profitable to 

 pay employees for over time at that busy season of the 

 year. Every season from April to June, we have from 

 fifteen to twenty of our best men working by lamp-light 

 until ten or eleven o'clock, which is equal to adding seven 

 or eight effective hands to our force, which could not be 

 procured at the busy season of the year. Our men al- 

 ways go at such work willingly, as every hour they work 

 after six o'clock is paid for as over time, which any firm 

 well established in business on a paying basis can well af- 

 ford and should do, but beginners with only two or three 

 men, struggling to make ends meet may reasonably ex- 

 pect to have their hands help them in emergency without 

 extra pay for over time, particularly if they are men who 

 are kept throughout the entire year. Where the florist be- 

 ginning has only his own hands to rely on, if he wants to 

 make the business a success, he had better make up his 

 mind to " burn the midnight oil " for at least three or 

 four months in the spring. For the first fifteen years I 

 was in business, I think it safe to say that either in the 

 office, green-house or grounds, 1 averaged sixteen hours 

 per day throughout the entire year. Such work will 

 never hurt a healthy man, because it is certain to bring 

 success if judiciously employed, and success, other things 

 being equal, we all know conduces to happiness and health 

 in a far greater degree than its opposite. 



