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New Hampshire Horticulture 

 An Overview 



o, 



ne of the questions I'm frequently 

 asked is "What is the biggest compo- 

 nent of New Hampshire agriculture?" 

 People usually look at me in astonish- 

 ment when 1 tell them it's horticul- 

 ture. Surely the vast majority of New 

 Hampshire residents think that dairy 

 farming is still the biggest agricultur- 

 al activity, but there's no mistaking the 

 fact that the green industry passed 

 milk production as the state's biggest 

 enterprise sometime back in the 

 1980s. 



Horticulture — ranging from green- 

 house and nursery production 

 through retail sales of plant materials 

 and services of all kinds — is worth 

 about $75 million in aggregate eco- 

 nomic activity and its long term 

 prospects are for continued growth. 



The boom of the mid-1980s probab- 

 ly won't be seen again for a while, 

 but I'm confident therell be contin- 

 ued growth, only at a more moderate 

 pace. That boom was driven almost 

 solely by the land development rush, 

 but now the green industry can look 

 to economic health stemming from 

 diversity and changing consumer 

 tastes and values. 

 Let's talk about diversity first. 

 Greenhouses have been springing up 

 all over the New Hampshire country- 

 side, and with ever>' greenhouse has 

 come a particular personality or im- 

 print that its owner has put upon it. 

 Consumers today want choice, the 

 more choice the better. 

 A geranium may be a geranium in any 

 of a dozen different greenhouses, 

 but it can seem different to a con- 

 sumer in each and every house, 

 depending on how il is potted, grown 

 out, present- ed, priced and promoted. 

 Consumers love the variety of prod- 

 ucts — and of settings in which to 

 choose and purchase products. 

 More greenhouses may seem like 

 just so much more suicidal competi- 

 tion to some, but diversity in settings 

 and offerings builds buyer interest 

 and enthusiasm for all horticultural 

 crops. 



Steve Taylor 



There's no mistaking 

 the fact that 



the green industry 



passed milk production 



as the state's 



biggest enterprise 

 sometime back 

 "in the 1980's7 



A part of this diversity thing, of 

 course, is the specialization we find in 

 many plant production enterprises. 1 

 know a woman who does nothing but 

 grow a certain shade of yellow petun- 

 ia, which she completely sells out of 

 every May. A discriminating group of 

 customers has found her specialty, 

 and she's got a niche in the market 

 catering to them. 



There are consumers who travel to a 

 dozen or 20 different horticultural re- 

 tailers every week during the spring 

 and summer looking for new and dif 

 ferent things. And with more and 

 more locations offering plant materi- 

 als, consumers are given more and 

 more exposure to what s being of 

 fered, and that helps build an ex- 

 panding base of customers for every- 

 body. 



Now what about changing tastes and 

 consumer values? 



I submit that New Hampshire people 

 —like the rest the population in the 

 Northeast — are become more Euro- 

 peanized in their tastes. By that 1 

 mean that we're adopting buying and 

 consumption patterns similar to those 

 of our cousins in nortliern Europe, 

 especially as they relate to decorating 

 and furnishing our living spaces. 



P^uropeans expect to find flowers on 

 their kitchen tables the way we ex- 

 pect to find salt and pepper shakers: 

 it's a given, a firm expectation of how 

 something shall be. Europeans are 

 also high on quality plantings and 

 landscaping around their homes and 

 business establishments. 



We've been heading in that direction 

 ourselves, and that means more and 

 more sales for the horticultural indus- 

 try. 



That explains why many New Hamp- 

 shire farm stands feature flowers 

 alongside their vegetables, why su- 

 permarkets have ever-larger floral de- 

 partments, why people make money 

 selling bouquets from pickup trucks 

 at New Hampshire traffic circles. 

 Consumers want color and fragrance 

 at the dining table; they want green 

 and blossoms hanging by the win- 

 dows; they want foundation plant- 

 ings, rich sod lawns and attractive 

 beds and borders outside. Just look 

 at photographs of typical New Hamp- 

 shire housesand neighborhoods from 

 a generation ago and compare with 

 similar settings today and you'll see 

 how much has changed, how much 

 people have changed the visual ap- 

 pearance of the typical residential 

 area. 



The appearance of commercial areas 

 has changed even more dramatically. 

 For a retail business — be it a store, 

 bank, restaurant, or what-have-you — 

 to be credible today, it must be land- 

 scaped. A generation ago, a paved 

 parking lot was all that it took to con- 

 vey permanence and reliability to 

 someone approaching a business es- 

 tablishmenl. 



But today an approaching customer 

 reads the establishment by its lawns, 

 shnibsand trees. And the presence of 

 green materials inside is just as im- 

 portant an indicator of the personality 

 of a business to its customers. 

 New Hampshire's horticultural in- 

 dustry has sensed tliese changes and 

 has adapted well to them. If it contin- 

 ues to closely follow its customer 

 tastes and adapts to their shifting 

 preferences as it has in the recent 

 past, it will keep growing and pros- 

 pering. 



Steve Taylor is the Commissioner of 

 Agriculture of the State of New 

 Hampshire. '■« 



June/ July 1991 13 



