98 PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



detail to develop novelties to the extent that has been practised in the 

 sweet pea, and frequent disappointments are the rule. 



With the exception of possibly sweet peas and nasturtiums, the mar- 

 ket for flower seeds is a very limited one, and yields are small, and 

 orders are usually for small quantities. A few pounds of verbena seed. 

 for instance, a very few pounds of alyssum and candytuft and balsam, 

 is the limit of business with even the largest dealers. Many of the 

 rarer and higher-priced flowers are quoted by the hundred and thousand 

 individual seeds, and many by the ounce only. 



One grower of flower seeds near Philadelphia told me he could carry 

 the product of an acre of large double petunia in his vest pocket, and 

 it represented a fair crop and not a poor one. 



I presume asters represent a greater market than most of the smaller 

 flower annuals, and the world's demand for them would probably be 

 represented by many thousand pounds, but the market is much greater 

 in Europe than here in America. I doubt if America's annual con- 

 sumption is 'more than five thousand pounds, though my figure is purelv 

 an estimate. 



Asters are grown here to quite an extent in spite of a persistent 

 prejudice in favor of the German grown, and seed usually is a better- 

 sample, can be harvested before the fall rains set in, and our deliveries 

 are consequently much earlier than those from the foreign growers. 



A number of very popular flowers have failed to seed with us 

 apparently from climatic causes. Two years in succession we planted 

 an acre of Japanese single mixed morning-glories, and were unable either 

 time to get more than a few ounces of seed from the whole acre. Coboeu 

 Scandens tried only once ; did not seed ; but they seem to do well farther 

 south, in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Moon-flowers and other 

 Ipomeas and Salvia never gave us any results, though tried several 

 times. 



I am not sure that further experiments would not reveal some fault 

 in growing that could be overcome, but so long as there are other sec- 

 tions in this state where these things are already being grown success- 

 fully, we prefer to direct our efforts to the further development of 

 such things as have already proven themselves adapted to our particular 

 section. There is a vast field of experiment still unexplored, so far as 

 I know, and many flowers still untried can probably be grown success- 

 fully in the Santa Clara Valley. 



Just what the future of flower-seed growing here will be, can only 

 be conjectured. If foreign competition can be met in some way. and 

 further knowledge of methods and developments learned, there will 

 undoubtedly be an increase in the acreage already devoted to flowor-*eed 

 growing in the Santa Clara Valley. 



Santa Clara, Cal. 



