116 BRITISH FLORAL DECORATION 



peeping through them. The combination, how- 

 ever, is by no means necessary, as each of them 

 looks nearly as beautiful alone. They are also 

 flowers which can be worn with every costume 

 and on all occasions, and are consequently most 

 popular in that direction. Since the perfection of 

 the science of retarding bulbs by means of refrigera- 

 tion we can now count on Lilies of the Valley all 

 the year round, and Violets, if the varieties are 

 judiciously chosen, may be procured during a 

 considerable portion of it. 



No one who is not in daily attendance at the 

 wholesale markets can form any idea of the immense 

 quantities of these flowers which annually find their 

 way into the hands of the consumer. One can gain 

 some idea of the magnitude of the Lily industry 

 by the fact, which 1 can vouch for, that two firms 

 alone handle about 20 million crowns annually, 

 and it is a statistical record that in addition to the 

 English supply of Violets, well over 1000 baskets 

 arrive from the South of France daily, through- 

 out the Violet season. Each of these baskets 

 contains from four to eight dozen bunches, this 

 giving the huge aggregate of about 60,000 

 bunches of dark Violets a day. Taking the average 

 of each bunch at 50 blooms we thus arrive at the 



