THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



Some New York Stores at Christinas. 



SYSTEM. 



This is a plant that wants cultivat- 

 ing in a good many smaller establish- 

 ments, and its introduction into some 

 large ones would not be amiss. 



I think it is a great advantage to 

 a gardener when he has been educated 

 where neatness and cleanliness were 

 strictly enforced, even if it were a pri- 

 vate garden. The worst cases of disor- 

 der we see are where a man has left 

 the shoemaker's bench or the machine 

 shop or the office, and we have even 

 known where they have left the pulpit 

 for the pulpit's good and mnde horri- 

 bly bad florists. When a young man is 

 wavering between the church and the 

 greenhouse always take to the church. 



There is less dirt and more spirtuality 

 about the church, and you would not 

 be always thinking about what you 

 might have been if you became a flor- 

 ist. While looking for your salary in 

 the church will always prevent your 

 pining afteFthe greenhouse. 



I must admit though that there are 

 instances in this country of young men 

 total strangers to the business who 

 have entered it and made a marked 

 success of it, setting us all a bright ex- 

 ample by their systematic manage- 

 ment and orderly and business-like 

 methods. Their places are models of 

 neatness. But they are the great ex- 

 ception and those I refer to are bright, 

 intelligent men whom nature blessed 



with brains, and they would shine in 

 any business. 



If order is the first law of nature, it 

 ought most assuredly to be carried 

 into the greenhouse, for ours are most 

 perishable goods and disorder is not 

 only unsightly but a great pecuniary 

 loss. These remarks are not intended 

 for the bright, well trained greenhouse 

 man, for he knows the value of order 

 and system, but there are hundreds 

 who keep their places in a dirty mud- 

 dle from one year's end to the other. 

 I have no patience with the man who 

 lets his place get fearfully untidy and 

 dirty and then has a grand clean up. 

 People will form an impression of 

 your place as they usually see it and 

 perhaps won't see it just after you have 

 had the great house cleaning. 



Untidiness is not accident or press 

 of business, it is pure carelessness. 

 Fifty dead or cut down plants standing 

 on the edge of the path is too much 

 for you to carry back to the shed at 

 one time, but if the workman who put 

 the first one or half dozen there had 

 carried them back and dumped them 

 and put the pots away there would 

 have been none there. Untidiness does 

 not arise from want of time, not in the 

 least; it is solely the habit of not put- 

 ting things in their right places at the 

 right time. Some men don't know the 

 difference between a heap of old soil 

 that is sure to come in handy for some 

 purpose and a heap composed of bro- 

 ken glass, wood, old plants and dead 

 cats. It's all alike to them, and is 

 thrown out with the indifference that 

 you see the refuse of the tenement 

 house go out of the back window. 



How much time is lost in the mislay- 

 ing of tools, or worse still, loaning 

 them. Neither borrow nor loan tools 

 unless it be something like a steam 

 roller that you are not warranted in 

 buying. Borrow nor loan no tools. 

 They are far worse in the country at 

 borrowing than in the cities; and they 

 don't say, "Could I have the loan of 

 your post auger?" but "I come up for 

 that post auger I saw you use t'other 

 day." Another sample of waste of ' 

 time is when Jack says, "Where's the 

 monkey wrench, Bill?" Bill says, "I 

 guess you'll find it in the stoke hole. 

 Bob was fixin' the boiler yesterday." 

 And so it goes. 



Keep your tools where they belong. 

 Keep your flats piled up neatly. Let 

 your sash be in use or properly stood 

 up against a wall or fence. Let your 

 compost piles be neat and in order. 

 Have a proper place for your watering 

 cans. And above all have your pots al- 

 ways in their sizes in neat rows, not 

 under a bench in many different sizes 

 all mixed up. Some men like to buy 

 pots before they have half used up 

 what they already have. 



Here is a sample where disorder 

 comes in. The driver from a store or 

 the delivery man brings home an aza- 

 lea out of bloom and two or three 

 other flowering plants that are past, 

 or perhaps a flat half full of gera- 

 niums that were not used at the flower 

 gardening job. He jumps off the wag- 

 on, slings the flat and its contents on 



