STUDYING THE MARKETS. 141 



At the outset it is necessary to study the 

 needs of your market and try to meet them as 

 fully as possible. When you start you will doubt- 

 less be a stranger at least you will be regarded as 

 such from a business point of view, for business is 

 not prone to recognize sentiment in any of its 

 dealings. You willtherefore have to es- 

 tablish your ability to grow good stock, 

 to grow it regularly, and to be able to 

 put it into the hands of your dealer 

 when he wants it. This cannot be done in 

 one or two years, but at the end of three or four 

 seasons, if the work has been carried on in the 

 right way, your reputation will have a fair start. 



It is perfectly feasible for a grower who 

 knows his conditions and handles his plants 

 properly, to tell by the first of October how many 

 flowers he can furnish for the following six 

 months; that is, he ought to know within two 

 or three per cent how many flowers he will 

 have for October, November, December, and 

 each succeeding month through March. Know- 

 ing this, he is in a position to deal in a business- 

 like way with the man or men who handle his 

 flowers, for it is as important for the dealer 

 to know, to a reasonable certainty, what he can 

 depend upon as it is for the grower to know 

 what he can furnish. Much of the complaint 

 which arises about poor prices being received for 

 flowers is not because the flowers are not good, 



