CHAPTER XII 

 Commercial Culture* 



The Chrysanthemum is grown today in immense 

 quantities for commercial cut flower purposes, though 

 the average price to the wholesale grower grows less 

 and less as time rolls on. The margin of profit today 

 is microscopical and were it not for the fact that the 

 bench space is made valuable by other crops, during the 

 winter, it would seem that many growers would have 

 to discontinue growing them entirely. This is not due 

 to a decreased demand; the quantity of flowers that 

 are grown and sold being, as before indicated, enor- 

 mous; but it is due to the large quantity of absolute 

 rubbish that is thrown on the market, and which, being 

 hard to move at any price, helps to depress the sale of 

 tfre choicer grades to a very considerable extent. 



The question has been asked what is a fair price 

 for Chrysanthemum flowers. A man growing stock 

 of exhibition size and finish should get fifty dollars 

 per hundred as a wholesale price. This will allow a 

 margin to compensate for the flowers that will be 

 spoiled by damping, bruising, destruction by insects 

 and the hundred and one other mishaps that may befall 

 them. Such stock will have to be planted on the 

 benches in May, grown all summer and never be 

 neglected for a moment. A fair grade of flowers can be 

 profitably produced for twenty-five dollars per hundred 

 by planting closer in the bench, setting out the plants 



By Charles H. Totty, Madison, N. J. 



