June 12, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



233 



a member of the firm. These roomy vans are especially 

 built for this trade, and besides double walls have heating 

 and ventilating arrangements against any possible cold 

 which might chill tender plants. The ordinary open 

 wagons with low sides are filled whh stock selected with 

 a view to the best plants for the least money and the 

 showiest effect in the general arrangement. Feathery 

 Astilbes make a graceful temporary edging to beds of 

 brilliant flowers, five or six dozen Geraniums going into 

 each load. The front step, an improvised platform at the 

 rear and extensions at the sides are all pressed into use. 

 The only lull in the activity after midnight is the half-hour 

 before five o'clock, when the regular trade of store-keepers, 

 street-venders and peddlers is awaited. By six o'clock 

 retail buyers begin to pass up and down the long array of 

 flowers and to buy single plants of different sorts, the pots 

 clumsily wrapped in newspaper, and an artist making a 

 water-color sketch of the gay scene gets more notice than 

 is helpful By half-past eight the fee of twenty-five cents 

 for each wagon has been collected by a deputy from the 

 Bureau of ^Markets, the wagons have left, and cleaners from 

 the Park Department have removed all trace of discarded 

 plants and broken pots. 



The flower markets begin early in April, when three or 

 four wagon-loads are offered in the damp and chilly dawn. 

 The trade gradually grows, and by the first of May thirty 

 wagons are assembled at each market every morning, 

 Saturday being the busiest day. Now and until the close 

 of the season, about July ist, as many as seventy-five 

 loads will be disposed of daily at the two places. A 

 moderate load contains 40 to 50 trays, and these each hold 

 one or tv\'o dozen plants, so that a large wagon may carry 

 2,000 plants. One dealer, together with an assorted stock, 

 offered of Verbenas alone 1,000 plants in boxes holding a 

 dozen. Easter Saturday and the morning preceding 

 Decoration Day are the big days of the season, when it 

 is not unusual for one grower to send in two or three 

 wagon-loads instead of one. The plants must be well 

 grown and in luxuriant flowering, since each one is finally 

 subjected to selection by a retail buyer for a place in the 

 window or door-yard. Geraniums are the most popular, 

 as the showiest, most persistent in bloom and the easiest 

 grown, and they continue in demand from the opening 

 to the closing day. Boxes of deep orange-colored 

 Calendulas, with the smaller-flowered yellow Daisies, 

 Anthemis tinctoria, are among the showiest effects, 

 and hardly less bright are masses of Nasturtiums of 

 assorted colors, patches of Marigolds and of Lantanas. 

 Lady Washington Pelargoniums make an effective show 

 and win many buyers, while Fuchsias covered with heavy 

 buds and the blue Corn Flower of their grain-fields are in 

 especial favor for retail sales to German householders. 

 Old-fashioned plants, as Bachelor's Buttons, Cockscomb, Old 

 Man, Scarlet Sage and Musk-plant have a steady demand, 

 and creepers and climbers, as Stone-crop, Ice-plant, Myrtle, 

 Creeping Charlie, Vinca and Tradescantia, are shown in 

 quantities. Memories of house plants familiar to a far- 

 removed childhood, of almost forgotten country gardens, 

 and of haunts by shady brooksides are called up by plants 

 of Lemon-verbena, Lobeha, Oleander, House-leeks, Phlox, 

 Cigar-plant, Ten-weeks'-stocks, Thrift, Sweet William, 

 Zinnias, Forget-me-nots and Ferns. Trays of vegetable 

 plants are also among the offerings, 120 plants of toma- 

 toes selling for thirty-five cents. Other prices at this 

 season are a dozen and a half Zinnias for one dol- 

 lar, while the same sum will buy thirty-five flower- 

 ing Verbenas, a dozen good Geraniums, two or three 

 boxes of Pansies according to quality, each holding 

 thirty plants, two dozen Musk-plants, twelve large plants 

 of Vinca, or two dozen Pyrethrums or Armerias. Roses of 

 all varieties and grades and Hydrangeas are abundant and 

 generally well grown and stocky, though some plants are 

 leggy- In the Easter season, Lilies, Azaleas, Flydrangeas 

 and Cytisus are the principal offerings. Bulbous plants are 

 comparatively rare. At the Canal Street market the trade 



is in bedding-plants and entirely wholesale, while at Union 

 Square many decorative plants of large size are seen, such 

 as Portugal Laurels, Palms, Rubber-plants, and Arbor-vitse 

 sheared into various shapes. More stock is being offered 

 each year, and prices this season have been lower than in 

 former years. The growers estimate that it costs a dollar 

 to grow a dozen Geraniums, while ordinary stock brings 

 only seventy-five cents. Plants of Geraniums must be 

 very good to command $1.25, and the choicest stock 

 noticed, extra-large, full-flowered plants of the variety Gen- 

 eral Grant, brought ,$2.00 a dozen. 



The market season is over by the end of June. The cul- 

 tivators then occupy themselves in repairing greenhouses, 

 growing on stock for fall and winter cuttings, and in caring 

 for their bulbs of Easter Lilies from Bermuda and Rose 

 stocks from Belgium. The winter is given up to anxious 

 care and cultivation for the spring rush, which rounds out 

 the year. Altogether, it is hard work, which yields not 

 more than a fair living and often but a frugal one. Cold 

 days and stormy weather operate against sales, and large 

 receipts of strawberries and other fruits take the hucksters 

 into other lines of tradeand makeslow sales and low prices 

 in the flower markets. Dull market days are often helped 

 out by buyers from Springfield, New Haven and other 

 towns in near-by states, who can buy more cheaply in the 

 metropolitan markets, even when the cost of transportation 

 by water or rail is included. 



It is not possible to give an approximate idea of the total 

 sales in these markets for a season, but the flower trade 

 has assumed great importance since the beginning of the 

 century, when there was but one commercial florist in the 

 United States. There are now nearly 5,000 establishments 

 for growing flowers, and four-fifths of this business has 

 been developed within the last twenty-five years. The 

 last census report states, among other interesting items 

 connected with floriculture, that 38,823,247 square feet of 

 glass are in use, covering more than 891 acres. Of these 

 establishments, 312 are owned and conducted by women. 

 The value of fixtures, heating apparatus and tools amounted 

 to $40,000,000. Fuel, freight and express, and postage on 

 some 20,000,000 catalogues are other large items of expense. 

 The receipts from sales of cut flowers are put at more than 

 $J4, 000,000 a year, and from plants and shrubs at above 

 $12,000,000. M. B. C. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 The Temple Show. 



THE annual exhibition of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, which was held this week in the Temple Gar- 

 dens on the Thames Embankment, proved a success in every 

 respect. The weather was on its best behavior, the ex- 

 hibits were of a high order of merit, and the crowds of 

 visitors which thronged the lawns and the five large mar- 

 quees on each of the three days could not fail to satisfy 

 the financial secretary of the exhibition. Compared with 

 previous exhibitions of the same kind, the present one ex- 

 celled in the more tasteful arrangement of the plants, flow- 

 ers, etc., and in the quality of the pot-grown specimen 

 Roses. Orchids were as numerously represented as ever, 

 but there were fewer large specimens and much fewernov- 

 elties among them. This probably was due to the fact that 

 a large international horticultural exhibition was being held 

 at the same time in Paris, and this necessitated a division 

 of the forces of some of our most powerful exhibitors. 

 Notwithstanding^ these slight drawbacks, however, the 

 show was a magnificent display of high-class horticulture, 

 such as Englishmen might justly feel proud of The Roses 

 were magnificent and quite justified the observation of a 

 lady which I overheard : "Among all the beautiful and 

 wonderful things here to-day the Rose stands supreme." 



Crimson Rambler attracted a large share of attention, 

 beautiful specimens a yard across, bushes as well as stand- 

 ards, in pots, of course, and covered with large clusters of 

 brilliant carmine-red flowers, each one and a half inches 



