74 FRITZ BAHR'S COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE 



number of florists comfortably fixed today made their money, not 

 in flowers, but in the land they bought with no idea that it would 

 ever become so valuable. But we don't all live that long. 



For the retail grower a lot facing north is best. This will give 

 him a chance to locate the store and the palm house, fern house, or 

 show house (none of which requires afternoon sun) along the street 

 and the growing houses where they will get the morning sun. Three 

 hours of morning sun is worth six in the afternoon. Of course, 

 no one wiU select land surrounded by large trees or buildings, and 

 if in later years buildings become so large and high that they take 

 the sun away from the Geraniums, the place has most hkely become 

 too valuable to grow Geraniums on; it is then time to sell and move. 



The man who wants to start but has only a limited amount of 

 money and cannot afford to buy a lot 100 ft. x 150 ft. or 200 ft. with- 

 out moving out where he can only be reached by the R. F. D., had 

 better purchase a 50 ft. x 100 ft. plot nearer the pulse of hfe of the 

 community. You can build a very attractive store and show house 

 on a 50-ft. front and have room for a driveway and a good plant 

 house in the rear. It would simply mean that you would have to 

 purchase more of the stock you sell — which a lot of the most success- 

 ful men do today anyway, making more money by so doing than if 

 they tried to grow it on themselves. You may be a good grower if 

 given a chance to grow stock with proper facilities and with nothing 

 else to do, but the retail grower of today is an awfully busy man. 

 The time he can devote to the potting bench or in the Rose house is 

 limited. Here it is truly a case where the man who uses the hammer 

 isn't the one who makes the money. 



fRONT ELEVATION 



Fig. 19. — A Practical Establishment of Three Houses and Store. See 

 opposite page for description and page 76 for a partial plan of this convenient 

 layout designed by the Lord & Burnham Go. Note its compact arrangement 

 and the splendid opportunity for a striking display in the shop windows and 

 in front of the two greenhouses at the left. 



