120 CARNATIONS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



room for modern improvements and the Carnation growers 

 are pushed farther and farther out every year. Hundreds 

 of thousands of flowers are sold by the growers at little 

 improvised booths along the principal boulevards to passing 

 autoists,' while many more are shipped to Los Angeles, 

 San Francisco, San Diego and other centers of population. 



Almost all the work outside of plowing is done by hand, 

 Japanese men, women and children working long hours 

 planting, disbudding, cultivating and gathering the flowers. 

 The fields look very beautiful when in bloom and the 

 dehghtful fragrance is carried for miles, but it can hardly 

 be advised as a profitable business for anyone who would 

 have to hire all the help needed. Early and late these 

 Japanese families work at the business, little brown, round 

 faced youngsters, hardly higher than the Carnation plants, 

 taking a hand in the game and coming up loaded with great 

 bunches of flowers as large as themselves. As to the price, 

 it is difficult to see how they make anything out of it. 

 During times of plenty fine flowers will be offered in the 

 streets of Los Angeles for five cents the dozen — not cuHs 

 or sphts, but good, well developed, well colored flowers 

 that have been disbudded and taken care of just the same 

 as a " hothouse " Carnation. 



As hinted above, it would be a hard task to get any- 

 thing like an approximate idea of the number of plants 

 grown, for where one grower may have ten acres in Carna- 

 tions, there are scores with half an acre, a city lot ox two, 

 or even a back yard behind the shack where the family 

 resides. 



IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC COAST 



The past five years, Oregon and Washington have 

 seen an increase of fuhy 50 per cent, in the output of 



