Pin-Money Crops for the Home Gardener—. F. rocxweur 
Profits from Plants and Pots 
V. 
N MOST suburban sections, and small cities 
and towns, a great number of vegetable and 
bedding plants and the common hardy per- 
ennials are used each spring. In some 
laces this demand is, well cared for by local 
orists or market gardeners, but in the great 
majority of cases a limited output of these 
things, of superior quality, can readily be dis- 
posed of to one’s friends and neighbors, who are 
proud of their gardens, but lack the facili- 
ties to produce things for themselves. 
This line of work has at least two par- 
ticularly decided advantages as compared to 
the other “pin-money crops” which have al- 
ready been discussed in this series. Much 
less space is required—it is a way to make 
money from the very small garden. Second, 
the market, or demand, has not a fixed maxi- 
mum, as is the case with vegetables; it is 
largely what may be termed a potential mar- 
ket, depending upon the enthusiasm which the 
quality of your plants is capable of arousing. 
In other words, where you might not possibly 
be able to sell your neighbor a second bushel 
of onions, because he would have no use for 
it; he will almost always have use for a few 
more plants. And a large part of your “stock 
in trade” may be grown for another season, and 
any surplus can be used in beautifying your 
own gardens and ground. 
Aes is no “pin-money” stunt that is the 
best for all conditions. Vegetable and 
flower plants for spring sales can be produced 
in a very small space, but there must be more 
invested in equipment, such as glass, pots, 
tools, stock plants, flats, ete., than eee be 
required for ordinary garden crops. More 
constant attention also will be demanded. 
And as is always the case where a number 
of things is grown, instead of one or two, more 
general knowledge and skill in keeping every- 
thing going smoothly and attended to on time 
will be required, Another disadvantage is 
that growing bedding plants and perennials is 
an all-year round business. 
Y THIS time the reader may be wonder- 
ing, if he did not at the beginning, why 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE should wait until the 
present time to talk about growing plants 
that are to be sold in May. There is method 
in the madness! This plant growing business 
is not a make-money-quick plan. You should 
not attempt it at all unless you mean busi- 
ness, and if you do you will want to take your 
time and go at it right. To give yourseif the 
greatest chance of success, you should start 
now for next spring. By so doing you can 
work up a stock of the newest and best things 
for practically nothing. And, furthermore, 
this is just the time of the year for you to 
notice the plants in favor in your vicinity. 
Note carefully who among your neighbors 
and possible customers are first to get their 
ardens started, and what their hobbies are. 
There is a further purpose in this general 
preliminary survey. This plant growing propo- 
sition is a good deal more of a “business” than 
the things which have been mentioned here- 
tofore, and one should make very sure of one’s 
ground before starting out in it. There are 
several factors, any one of which, if not fa- 
vorable, may well mean that success cannot 
reasonably be expected. Among them are your 
market, your experience, your time, your equip- 
ment. After you have looked the ground over, 
stop and consider these things carefully be- 
for you decide definitely to go ahead. 
HE MARKET, which is perhaps the most 
important, must remain more or less of an 
unknown quantity until your venture is actu- 
ally under way. If it looks promising, dis- 
count your most conservative estimate by 
about fifty per cent., and go slowly at first. 
There is much more profit in not having enough 
plants for all your anxious customers the first 
season than in having some left over to throw 
out or to give away. 
Haperience. Unless you have already had 
success with the various things you expect to 
grow, or at least with most of them, it will 
be the part of wisdom to abandon for the 
present all idea of making profits from them. 
On the other hand, you need not feel that you 
need to wait until you become an expert, as 
your experience is more certain to grow with 
every season’s work than your market is. 
6 res Pin-money crops are, of course, in 
the light in which we have been consid- 
ering them, side line crops, to which one does 
not expect to give one’s whole time. But the 
line of work described in this article will re- 
quire at least a little time given each day, (in- 
cluding Sundays) during the fall, winter and 
spring months. Fifteen to twenty minutes a 
ay will cover the “chores” that have to be 
done—watering, ventilating and so forth—in a 
small greenhouse or with a few frames; but 
this is a very small part of the work that has 
to be done. Plants to be cut back, seedlings to 
be started, cuttings to be started and re-potted 
or transplanted as often as necessary, ferti- 
lizer and soil to be prepared, ots and flats to 
be made and cleaned, and the hundred and one 
other things to be attended to during the 
year, even if your “infant industry” is taken 
up in a very small way, will use up several 
hours a week which cannot always be 
“bunched” on Saturdays. The biggest part of 
this work comes, too, when the days are not 
very long, from the middle of March to the 
middle of May, and just at this period the 
work cannot be delayed without disastrous re- 
sults. If you have some one who can help 
you or a place in which you can work at even- 
ings at a pinch, that, of course, makes a great 
difference. But be careful to go into the thing 
carefully enough and slowly so that you will 
Ha over es cunate the amount you can accom- 
plish. 
ee For this kind of work, of 
course, a greenhouse, even a very small 
one, often has decided advantages over the 
best of hotbeds and coldframes. Within the 
last few years the small, practical, inexpen- 
sive greenhouse has been very greatly im- 
proved, and a small investment will go very 
much farther in this line than it would have 
before, particularly as new “finished in the 
shop” methods of construction reduce the work 
necessary on one’s own place to a very great 
extent. Just now, of course, due to the tre- 
mendous useless waste that accompanies the 
useless sacrifice of human life abroad, all 
metals are high. The market for all kinds of 
plants during the next few years will probably 
be better than for several seasons past. A 
very simple outfit will do to begin with. Pos- 
sibly you already have a small conservatory 
or lean-to greenhouse, or even a small regular 
greenhouse, available. All kinds of vegetable 
plants can be grown in hotbeds and coldframes 
in the spring with no greenhouse at all, and 
all the commoner plants sold from pots can be 
put out into the frames early in the spring if 
you have even a small place to carry them 
through the winter, and to start the cuttings, 
-indoors. A section of a bench a few feet square 
in the conservatory will start a large number of 
potted plants until they are ready to go into 
the inh al in March. 
The “glass” is the most important part of 
your equipment. That includes, of course, ade- 
quate heating, either artificially, or with ma- 
nure and double-glass sash and mats for at 
least a part of the frames. The other things, 
such as the small tools, trowels, dibbers, a sieve, 
watering can, ete., are probably already on 
hand, in some shape or other. This part of 
your equipment can be added to and improved 
gradually, keeping alwaye in mind that it pays 
to get well made, well known articles of good 
material, one at a time, rather than to get a 
complete assortment of cheap things that will 
rapidly go to pieces. 
HE things you can grow, once you start 
in this ‘line, are almost without number. 
But here, as in the growing of vegetables in 
small gardens for profit, it is best to have a 
specialty. Take one thing and make your sup- 
y the best that is to be had of it anywhere 
in town. Develop that until the market avail- 
Q44 
able for that particular thing is fully sup- 
plied. That will not only make a nucleus or 
a core for your little business, but will help 
you to sell other things as you add them to 
your list. It is not wise to attempt a com- 
plete assortment at once. There are three 
general classes, any one of which will prob- 
ably give you plenty to do for the first season 
or two, particularly if you have your own 
garden and place to look out for in addition 
to your commercial undertakings; they are 
vegetable plants, so-called “bedding plants,” 
and hardy or semi-hardy biennials or peren- 
nials; the possibility of growing all three of 
these eventually is that the number of your 
customers will probably be limited while each 
one of them may want plants of all three 
classes. The vegetable plants will probably 
include tomato, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, cauli- 
flowers, beets and ege-plants, the amount of 
your sales for each will probably run in the 
order named. Extra quality tomato plants 
will always sell readily and usually at ad- 
vanced prices. For potted tomato plants we 
get a dolar a dozen; and while ordinary plants, 
a dozen in a box, sell for a quarter or less, 
the best, with a good reputation behind them, 
will bring thirty-five or forty. And this is so 
with other things. 
Of the bedding plants, the most used are 
Geraniums, Begonias, Salvias, Heliotropes, 
Verbenas, Petunias, Snapdragons, Pansies, 
Ageratums, Sweet Alyssums, Forget-me-nots 
and so forth for edging, borders, ete. Most of 
these are increased by cuttings. A few plants 
of the best varieties of each .bought now or 
started from seed in the case of new expensive 
things and grown carefully in your own flower 
beds this summer will give you an abundant 
supply of materials for all the plants you can 
handle during next winter and spring. If you 
set out pansies now of the very choicest kind 
you can get and carefully save the seed, which 
is not difficult, that will give you a start 
toward a fine strain of your own. 
HE hardy perennials, unless you know them 
ah well yourself and feel confident that you 
will be able to dispose of such of them as 
you may intend to grow for sale, it will be 
well to leave out of your pin-money calcula- 
tions for the first season or two, except that 
you can be working up a stock of them from 
seed or from individual plants of rare, new 
things. Remember that where one of your 
customers may buy a dozen or two of to- 
matoes and Geraniums and several dozen cab- 
bage or Pansies every year, he is not likely to 
want more than a few perennials once in sev- 
eral years, even though you have extra choice 
things and can persuade him to take them. 
The more limited the number of your customers 
the less you will have to do with perennials. 
On the other hand, they will require little or 
no care through the winter, grow fast and 
may be considered as an extra by-product of 
specially fine varieties which you may want 
to grow for yourself and would not feel justi- 
fied in growing unless they were to bring you 
some return. oreover, perennials add to the 
permanent value as well as to the beauty of 
your own place as annual things do not. — 
Out of your list, to sum up, in getting a 
start: 4 
Buy plants of Geranium, Ivy Geranium, Be- 
onia, Coleus, Paris Daisy, Fuchsia, Heliotrope, 
emon Verbena, Pansy (for seed), Petunia 
(named varieties), Salvia, Verbena and Vinca; 
also of new named hardy perennials such as 
Asters, Chrysanthemum, Phlox, Delphinium, 
Tritoma, etc., which for the retail local ‘trade 
should be largely of the best new varieties. 
Most of your customers will probably already 
have the better known sorts. 
Buy roots or bulbs of Dahlia, Canna, Glad- 
iolus, tuberous rooted Begonia, Oxalis, and the 
bulbous rooted summer plants, such as Cinna- 
mon vine, etc. ae 
Buy seeds of choice named varieties of Snap- 
dragon, Begonia, Coleus, Heliotrope, Salvia, 
and of the very best perennials, from which to 
erow stock plants. (Seeds of Pansies, English 
Daisies and half-hardy biennials for coldframe 
plants are not sown until July or August.) 
— 
et 
bo 
