April, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



147 



A Cartful of Lilies on a Bermuda Lily Farm 



and twenty-live thousand 

 lilies of the valley; besides 

 larger lilies, with lilac, mig- 

 nonette, orchids, and a vast 

 green accompaniinent of 

 smilax, adiantum, and as- 

 paragus plumosus. 



Nine growers alone will 

 send five million roses to 

 make fragrant the city's 

 heart in a single season. 

 The center of this great 

 trade lies between Twenty- 

 third and Thirtieth Streets, 

 Broadway and Sixth Ave- 

 nue. Quite ninety per cent, 

 of this immense supply is 

 grown under glass, of which 

 the State as a whole has 

 four million five hundred 

 thousand square feet be- 

 longing to perhaps one 

 thousand four hundred 



Lager will be found risking his life daily for months on end 

 in the little-known Carribean Mountains, where marvelous 

 flowers that imitate butterflies, beetles, and birds show bright 

 against the dark tropic foliage of dense forest trees. 



It is for New York, too, that little Bermuda grows her 

 millions of lilies, yielding her one hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand dollars a year. Floral Bermuda, whose glories were 

 sung by Shakespeare, Marvell, and Moore. A wondrous 

 sight indeed is a thirty-acre field of Easter lilies near Hamil- 

 ton, the island capital. Though no scientists, the flower 

 farmers here produce, through sheer aptitude of the soil, 

 astonishing freaks of richness. 



I saw in a lily field near Hamilton one magnificent speci- 

 men with no less than one hundred and forty-five perfect 

 blooms on a single stalk ! Bulbs planted in the fall are by 

 March grown into a mass of lilies, ready for packing in boxes 

 with many subdivisions so to prevent crushing on the long 

 journey tO' New York, where they grace our Easter altars 

 and homes. Usually these Bermuda lilies are packed in 

 boxes of five dozen buds, 

 each box not more than one 

 cubic foot in size, nor 

 weighing more than fifteen 

 pounds. Such a box costs 

 two dollars and ninety-five 

 cents for duty and express- 

 age right into New York 

 City. 



In the last forty years our 

 demand for flowers has in- 

 creased eight hundred per 

 cent. ; and to-day this charm- 

 ing trafllic in the metropolis 

 alone is worth three million 

 dollars a year. Not less 

 than thirty wholesale firms 

 handle New York's cut 

 flowers; and as much as thir- 

 teen thousand dollars' worth 

 will be sold in a single day. 

 In one great consignment I 

 saw one hundred and twenty 

 thousand roses, two hun- 

 dred and ten thousand car- 

 nations, four hundred and 

 twenty-six thousand violets, 



growers. 



The roses come from Madison, Chatham, and Summit, 

 N. J.; Scarborough, N. Y., and various places in the vicinity 

 of Hoboken and Jersey City. From Long Island townships 

 come our magnificent carnations. Queens and Flatbush in 

 Brooklyn are great sources of supply, as also are Elmhurst 

 and Newtown. Quite two million dollars is invested in the 

 country in carnation culture alone; and new varieties are con- 

 stantly being introduced. The profits are large; a carnation 

 sold wholesale at thirty-eight cents will fetch one dollar in 

 the palatial establishments of the fashionable florists. 



Rhinebeck, Poughkeepsie, Highlands, and the Hudson sec- 

 tion generally are most successful with opulent and delicate 

 violets. There is one house at New Rochelle with two hun- 

 dred and thirty thousand square feet of glass, under which are 

 grown superb orchids and palms, with ferns, rare green- 

 house plants and garden roses. Altogether the State's great 

 sea of glass is worked by perhaps one thousand five 

 hundred difterent establishments, employing quite an army 

 of men. 



A Corner of a Bermuda Lily Field 



