COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE. 



f\F late years growing flowers and plants for the markets has developed into a great 

 and flourishing industry, the outcome of enterprise which has led, rather than 

 followed, the steadily increasing demand for luxuries of this description. As a nation 

 we are great admirers of the beautiful gems of nature as developed by the art of 

 man, and the abundance as well as cheapness of plants and flowers available is 

 largely responsible for the greatly increased demand for them. Homes unadorned with 

 cut flowers and plants present, to refined minds, a desolate appearance, and it is for 

 the benefit of all that the taste in this direction should be fostered in every possible 

 way. The fashion, also, of sending memorial wreaths, crosses, and other emblems to 

 friends during periods of grief, has done much towards stimulating the growth, more 

 especially of white flowers, while immense quantities of both plants and cut flowers are 

 employed in a very different manner, namely, the decoration of dining tables, also, 

 as previously indicated, ball-rooms and churches. 



It is worthy of note that the great demand for tomatoes has done much towards 

 largely increasing the number of flower growers, thereby cheapening the commoner 

 flowers to such an extent as to render their cultivation scarcely profitable. Something 

 has to be done with the houses during the autumn and winter months, and they are 

 filled with such plants as chrysanthemums, arums, zonal pelargoniums, carnations, 

 narcissi, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and other kinds. Mild autumns, however, have 

 rather upset the calculations of growers of chrysanthemums in particular, prices ruling 

 exceptionally low owing to the abundance of those and other flowers in the open-air. 

 This over-production benefits the retailer more than anyone else, and brings flowers 

 within the means of everybody, even if the supply is not always remunerative to 

 the producers. 



Market growers must be up-to-date, not only as regards the classes of plants and 

 flowers they cultivate, but also in their methods of production. Fashions and fancies 

 have to be kept pace with and even anticipated. It is not what ought to " take," but 

 rather what the general public are "gone on" that should be grown. It is the 

 fashionable flower that sells the most readily, and, it need hardly be added, pays the 

 best. Happy the few who are the first to be in the market with a good supply of the 



