180 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in season and out of season they will soon begin to tire of and 

 dub them common, after which their decline will be rapid. 



As regards colour, of course white is by far the most impor- 

 tant, after which the most distinct shades of red, crimson, and 

 yellow should be chosen, not forgetting to include a fair propor- 

 tion of golden bronze, as this shade is very popular and appears 

 likely to continue so for some time ; avoid carefully all shades of 

 pink, purple, and mauve, as the fair sex now almost universally 

 holds these in abomination. In respect to form, the more grace- 

 ful varieties of the Japanese type are by far the most saleable, as 

 most of the best florists now refuse to touch any of the buttony 

 type of flowers and the heaviest of both Japanese and incurved, 

 though there is still a fair demand for nice blooms of the Bundle 

 family. 



Perhaps the most important question in growing for cut 

 flowers is whether it is more profitable to go in for quantity or 

 quality, the answer, I think, depending entirely upon the market 

 to be supplied. The finest blooms can, of course, only be pro- 

 duced by rigid disbudding, and it is only in London and one or 

 two of our largest cities where sufficiently high prices can be 

 obtained to reimburse the grower for this. Where, however, 

 the demand exists it pays to cater for it, as the market is never 

 glutted with really first-class stuff, while, as everyone who has 

 had any experience as a salesman knows, there is often such a 

 plethora of inferior blooms that their disposal at anything like 

 the cost of production is an impossibility. 



On the whole, the best-paying blooms are those grown on 

 fairly bushy plants which have been stopped once or twice and 

 then disbudded to the terminal buds. In speaking above of high- 

 class flowers it must not be supposed that such blooms as would 

 take first prize at a good show are meant (a writer in a leading 

 horticultural paper last season estimates the cost of producing 

 these at five shillings each), but blooms above the average in 

 size and sufficiently well developed to thoroughly bring out the 

 characteristic points of the variety. 



It should be mentioned here that a few varieties should never 

 be disbudded at all ; these consist of kinds such as Eoi des Pre- 

 cocesand Source d'Or, which bloom in clusters, opening all their 

 flowers well together, and are very little increased in size by the 

 process of thinning. 



