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^{CULTURE 
EXCELSIOR 
41 Pork How, New York 
lltilVitlo Ht., Rochester. 
PER YEAR 
f Single No., Eight €« 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY AUGUST 7, IDG!) 
f the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New Yorlc.l 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1809, by i>. i>. T. Mooiib, in .. . Office o 
MODEL PROPAGATING AND GREEN - HOUSES, AT SOUTH BERGEN, N. J 
sional flashes of light across his face show 
that he has a keen appreciation of humor. 
Practical as he is, his eye lights up when 
anything beautiful fastens his attention. His 
surroundings show that under the staid mat- 
tcr-of-fact exterior there is a relish for beau¬ 
tiful objects, ami especially for the striking 
clients that may he produced by them when 
artistically arranged. 
Petek Henderson is a Scotchman. IIo 
came hither when about twenty years old. 
Although his father was a Scotch farmer, ho 
had learned the rudiments of practical flori¬ 
culture before leaving Scotland — only the 
rudiments of floriculture have made more 
rapid strides in this country in twenty-five 
years than in Scotland. He first, started, 
twenty-two years ago, in Jersey City, with 
about one thousand square feet of glass. 
Four years ago im removed to the present 
locality, and the structures shown in our en¬ 
graving have been built since that time. 
On the left of the picture will be seen a 
brick wall, back of which are packing 
houses, and against which terminate eighteen 
green and propagating houses, built at right 
angles to the wall. These houses are each 
one hundred feet long, and average eleven 
feet wide. They arc heated by steam. On 
the right is seen a house three hundred feet 
wide, heated with two of Hitciiino’s patent 
boilers. This house contains about throe 
thousand feet of four-inch iron pipe. Tlio 
cost of this structure was over $10,000. The 
cottage at, the end of the brick wall is the 
foreman's residence. 
Mr. Henderson employs twenty - five 
bands in his houses, consumes about two 
hundred tons of coal annually in heating 
The bouquet or cut flower business is en¬ 
tirely distinct from the plant trade. Those 
who manipulate tlm flowers, making bou¬ 
quets and retailing them, have, as a rule, no 
knowledge of floriculture whatever. The 
flowers are grown by the florists in the 
suburbs and sold in bulk to the bouquet, 
makers and dealers, whose places of busi¬ 
ness are located mainly on Broadway and 
the principal business thoroughfares of the 
city. Borne of these establishments pay an 
annual rental of $5,000. Of course to pay 
this rent sales must be good and profits 
large. As we have above intimated, fash¬ 
ion’s decrees are imperative and her exac¬ 
tions unlimited. Blie decrees flowers, and 
flowers must be had at any price. It is diffi¬ 
cult to estimate the amount, in figures, of 
the cut (lower trade. But the sums ex¬ 
pended are not, only large in the aggregate, 
but in the abstract. That is, the prices paid 
for a few stemmed flowers, tied to straws 
and arranged to die the quickest possible 
death, are enormous; for it should lie re¬ 
membered that comparatively few flowers 
are sold upon their own stems. The figures 
of the flower trade must exceed those of the 
plant trade. 
Petor Heuilerson’H EntnliliHlnnent. 
Over in South Bergen, N. J., are the Prop¬ 
agating and Green-houses of Petek Hen¬ 
derson — a man about forty - five years old, 
straight, standing about five feet eleven 
Inches or siv feet in liis boots, hair and lull 
because of the fertilizing and modifying in¬ 
fluence of flowers upon the human heart, 
When left free to a natural growth. 
The number of men engaged in the plant 
propagation in New York and its suburbs 
cannot be less than live hundred, employing 
an average of six hands each or an aggre¬ 
gate of three thousand. The glass structures 
used in propagating plants would coyer an 
area of fifty acres. Among the larger grow¬ 
ers are P, Henderson, Bergen City, Wm. 
Wii,son, Astoria; L. J. Parsons & Co. and 
John Henderson & Co., Flushing; Bennk- 
to Sc Davidson, Flatbusli. 
There are but a few classes of plants grown 
for the market; but these classes include a 
vast number of varieties. The leading classes 
arc: 
Roues, of whichperhap* 1,000,000 arosold an- 
nullity at an avcrave of 30c.each. S’ 
Verbenas, 2.000.000 at 8c. 180,000 
Fuchsias, 300,000 at Mu. 60,000 
Qeraniuinn, 300,000 at ...... .J6.000 
TubnrcMS Bulbs. 1.000,0®. ....... lOO.jWo 
UiadlnluH, 200,000 ai2ftc ..... MJ.JJJO 
Tjllias, Japan wul others, 300,000 at 60c. 100,000 
Dali I las, £0,000 at 2ftc... 12,500 
Full Bulbs, hiicOrs Hyacinths and Tulips, 
1,000,000 at 10c. 100,000 
.MiscHlaneou. plaiita of various kinds, 
2,000,1X10, at 25c. 500,000 
$1,447,600 
This estimate includes wliat is grown. 
Probably not more than half these plants 
are sold in New York City markets; the 
other half shipped by express and mail to 
all parts of the country; for It must be re¬ 
membered that these perishable articles are 
now so skillfully packed by propagators that 
they can he placed in the hands of pur¬ 
chasers two thousand miles distant in a per¬ 
fectly healthy condition, as fresh, and sure 
to grow, ns if they had only been removed 
from one field across a fence line to another. 
Gold Rooms and on the Block Board. Men 
and women propagate, cultivate, cut, ar¬ 
range, hawk about and sell flowers with just 
as little sentiment and love of them, per me, 
as they would give to pins and needles if 
they could make the same money from the 
same investment in the articles named 
Accordingly, when we talk of the flower 
trade in this city we strip it of what would 
seem to he its natural sentimental costume, 
and clothe it with the figures of traffic — the 
hard, dry details, from which census tables 
arc made and manufacturers’ profits are cal¬ 
culated. True, the pretty sewing girl who, 
tripping homeward on Broadway, after her 
day’s work is over, pays ten cents for a tube¬ 
rose, a sprig of geranium, of heliotrope, and 
a violet or two, sacrifices so much of her 
THE PLANT AND FLOWER TRADE 
There is a great deal of poetry in the 
prose of life. Poetry and prose are relative 
terms. The man who manufactures poetry 
for his bread, may find the business prosaic 
enough. It is with him a good deal as it is 
•with the chemist who extracts the volatile 
perfume from the flower and bottles it up for 
sale. His profit depends upon the pleasure 
he gives the senses of those for whom he 
caters. The poet, extracts the perfume, of life 
and sells it to the public for said public’s de¬ 
lectation. Tim public calls it poetry; the 
poet knows it to be prose, to him, and won¬ 
ders that from such a matter-ol-fact life and 
business lie extracts so much of what people 
call sentiment. 
We associate with flowers an atmosphere 
of intoxicating perfume, a refined and noble 
spirit, and a love of the beautiful, the good 
and the true. NVe fancy the man who cul¬ 
tivates them must absorb from such associa¬ 
tions all the elements which make flowers 
attractive to mortals—that the rough angu¬ 
larities of his nature are softened and rounded 
and polished, and his inner life becomes a 
revel of worshipful enjoyment of God’s 
works. To some extent this is true, but not 
altogether. The owner of a herd of Devons 
or Short-Horns, the shepherd of a flock of 
South-Downs or Merinos, and the man who 
leans on the pig-sty three times a day to 
watch the development of Ids Chester 
Whites or Suflblks, may realize from their 
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