SPRING CATALOGUE OP SEEDS, BULBS AND PLANTS FOR 1833. 
T 
OTHER Besides the buildings above mentioned 
BUILDINGS, there are fifteen or twenty more of 
various sizes which are used for vari¬ 
ous purposes In connection with the business. One of these 
is a largo farm house, with barns and stables where the 
horses which are used on the place are kept. 
THE The lawns at Floral Park surrounding 
LAWN. Mr. Childs’ residence and Seed Stores 
cover an area of nine acres and are 
artistically laid out and bountifully stocked with rare 
Trees, Shrubs and Plants. There are over 300 different 
varieties of flowering Shrubs. The lawn also contains sev¬ 
eral beautiful summer houses or pagodas, fountains and an 
artificial aquarium for rare Water Lilies, also one for Egyp¬ 
tian Lotus. 
FOREIGN Mr. Childs’ foreign trade is so exten- 
TRADE. slvethat ho has an agent In Liverpool 
and ono in Auckland, New Zealand. 
All orders for England, Ireland and Scotland are packed 
separately and sent to the Liverpool Agent who forwards 
each paroel to its destination. All shipments for Australia 
and New Zealand go through the Auckland Agency in like 
manner. Goods for Newfoundland go through a shipping 
agent at St. John’s. Mr. Childs also has a great number of 
customers in the different European countries—in Africa, 
India, China, Japan, South America* Mexico, /West India 
Islands, and, in fact, every quarter of the globe. ' 
TRIALS and The Trial and Experiment Gardens 
EXPERIMENTS, which Mr. Childs conducts for himself 
and The Mayflower are very exten¬ 
sive. All sorts of Seeds, Plants, Fruits and Vegetables are 
tested, various experiments made, disease and insects treat¬ 
ed. The State of New York has also established its Trial 
and Experiment Gardens at Floral Park on Mr. Childs’ 
premises, and the two working in harmony afford the most 
complete and scientific establishment of the sort in the 
country. 
THE ARTIST. An expert artist is constantly employed 
at Floral Park in sketching and pho¬ 
tographing flowers and plants, drawing designs for cuts and 
painting for Colored Plates. The excellence of tbo 
Catalogue shows that this artist is not excelled anywhere. 
VOLUME OF From January to Juno and from Sep- 
BUSIN ESS tember to December are the busy 
AND HOW IT months of Floral Park. During this 
IS DONE, period of nine months it is not unusu¬ 
al for Mr. Childs to receive as high as 
eight to ten thousand letters in a single day, including hun¬ 
dreds of Registered letters and thousands containing Money 
Orders. A room on the second floor of the Seed Store is de¬ 
voted to opening these letters and checking the remittances. 
As soon as this is done the orders are taken to the booking 
room (on the same floor) where they are dated and num¬ 
bered; commencing at number ono on January 1st, the num¬ 
bers run consecutively through the year. After the 
number and date of receipt are stamped upon them the 
names of the senders are registered in. books prepared for 
the purpose, one or more books being devoted to each State 
in the Union, and each name is registered alphabetically. 
The number of the order is registered with the name. The 
order is then ready to be filled. If it contains demands for 
seed it goes to the Seed Departmenton the third floor where 
the seed required are supplied. If the order also includes 
Plants. Bulbs or Fruits it then goes down to the Packing 
Department, on the first floor, where these articles are sup¬ 
plied from the greenhouses and cold-storage sheds In con¬ 
nection with the Packing Department. Here the order is 
completed and boxed. It then goes to a room in the front of 
the building, on the satne floor, where the package or box Is 
wrapped, tied, addressed and stamped. Then into big ham¬ 
pers or bags and carried to the Poet Office, two hundred feet 
away, by the wagon load, a horse and cart and two men bei^g 
employed for this purpose nearly all the time. At the Post 
Office the stamps are cancelled and the packages put into 
sacks for the different States. Three shipments of mail per 
day are made in through sacks to every State in the Union. 
After the order is filled and the date of shipment stamped up¬ 
on it, it is taken to the booking room and filed in rotation ac¬ 
cording to its number, in files holding 500 orders each, and 
anyoneofthe.se orders among several hundred thousand 
can be referred to in about thirty seconds at any time, so 
complete and efficient is the system of booking the names, 
numbering and filing the orders. 
THE Three Catalogues are issued each year 
CATALOGUES, at a total cost, when mailed, of about 
$00,000. The regular Spring Catalogue 
(of which this is a copy) is Issued on the first of January, 
and is sent to all regular customers. This requires an edi¬ 
tion of 500,000 copies. Oil the 1st of February over 500,000 
32-pago Catalogues of “Specialties and Novelties” are is¬ 
sued which contain only the loadingNovelties and Special- 
ticsof the big Catalogue, and are issued for free distribution 
to all who apply. On tho 1st of September is issued the Fall 
Cataloguoof Hardy Bulbs for Fall planting and Winter 
blooming. This is also a 530,000 edition. It requires 142 tons 
cf paper to print tbo big Catalogue which is worth, when 
printed, $13,275. The Covers and Colored Plates cost $17,000 
more and the postage (5c. for each copy) $25,000. The Cata¬ 
logue of “Specialties and Novelties” requires 30 tons of 
paper, worth $2,855. Covers, $2,000; postage (lc. per copy) $5,000. 
The Tall Catalogue requires 50 tons of paper, worth $0,710.. 
Covers and Colored Plates worth $1,000, and postage (2c. per 
copy) $10,000. This makes a total of 1,530,000 Catalogues for 
the year, requiring 231 tons of paper and $40,000 for postage. 
Total cost of the three Catalogues $87,840. All printed by 
Mr. Childs at Floral Park on the Mayflower presses, at great 
economy in cost. 
There is probably not another house In the world that is 
known to issue 500,000 Catalogues in a year. Mr. Childs* 
output of Catalogues is, therefore, three times as great aa 
tho next largest house in tho Catalogue business. 
THE Twelve years ago Mr. Childs issued the 
MAYFLOWER, first number of The Mayflower, a 
monthly magazine devoted to flowers 
and gardening. It was a marked success from the first. In 
1804, tho business of publishing it having become so large* 
a regular Publishing Company was organized with Mr. 
Childs at its head. A substantial brick building 150 feet 
long by 40 feet wide was erected and fitted with all modern 
machinery for the publishing business. The power is fur¬ 
nished by a powerful steam engine and light by an electric? 
dynamo in the building. Five presses of various sizes are 
employed, one of which is a $10,000 Rotary Web capable of 
printing and folding 80,000 copies of The Mayflower per 
day. The other machinery consists of three trimmers or 
cutters, five stitching machines, two folding machines, a 
grinder, a powerful steam pump, and a complete electrotyp¬ 
ing outfit. The composition of The Mayflower and Cat¬ 
alogue work is not only done here, but tho electrotypes are 
made and finished for the presses. At this establishment? 
all of Mr. Childs’ job printing is done including the mam¬ 
moth editions pf his handsome Catalogues each spring and 
fall, of which this is a specimen. 
VIEWS OF The Mayflower has issued a pretty 
FLORAL PARK, little album containg about 25 half¬ 
tone photograpic views of Floral Park- 
From this album one can get a much better idea of the- 
beauty of the place than from any description that can be. 
written, The album is sold at 10c, per copy, postpaid. 
