Flower seller

“ One of our morning excursions was to the Flower Market, where the fruits and flowers of the country are displayed with truly tropical profusion. The building, designed with English taste, is of great extent, surrounding a spacious 120 court, which is laid out like a garden, with fountains and ferns, and flowering shrubs and creepers growing luxuriantly. Here are offered for sale all kinds of poultry and birds, parrots, and even monkeys. The Flower Market is especially brilliant, as flowers are the customary offerings at temples. They are very cheap. ”

“ Don’t be wheedled into spoiling your plants by saving seed for one who is perfectly able to buy; instead, give the address of the dealer from whom you purchased, and suggest that he will be glad to fill orders. Don’t rob your plant of cuttings that are necessary to its symmetry; this, too, is a case for the florist. There are people who seem to feel it an injustice for any one to possess a plant with more than one branch so long as they are not supplied with that particular variety. ”

“ In the artificial-flower shops, that compete with the French trade with growing success, a great quantity of boughs, bunches, wreaths of flowers, and ferns were got ready; big and small bouquets of bright, warm-coloured flowers to take the eye—the finest intended for ladies' hair and bosoms, the coarser for decorating houses, shops, horses and carriages. ”

“ No one will deny for a moment that there is more real joy to be felt over one plant that we have grown for ourselves than over ninety and nine bought ones; and this is not only because attending to its needs has made us love the flower as we love children and other pets and dear dependents—there is another reason. In shop-flowers the method of growth (one of a plant’s greatest beauties) is a charm left out. Sweet Peas, for instance; we buy them squeezed up in tight bunches, all pink ones massed together, or all white or purple. ”

“ A great deal of discussion has been going on from time to time at various florists' clubs all over the country, regarding the "nuisance" of flower bargain counter sales. The subject indeed is one that engages the attention of every florist throughout the land, both retail man and grower. Is it advisable to offer cut flowers to the people at cut prices? ”

“ But in our day the passion for flowers has wonderfully increased, and the cultivation of them, which is a thing very different from the sentiment of admiration, has become so common that it is considered as an evidence of bad taste for one having any ground not to have flowers about the dwelling-house.
But how few who only receive flowers as gifts, or purchase them, know the pains and penalties of flower-raising! It may be imagined that one has only to scratch open the ground, bury the seed, and then patiently wait for nature to do the rest. ”

“ Look over the catalogs of the florists and you will see that the variety is almost endless. If you do not care to invest money enough to secure the newer varieties, tell the dealer to whom you give your patronage what you want the plants for, and he will make a selection which will include some of the best kinds, and which will be sure to give you as good satisfaction as you would get from a selection of your own. Better, in most instances, for you make your selection from the description in the catalog, while he would select from his knowledge of the merits of the flower. ”

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring - that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss, and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ A florist cultivates a plant for the sake of its flower; and regards the roots and leaves as of value, chiefly because they are instrumental in producing the flower. But while, as an ultimate product, the flower is the thing to which everything else is subordinate, the florist has learnt that the root and leaves are intrinsically of greater importance; because on them the evolution of the flower depends. He bestows every care in rearing a healthy plant ”

“ It is the great profit to be realized from the sale of new plants that stimulates their cultivation. Many men have made fortunes from the sale of a new fruit or flower, and others are repeating the operation now. In fact, it is the hope of this great gain that has given to the world so many new and valuable plants, some originated from seed, some by hybridization, some from solitary hiding-places in the woods and mountains, and some by importation from distant countries. ”

“ Discouraging though it may seem at first glance, the fact that department stores and five and ten cent stores deal in plants should not really discourage the florists. In the long run, the public at large—I mean the flower-buying public—will look to the florists for its supply. The man or woman who will buy a plant from a five and ten cent store, or a department store, would probably never think of entering a flower shop, anyway. If these people acquire the taste for plants in this manner, the chances are that the florists will enjoy their patronage in the end. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV FLOWERS
Every city in the United States affords an opportunity for flower gardening and nurseries, but a study must be made of the market in order to know what is best to raise and where to raise it.
The choice of crops depends on the popular taste. The flowers which are now in greatest demand are the rose, carnation, violet, and chrysanthemum.
Near every large city there are hundreds of florists with glass houses, some covering twenty acres or more. There were over 2000 acres of flower land under glass reported at the last census. ”

“ For the more important positions in the flower garden we have choice of many really sumptuous subjects, such as Stocks, Asters, Balsams, Drummond’s Phlox, Lobelias, the lovely new varieties of Antirrhinums, Dianthus, Portulacas, Zinnias, tall Stock-flowered Larkspurs, Nemesias, and many other flowers equally beautiful and lasting. We do not hope by these brief remarks to change the prevailing fashion—indeed, we have no particular wish that way—but we feel bound to observe that it is sufficient for the beauty of the garden that the greenhouse bedders should be confined to the parterre proper. ”

“ Corolla.—Of five broad petals. Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One, with five styles.
In many countries some of the most beautiful and noticeable flowers are commonly found in grain-fields. England’s scarlet poppies flood her farm-lands with glorious color in early summer; while the bluets lighten the corn-fields of France. Our grain-fields seem to have no native flower peculiar to them; but often we find a trespasser of foreign descent hiding among the wheat or straying to the roadsides in early summer, whose deep-tinted blossoms secure an instant welcome from the flower-lover if not from the farmer. ”

“ Thirty varieties are offered for sale, as various in form as they are in colour, and arranged most artistically on stands, while some are put up in packages decorated with what one may call a facsimile of the root, leaves, and flower, in water-colours. A lad usually lies on the mat behind executing these very creditable pictures—for such they are—with a few bold and apparently careless strokes with his brush. ”

“ But how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!
Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its storeroom underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. ”

“ He was at breakfast with several gentlemen, and told me to call again, which I will take into consideration. I must not forget that in crossing the city this morning I passed through the flower market, a beautiful exhibition to me at all times. This market is abundantly supplied twice a week with exotics and flowers of all sorts, which are sold at a cheap rate. ”

“ For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. ”

“ Remember, thirty cents pays for the Magazine for the remainder of this year (April to December inclusive) , and this entire magnificent Collection of Choice Flower Seeds (310 varieties) , put up by a first-class Seed House and warranted fresh and reliable. No matter how many flower seeds you have purchased for this season, you cannot afford to miss this wonderful offer. We guarantee every subscriber many times the value of money sent, and will refund your money and make you a present of the seeds if you are not entirely satisfied. This offer is reliable. ”

“ In the flower department one can find many kinds of beautiful blossoms, and at prices so cheap that it is almost a sin not to buy them. The traveller will find many flowers with which he is familiar mingled with new varieties whose appearance is no less beautiful because of their strangeness. He will find times and seasons much confused in the assortment of carnations, marigolds, sweet peas, poppies, gladioles, dahlias, roses, fuchsias, lilies and mignonettes which meet his astonished gaze. Then there are many beautiful orchids over which many people fairly rave. ”

“ And I have a fancy that when one comes upon a heap of stones in a corner, covered over with all varieties of tropealum, he takes more pleasure in them than if found just where one would look for them, in a flower-bed.
If I should lay down a rule, it would be that, in arable land, or in shrubbery and forest, no man should have to walk more than twenty paces to find a flower. If a lady should meet you on any acre on your farm, you ought to be able then and there to make up for her an acceptable bouquet. ”

“ The native market gardens sell Madras roses at the rate of thirteen young plants for the rupee. Mrs. Gore tells us that in London the most esteemed kinds of old roses are usually sold by nurserymen at fifty shillings a hundred the first French and other varieties seldom exceed half a guinea a piece.
[139] I may add to Mr. Speede's list of Roses the Banksian Rose. The flowers are yellow, in clusters, and scentless. Mrs. Gore says it was imported into England from the Calcutta Botanical Garden, it is called Wong moue heong. ”

“ A list of such plants will at once indicate that there is a field of enterprise for the practitioner of spring flower gardening; and while cheap and effective materials are thus brought into the service, there is no interference with the later summer bedding, because, if the annuals are well managed, they will give their plentiful bloom when the garden is most in need of colour, and may be cleared off in time to make way for the plants that are generally employed in the summer display and which are known as ‘bedding plants’ par excellence. ”

“ The Stock has been made the emblem of lasting beauty; because, though it is less graceful than the rose, and less majestic than the lily, its splendour is more durable, and its fragrance of longer continuance. Few flowering plants have been so much and so rapidly improved by cultivation as the Stock. Within the last two centuries, its nature has been almost entirely changed by the florist; and it is now a shrub whose branches are covered with blossoms little inferior in dimensions to the rose. ”

“ Prices are moderate in outdoor markets, and nothing else so stimulates in an entire community the gardening instinct, usually confined to a few individuals. The city authorities discovered that the flower market filled a long-felt want. ”

“ I succeeded in making them grow; they threw up their shoots each year, but never one single flower, until at last, disgusted, I condemned them, like so many other treasures brought from foreign climes, as unsuited to our cold grey skies. Late in May these irises will be in full bloom and forming a purple spur on the top of the thatched straw roofs of the farmhouses; they are generally planted in this way (hence their name) , and transform the roof ridge of many a peasant’s dwelling into the aspect of a flower garden. ”

“ The selling of roots, plants, and bouquets is quite remunerative in some places. Much depends on the knowledge and skill of the florist, the location of his gardens, and the fondness of the people in the community for flowers. It is a delightful business for a lady, if she has men to do the planting, digging, and other hard work. In Paris, there is a market devoted to the sale of flowers. In most of the markets of our large cities, are exposed for sale pot plants and bouquets, also shrubs and evergreens. ”