The specialist who devotes his thoughts and energies to raising one flower can produce better results than if he raised a variety.  He has only one crop to market, and can do it more successfully than with a number of crops.  If he raises enough to make himself a factor in the market, he can sell direct instead of sending his product to a commission man, thereby receiving better prices.

Little capital is required to start; intelligent effort is the road to success.  Very few, indeed, who are now leaders in floriculture, started with more than $500 capital, and many with much less.  One of the largest growers of roses in the United States, whose plant covers more than ten acres, did not have $500 when he started, and many others not so well known are making handsome livings and have accumulated thousands of dollars of property from a start of less than $500.

But practical knowledge is much more necessary than in raising vegetables, as small mistakes will have more serious results.  Therefore, if you have some capital and wish to go into flower raising, it will pay you, if circumstances permit, to hire out to a florist, even at small wages, till you have learned the business—­even though you have raised flowers successfully in a home garden.

Mr. Frank Hamilton, manager of C. W. Ward’s of Queens, tells of at least a dozen men, who have been in their employ during his twenty-five years’ experience, some of whom got only twenty dollars a month at first, and afterwards started in a small way for themselves, who are now making a substantial living.

Although the market depends largely on the wealthy class in the large cities, many florists devote considerable time and space to flowers which are bought by the poorer class of city dwellers who have no space or time to raise their own.

There are always good markets somewhere for the crop, and it is not an uncommon thing to ship flowers from New York to Chicago, Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, or vice versa.  The chances of success for a lover of flowers are better in this business than in any in which one with a like amount of capital can engage.  If the business at first is not large enough to use all his time he will find no trouble in securing employment in his immediate vicinity.  There are always some who want such a person to care for their lawns or to give some time to their conservatories.

In the last ten years the business has doubled, and while many have gone into it, the profit they are making indicates that supply has not kept pace with demand, and that it is not likely to be overdone the near future.

Professor B. T. Galloway, in an article in The World’s Work, says, “An acre of soil under glass pays fifty times as much as an acre outdoors.  There are annually sold in this country six to seven million dollars’ worth of carnation flowers There are no less than eight to ten million square feet of glass in the United States devoted to this flower alone.”