The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-04-30
FLOWERS BRING MONEY.
tsERE IS AN INDUSTRY WORTH WHILE
FOR WOMEN TO PURSUE.

A Young Washington Woman Tells About
Her Success In Cultivating Roses and
Violets-They Require Little Labor
and Bring Large Returns.
']Flower culture in small way can be
made to pay even by an amateur who
chooses to pursue it in painstaking and
Intelligent way" said young woman.
''Five years ago 1 bought little farm
near Anacostia, called it Rose Acres,
and started in merely for amusement's j
sake with few rose bushes and some
other plants. 1 love flowers dearly. and
the labor expended upon them was well
repaid by the pleasure of it. but after a
while 1 found that it would produce
money also. So 1 planted more and
more, until at present l have between
three and four Thousand rose bushes of
the choicest varieties. A skilled gar
dener told me the other day that my col
lection of hybrid perpetuals is probably
the finest in this country. On the day
before Decoration Day picked and sold
5000 roses from my own place.
II am extravagantly fond of roses,
but yiolets are more profitable. On the
day before Christmas 1 picked and sold
5000 violets at two cents apiece; that is
$64 worth. They were worth the high
est price then, but they never bring less
than one cent apiece. To raise them is
quite easy. 1 have 800 glass sashes un-
der which the violets bloom all winter
long. In May l have lot of fresh
ground plowed and prepared, and in it
plant all my violets, taken from beneath
the sashes for the purpose. Then 1 sim
ply take up the sashes and cover the
newly planted violets with them and
the work is DONE In October they be-
gin to bloom, and continue all through
the winter, SO that can pick them every
day and send the flowers to market
ALWAYS A MARKET.
ALI of my violet plants come from one
little pot that l bought at the Center
market five years ago. They are made
to multiply by dividing the roots, so
that a single plant taken up in the spring
viii supply a score or more. I sell my
flowers by sending them to the florists
in Washington or very often in New
York. Prices are higher in New York
30 that it usually pays to express
them on.
''There is always market for flowers
and there is never any difficulty in dis
posing of them. Any florist is glad to
buy them ii they are good ones and in
prime condition. Those which 1 send
to New York are delivered early the
next morning. l expressed some thith-
er originally on speculation and 1 got
immediate replies praising their quality
and asking for more. The violets must
be picked always in the afternoon, be-
cause otherwise they lose their perfume.
Then they must be brought into town
m the evening for shipment.
my greatest success is with sweet
Pease, which most people do not get
along very well with in this latitude
get the very finest possible seed to begin
with. From June to August l pick
very nearly 1000 sweet pea blossoms
daily, and they sell for fifty cents hun
dred, SO that they are really the most
profitable of my flowers. They require
but little care. plant the seeds in the
spring in open ground, about four inches
deep, and as the plants grow the earth is
kept hilled up around them. Then posts
are stuck in along the rows with strings
arranged so thGt the vines are trained
upon them. had one-sixteenth of an
acre set out with sweet pease, and it
brought in u clear 5000 from the sale Of
the blooms
GROWING DAHLIAS.
Another flower am very successful
with is the single dahlia, which is very
much handsomer than the double
dahlia, you know. l plant the bulbs,
which / propagate myself, the last of
May, and the plants begin to flower
about the last of August, keeping on
until frost. L manage to keep them go
ing for some time later than would
otherwise be possible by lighting fires
on cold nights at the ends of the rows.
In this way get them over the first
frosty spell, after which there is usually
\ season of quite warm weather, so that
frequently my dahlias are blooming
beautifully up to the end of November
try to make the flowers grow alter
nate, so that when one sort stops bloom
ing another begins. Ny violets are
Towering from the last of September to
the end of April; then come the roses
through the summer, and the sweet pease.
with dahlias in the fall and violets again
until spring. You can perceive that my
way of growing flowers does not make
necessary any large investment in green
houses or otherwise. Of course there are
some expenses. l have two men to
help me, though one of them 1 should
have to keep anyway for other purposes.
There is great deal in the proper pack
ing of flowers for market.
For example, violets must be placed
in lunches in pasteboard boxes, with
waxed paper folded loosely around them.
They must not be touched with water,
because to do so will take away their
sweetness. 1 consider my own flower
growing enterprise as only begun thus
far; some day hope to become mill
ionaire by selling violets and sweet pease.
At all events there is money in the bust
ness, properly pursued, and more women