Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-31
EARNING MONEY WITH FLOWERS.
Here 10 an Industry Worth While for
Women to Pursue. r

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Here 10 an Industry Worth While for
Women to Pursue.
Slower culture in a mall way can be made
to pay even by an amateur h chooses to pur-
sue it in q painstaking and intelligent way"
said a young woman to a writer for THE STAR.
'Five years ago I bought a little farm near
Anacostia. called it Rose Acres and started in
merely for amusement's sake with o 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
q while 1 found that it would produce money
also. So 1 planted more and more, until at
present 1 have between three and four thou
sand rose bushes Of the choicest varieties. A
skilled gardener told me the other day that my
finest in this country. On the day before last
Decoration day I picked and sold 5000 roses
from my own place.
II am e~xtravagantly fond of roses, but violets
are more profitable. On the day before Christ
mas / picked and sold Z. 200 violets at 2 cents
apiece; that ia, S64 worth. They were worth
the highest price then, but they never bring
less than l cent apiece. To raise them is quite
easy. / have 800 glass sashes under which the
violets bloom all winter long. In May I have a
lot of fresh ground plowed and prepared, and
in it I plant all my ~violets, taken from beneath
the sashes for the purpose. Then I simply take
up the sashes and cover the newly planted vio-
lets with them and the work is done. In Octo-
Der they begin to bloom and continue all
through the winter, so that l can pick them
every day and send the flowers to market. All
OF my violet plants come from one little pot
that I 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 win supply a score or more. 1 sell my
flowers by sending them to the florists in Wash
ington or very often in New York. Prices are
higher in New York, so that it usually pays to
express them on.
there is never any difficulty in disposing OF
them. Any florist is glad to buy them if they
are good ones and in prime condition. Those
which / send to New York are delivered early
the next morning. / expressed some thither
originally on speculation and / got immediate
replies p~reising their quality and asking for
more. The violets must be picked always in
the afternoon, because otherwise they lose
their perfume. Then they must be brought
into town in 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 bios
SONS daily and they sell for so cents q Hundred,
50 that they are really the most profitable Of
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
them. Last year l had one-sixteenth Of an
mere set out with sweet pease and it brought in
a clear S2Os from the sale Of the blooms.
another flower I am very successful with ID
the single dahlia, which is very much hand.
somer than the double dahlia, you know.
plant the bulbs, which I propagate myself. the
last Of May, and the plants begin to flower
about the last Of August, keeping on until