The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1901-03-28
DAY ON 4 VIOLET FARM.
At Home With the Flowers II Theil
Glass Houses.
GROWING 1900, 900 A YEAH.

| GROWING 100000 A YEAR
Philadelphia Record.
To be farmer OF violets is poetical
Desire Corbin, a native OF France, ha
a violet farm at Overlook. Twt
acres of ground, covered with glass
burst into thick, sweet purple bloom
there every day. and every day Desire
Corbin and his large family-a tall ani
beautiful woman with gray hair, foul
robust and graceful girls in bodices rec
and white, three strong young mer
with derby hats little dented, and {
lock Of rosy children-go over the two
acres and pluck some $4,000 violets.
Heaped in baskets loosely they bea1
hese to the farm house, and they throw
them, in an lndescribabIe opulence o
color and OF perfume, on long and
aarrow wooden tsbls. Then they sit
them down, some dozen persons, and ir
an air sweet with the violets' odor they
make the delicate flowers into bou
quets, popular In these days of Lent
Working, they converse, in French
The walls of their workroom are hung
with pictures. Their low and pleasant
laughter, their spirited ordinations
are part of conversation always going
on over the soft, sweet, purple heaps OF
violets, conversation brilliant and
wise, literary and artistic converse
ton.
SIX MILLION vIoLETs A YEAR.
Desire Corbin has been growing VIC
let's over Is years. He sells them in
Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and
eyen Chicago, for his violets will keep
over a week after they have been
plucked. They are, most of them,
California and La France violets, but
he raises some few OF the Marie Louise
and the White Tar sorts. Mr.. Corbin
puts out some 6,OOO,O 600 vioIets year.
In % long, low, narrow houses of
Garth and glass Desire Corbin's violets
grow-houses 12O feet in length, 10
feet in width, feet In height. In
each of these houses 1000 square feet
OF space is planted with violets in two
long strips, with narrow path down
the middle. Daily this rich soil studs
itself with purple violets. One house
grows about 5000 flowers daily. It
takes about an hour to pick one house.
IN THE PLANT HOUSE.
In all the houses there are stoves,
though it is rarely necessary to light
fires in them. The houses are shelter
ed from the winds, and the sunlight
that they face, entering through glass,
keeps them wonderfully warm. At
night, after sunset. they do not chill
off, because they have walls OF thick
earth, which, having gotten warm dur
ing the day, retain their heat at night
as no other kind of walls will do.
Each violet plant, with its leaves
and flowers, takes up about six square
inches of space. Each plant blooms
from October l to April Is. Then it
begins to spread to throw out runners,
ard it is taken up and set in good soil
Outofdoors, while Its runners are cut
off and new plants made of them.
Out-of-doors, while the plant is not
Towering, it needs no attention other
than little watering every few days if
the weather he dry, and indoors, during
the long bearing season \ watering
twice or thrice week is all the plant
requires. The houses are kept at a
temperature of about 80 degrees, aud
the sashes are raised often to give a
good ventilation.
BLOSSOMS AT FIVE CENTS APIECE.
Violets, at the Christmas season, sell
at wholesale for cent apiece, and he
WHO buys them from the fashionable
florist then thinks nothing of paying
five cents apiece for them. A bunch
OF SO vlclets IS about q inches in di-
ameter, ore of 100. 5 inches; one Of
200, 10 inches, and $3.50, SIS and $40
do not seem exolb;tant prices for
bnnches Of such size at Christmas.
Desire Corhin says there is no longer
any money in violet growing. It is
because the business las become too
much cut-up, because everybody with
enough capital to get few eashes has
gone into it. It used to be that vio-
lets, the year through, would sell for