A favorite flower with many is the sweet pea, which can be grown out of doors in the summer time where you have a good depth and quality of soil.

I have seen May blossoms and autumn leaves on the branch and even goldenrod brought into town and sold at good prices.

Enterprises often look attractive at a distance; for instance, raising orchids, especially as some of the flowers remain on the plants ready for market for weeks and bring high prices.  But to ship flowers at a profit they must be in quantities, else the expenses eat up the returns, and they must be shipped with considerable regularity, else you lose your customers.  To get such a supply of orchids would take a very large capital and involve so much labor that it is doubtful if more than good interest could be realized on it.

Many florists make money by keeping constantly on hand ferns, palms, and other plants like rubber trees, which they rent out for social functions, weddings, and other occasions.  Most florists in the larger cities have also quite a thriving business in tree planting, which is everywhere on the increase.  A highly specialized department of horticulture is that of raising young trees and plants to sell for improving grounds, planting orchards, or similar uses.  The nursery business bears much the same relation to the commercial florist or orchardist as seed growing does to the market gardener.

Certain communities, through favorable soil or climate, are best adapted to the production of nursery stock.  Consequently, one finds this industry most highly developed in scattered localities.  It is true that people with small capital should not tackle a business so technical as this.

The business of bulb production is another highly specialized department.  In certain sections of Holland large areas of the rich lowlands are given over to bulbs of various kinds of lilies, nearly all of which are propagated in that manner.  To attain perfection, at least in the North, most bulbs require deep, rich, warm, and highly manured soils; and assiduous attention at every stage.  In many plant specialties, the gardeners of Europe still far surpass our own, because conditions there have forced them to make use of every available means to increase production.  The immense price that European gardeners have to pay for land has been a most potent factor in forcing them to seek out and apply the most ingenious forcing methods.  The time is upon us here in America also when we must find out the highest use of land and apply it to that use.

As the aesthetic qualities of our people become more highly developed, the business of raising flowers must become of increasing importance, and will readily reward any one who goes into it conscientiously.  Flower growing is peculiarly adapted to women, since the work is light There are few disagreeable features, unless it be the handling of the manure incidental to the best results.