e 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."

Although Mr. Rockefeller's place at Tarrytown is the largest
competitor in the New York market for violets, there is no local
monopoly in that, and the local producer with personal attention can
do well.

In the _Country Gentleman_ an account is given of a violet farm on
the north shore of Illinois, where two women are supplying local
florists.. One of them says: "We started our farm last spring in the
face of most discouraging prophecies from our friends and the
keenest competition of violet growers of New York. But we believed
we could be successful. We had studied the best scientific methods
of growing the plants, had imported the best soil obtainable, and
built a greenhouse fully adapted to our needs, so we just went ahead
and we found it to be a paying proposition.

"Our first experiment was in using cuttings from the violet farm of
a lady at Lansing, Michigan, who has been a most successful grower.
These did not thrive, and we next imported 3000 cuttings from the
Tarrytown neighborhood, where violet culture has been most
successful.

"The first rule is to keep the temperature of the greenhouse between
forty-five and fifty degrees. Violets are spring flowers, and wither
and droop if the temperature is not at the right degree. Most people
think the double violets have no fragrance because most of those
that we get lose their fragrance in transit.

"We supply 2000 flowers a week, and as they reach our patrons within
two or three hours at the most from the time of cutting, they retain
their fragrance. They are also larger and of a deeper color than the
New