University of Virginia Library

OF THE STREET SALE OF FLOWERS IN
POTS, ROOTS, ETC.

The "flower-root sellers" — for I heard them
so called to distinguish them from the sellers of
"cut flowers" — are among the best-mannered
and the best-dressed of all the street-sellers I
have met with, but that only as regards a por-
tion of them. Their superiority in this respect
may perhaps be in some measure attributable
to their dealing with a better class of customers
— with persons who, whether poor or rich, exer-
cise healthful tastes.

I may mention, that I found the street-sellers
of "roots" — always meaning thereby flower-
roots in bloom — more attached to their trade
than others of their class.

The roots, sold in the streets, are bought in
the markets and at the nursery-gardens; but
about three-fourths of those required by the
better class of street-dealers are bought at the
gardens, as are "cut flowers" occasionally.
Hackney is the suburb most resorted to by the
root-sellers. The best "pitches" for the sale
of roots in the street are situated in the New-
road, the City-road, the Hampstead-road, the
Edgeware-road, and places of similar character,
where there is a constant stream of passers
along, who are not too much immersed in
business. Above three-fourths of the sale is
effected by itinerant costermongers. For this
there is one manifest reason: a flower-pot, with
the delicate petals of its full-blown moss-rose,
perhaps, suffers even from the trifling concus-
sion in the journey of an omnibus, for instance.
To carry a heavy flower-pot, even any short
distance, cannot be expected, and to take a cab
for its conveyance adds greatly to the expense.
Hence, flower-roots are generally purchased at
the door of the buyer.

For the flowers of commoner or easier culture,
the root-seller receives from 1d. to 3d. These
are primroses, polyanthuses, cowslips (but in
small quantities comparatively), daisies (single
and double, — and single or wild, daisies were
coming to be more asked for, each 1d.), small
early wallflowers, candy-tufts, southernwood
(called "lad's love" or "old man" by some),
and daffodils, (but daffodils were sometimes
dearer than 3d.). The plants that may be said
to struggle against frost and snow in a hard
season, such as the snowdrop, the crocus, and
the mezereon, are rarely sold by the costers;
"They come too soon," I was told. The prim-

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roses, and the other plants I have enumerated,
are sold, for the most part, not in pots, but with
soil attached to the roots, so that they may be
planted in a garden (as they most frequently
are) or in a pot.

Towards the close of May, in an early season,
and in the two following months, the root-trade
is at its height. Many of the stalls and barrows
are then exceedingly beautiful, the barrow often
resembling a moving garden. The stall-keepers
have sometimes their flowers placed on a series
of shelves, one above another, so as to present
a small amphitheatre of beautiful and diversi-
fied hues; the purest white, as in the lily of the
valley, to the deepest crimson, as in the fuschia;
the bright or rust-blotted yellow of the wall-
flower, to the many hues of the stock. Then
there are the pinks and carnations, double and
single, with the rich-coloured and heavily
scented "clove-pinks;" roses, mignonette, the
velvetty pansies (or heart's-ease), the white and
orange lilies, calceolarias, balsams (a flower
going out of fashion), geraniums (flowers com-
ing again into fashion), musk-plants, London
pride (and other saxifrages; the species known,
oddly enough, as London pride being a native
of wild and mountainous districts, such as
botanists call "Alpine habitats,") and the many
coloured lupins. Later again come the China-
asters, the African marigolds, the dahlias, the
poppies, and the common and very aromatic
marigold. Later still there are the Michaelimas
daisies — the growth of the "All-Hallow'n sum-
mer," to which Falstaff was compared.

There is a class of "roots" in which the
street-sellers, on account of their general dear-
ness, deal so sparingly, that I cannot class
them as a part of the business. Among these
are anemones, hyacinths, tulips, ranuncu-
luses, and the orchidaceous tribe. Neither do
the street people meddle, unless very excep-
tionally, with the taller and statelier plants,
such as foxgloves, hollyoaks, and sunflowers;
these are too difficult of carriage for their pur-
pose. Nor do they sell, unless again as an ex-
ception, such flowers as require support — the
convolvolus and the sweet-pea, for instance.

The plants I have specified vary in price.
Geraniums are sold at from 3d. to 5s.; pinks at
from 3d. for the common pink, to 2s. for the
best single clove, and 4s. for the best double;
stocks, as they are small and single, to their
being large and double, from 3d. (and some-
times less) to 2s.; dahlias from 6d. to 5s.; fuschias, from 6d. to 4s.; rose-bushes from 3d. to 1s. 6d., and sometimes, but not often, much
higher; musk-plants, London pride, lupins, &c.,
are 1d. and 2d., pots generally included.

To carry on his business efficiently, the root-
seller mostly keeps a pony and a cart, to convey
his purchases from the garden to his stall or his
barrow, and he must have a sheltered and cool
shed in which to deposit the flowers which are
to be kept over-night for the morrow's business.
"It's a great bother, sir," said a root-seller,
"a man having to provide a shed for his roots.
It wouldn't do at all to have them in the same
room as we sleep in — they'd droop. I have a
beautiful big shed, and a snug stall for a donkey
in a corner of it; but he won't bear tying up —
he'll fight against tying all night, and if he was
loose, why in course he'd eat the flowers I put
in the shed. The price is nothing to him; he'd
eat the Queen's camellias, if he could get at
them, if they cost a pound a-piece. So I have
a deal of trouble, for I must block him up
somehow; but he's a first-rate ass." To carry
on a considerable business, the services of a
man and his wife are generally required, as well
as those of a boy.

The purchases wholesale are generally by the
dozen roots, all ready for sale in pots. Migno-
nette, however, is grown in boxes, and sold by
the box at from 5s. to 20s., according to the size,
&c. The costermonger buys, for the large sale
to the poor, at a rate which brings the migno-
nette roots into his possession at something less,
perhaps, than a halfpenny each. He then pur-
chases a gross of small common pots, costing
him 1½d. a dozen, and has to transfer the roots
and soil to the pots, and then offer them for sale.
The profit thus is about 4s. per hundred, but
with the drawback of considerable labour and
some cost in the conveyance of the boxes. The
same method is sometimes pursued with young
stocks.

The cheapness of pots, I may mention inci-
dentally, and the more frequent sale of roots
in them, has almost entirely swept away the
fragment of a pitcher and "the spoutless tea-
pot," which Cowper mentions as containing the
poor man's flowers, that testified an inextin-
guishable love of rural objects, even in the heart
of a city. There are a few such things, how-
ever, to be seen still.

Of root-sellers there are, for six months of
the year, about 500 in London. Of these, one-
fifth devote themselves principally, but none
entirely, to the sale of roots; two-fifths sell
roots regularly, but only as a portion, and
not a larger portion of their business; and the
remaining two-fifths are casual dealers in
roots, buying them — almost always in the
markets — whenever a bargain offers. Seven-
eighths of the root-sellers are, I am informed,
regular costers, occasionally a gardener's assist-
ant has taken to the street trade in flowers,
"but I fancy, sir," said an experienced man
to me, "they've very seldom done any good
at it. They're always gardening at their
roots, trimming them, and such like, and they
overdo it. They're too careful of their plants;
people like to trim them theirselves."

"I did well on fuschias last season," said
one of my informants; "I sold them from
6d. to 1s. 6d. The `Globes' went off well.
Geraniums was very fair. The `Fairy Queens'
of them sold faster than any, I think. It's
the ladies out of town a little way, and a
few in town, that buy them, and buy the
fuschias too. They require a good window.
The `Jenny Linds' — they was geraniums and

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other plants — didn't sell so well as the Fairy
Queens, though they was cheaper. Good cloves
(pinks) sell to the better sort of houses; so do
carnations. Mignonette's everybody's money.
Dahlias didn't go off so well. I had very tidy
dahlias at 6d. and 1s., and some 1s. 6d. I do a
goodish bit in giving flowers for old clothes. I
very seldom do it, but to ladies. I deal mostly
with them for their husbands' old hats, or boots,
or shoes; yes, sir, and their trowsers and waist-
coats sometimes — very seldom their coats — and
ladies boots and shoes too. There's one pleasant
old lady, and her two daughters, they'll talk me
over any day. I very seldom indeed trade for
ladies' clothes. I have, though. Mostly for
something in the shawl way, or wraps of some
kind. Why, that lady I was telling you of and
her daughters, got me to take togs that didn't
bring the prime cost of my roots and expenses.
They called them by such fine names, that I
was had. Then they was so polite; `O, my
good man,' says one of the young daughters, `I
must have this geranium in 'change.' It was a
most big and beautiful Fairy Queen, well worth
4s. The tog — I didn't know what they called
it — a sort of cloak, fetched short of half-a-crown,
and that just with cheaper togs. Some days, if
it's very hot, and the stall business isn't good in
very hot weather, my wife goes a round with me,
and does considerable in swopping with ladies.
They can't do her as they can me. The same
on wet days, if it's not very wet, when I has my
roots covered in the cart. Ladies is mostly at
home such times, and perhaps they're dull, and
likes to go to work at a bargaining. My wife
manages them. In good weeks, I can clear 3l. in my trade; the two of us can, anyhow. But
then there's bad weather, and there's sometimes
roots spoiled if they're not cheap, and don't go
off — but I'll sell one that cost me 1s. for 2d. to
get rid of it; and there's always the expenses to
meet, and the pony to keep, and everything that
way. No, sir, I don't make 2l. a week for the
five months — its nearer five than six — the season
lasts; perhaps something near it. The rest of the
year I sell fruit, or anything, and may clear 10s. or 15s. a week, but, some weeks, next to nothing,
and the expenses all going on.

"Why, no, sir; I can't say that times is what
they was. Where I made 4l. on my roots five or
six years back, I make only 3l. now. But it's no
use complaining; there's lots worse off than I
am — lots. I've given pennies and twopences to
plenty that's seen better days in the streets; it
might be their own fault. It is so mostly, but
perhaps only partly. I keep a connection toge-
ther as well as I can. I have a stall; my wife's
there generally, and I go a round as well."

One of the principal root-sellers in the streets
told me that he not unfrequently sold ten dozen
a day, over and above those sold not in pots. As
my informant had a superior trade, his business
is not to be taken as an average; but, reckoning
that he averages six dozen a day for 20 weeks —
he said 26 — it shows that one man alone sells
8,640 flowers in pots in the season. The prin-
cipal sellers carry on about the same extent of
business.

According to similar returns, the number of
the several kinds of flowers in pots and flower
roots sold annually in the London streets, are
as follows:

FLOWERS IN POTS.

         

Moss-roses	38,880
China-roses	38,880
Fuschias	38,800
Geraniums	12,800
Total number of flowers in pots sold in the streets.	123,360

FLOWER-ROOTS.

                                                     

Primroses	24,000
Polyanthuses	34,560
Cowslips	28,800
Daisies	33,600
Wallflowers	46,080
Candytufts	28,800
Daffodils	28,800
Violets	38,400
Mignonette	30,384
Stocks	23,040
Pinks and Carnations	19,200
Lilies of the Valley	3,456
Pansies	12,960
Lilies	660
Tulips	852
Balsams	7,704
Calceolarias	3,180
Musk Plants	253,440
London Pride	11,520
Lupins	25,596
China-asters	9,156
Marigolds	63,360
Dahlias	852
Heliotrope	13,356
Poppies	1,920
Michaelmas Daisies	6,912
Total number of flower- roots sold in the streets	750,588