Profiting from seeds

It is surprising how many seeds you can sell in your own neighbourhood. The florists in your city may be interested in handling some of your home-grown seeds. They often have calls for Saintpaulias and prefer not to stock them in large quantities. If there is a seed house in or near your city, it is another potential outlet. Special mixtures such as "best of the single pink varieties" or mixed doubles; mixed girl types; or mixed whites, are a natural for advertising in specialized house-plant publications since they are very popular with fanciers.

Look through the garden magazines and newspaper garden sections for names of large seed houses; write these concerns and offer your seeds for sale. Small houses may like to buy them by the thousand; larger dealers take them in ounce or fraction-ounce quantities. In retailing the seeds, a fair price for mixed collections of seeds from various types of plants is $1.00 per 200 seeds. For specials such as seeds from double pinks or all whites you can easily get about $1.00 per 100.

Prices to seed houses will vary with the size of the company. If a house will take only a few hundred, you will have to sell them at about half the price you get retail. When you sell by the ounce, you will be able to realize $300.00 to $350.00 per ounce for average seed mixtures. For mixtures from the newest varieties including doubles, pinks, whites, and those of unusual foliage, you can command up to $750.00 per ounce. Add a few granules of silica gel (extremely absorbent material which you can obtain at the druggist's) to keep packets of "shelled" seeds dry.

How to Pack and Ship
Rooted or un rooted leaves are easily shipped. First inquire from your state Department of Agriculture whether or not you must have inspection. Not many states require inspection for greenhouse-grown material provided it is for a domestic destination. A few states, where Japanese beetle is prevalent, do require it, and to ship into Canada it is necessary to have inspection in all states.

Before shipping the leaves, write the name of the variety on a slip of paper; fasten it to the top of the leaf with a metal tab clip. Wrap the end of the petiole in a square inch of moist cotton secured by a covering of aluminium foil. Place the tagged and cotton-wrapped leaf in cellophane or a small plastic bag. Protected this way, leaves arrive in prime condition.

Some growers still employ the old-fashioned method of shipping leaves with the petiole ends wrapped in sphagnum moss and the whole leaf then wrapped in newspaper. If the shipment is not too long on the road this is good enough; but if it is a case of several days' transit during hot weather the leaf becomes so dry it will fail to root.

You Can Start Small
Most of the large African violet specialists made their first profits from a small greenhouse, going on to build more and perhaps larger houses. Where they are now, you also can be one day in the not-too-distant future if you decide to make a full-time business out of a greenhouse African violet operation.

A Few Success Stories
Mr. and Mrs. E. P. Dingman of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, describe their prefab 13- by 20-foot greenhouse as "a hobby house which we can truthfully say operates profitably —both financially and aesthetically." After his retirement from the navy, they bought a greenhouse and a year later, added a potting shed, 13 by 14 feet; then fluorescent lights in under-bench areas, thereby doubling capacity.

As their stock increased, spurred by favorable word-of-mouth advertising, buyers began visiting them. In addition to African violets, gloxinias, and other gesneriads, the Dingmans now sell annuals and perennials profitably.

African Violets Increase a Small Inheritance
When the Claybornes of St. Petersburg, Virginia, came into a small inheritance, Mr. Clayborne bought used material and built a greenhouse for African violets some of which had captured ten ribbons at the Richmond Flower Show. "Stop at the African Violet Hobby House," their sign invites. Since Mrs. Clayborne works as a nurse, she has limited time for sales just enough to meet expenses. Currently she is taking a florist course and has a standing sale of a few arrangements a week, proceeds from which go to the purchase of more African violet stock. It is the Claybornes' aim to make their business profitable enough to support them upon their retirement.