The street sale of seeds, I am informed, is smaller than it was thirty, or even twenty years back. One reason assigned for this falling off is the superior cheapness of “flowers in pots.” At one time, I was informed, the poorer classes who were fond of flowers liked to “grow their own mignonette.” I told one of my informants that I had been assured by a trustworthy man, that in one day he had sold 600 penny pots of mignonette: “Not a bit of doubt of it, sir,” was the answer, “not a doubt about it; I’ve heard of more than that sold in a day by a man who set on three hands to help him; and that’s just where it is. When a poor woman, or poor man either—but its mostly the women—can buy a mignonette pot, all blooming and smelling for 1d., why she won’t bother to buy seeds and set them in a box or a pot and wait for them to come into full blow. Selling seeds in the streets can’t be done so well now, sir. Anyhow it ain’t done as it was, as I’ve often heard old folk say.” The reason assigned for this is that cottages in many parts—such places as Lisson-grove, Islington, Hoxton, Hackney, or Stepney—where the inhabitants formerly cultivated flowers in their little gardens, are now let out in single apartments, and the gardens—or yards as they mostly are now—were used merely to hang clothes in. The only green thing which remained in some of these gardens, I was told, was horse-radish, a root which it is difficult to extirpate: “And it’s just the sort of thing,” said one man, “that poor people hasn’t no great call for, because they, you see, a’n’t not overdone with joints of roast beef, nor rump steaks.” In the suburbs where the small gardens are planted with flowers, the cultivators rarely buy seeds of the street-sellers, whose stands are mostly at a distance.
None of the street seed-vendors confine themselves to the sale. One man, whom I saw, told me that last spring he was penniless, after sickness, and a nurseryman, whom he knew, trusted him 5s. worth of seeds, which he continued to sell, trading in nothing else, for three or four weeks, until he was able to buy some flowers in pots. Though the profit is cent. per cent. on most kinds, 1s. 6d. a day is accounted “good earnings, on seeds.” On wet days there is no sale, and, indeed, the seeds cannot be exposed in the streets. My informant computed that he cleared 5s. a week. His customers were principally poor women, who liked to sow mignonette in boxes, or in a garden-border, “if it had ever such a little bit of sun,” and who resided, he believed, in small, quiet streets, branching off from the thoroughfares. Of flower-seeds, the street-sellers dispose most largely of mignonette, nasturtium, and the various stocks; and of herbs, the most is done in parsley. One of my informants, however, “did best in grass-seeds,” which people bought, he said, “to mend their grass-plots with,” sowing them in any bare place, and throwing soil loosely over them. Lupin, larkspur, convolvulus, and Venus’s looking-glass had a fair sale.
The street-trade, in seeds, would be less than it is, were it not that the dealers sell it in smaller quantities than the better class of shop-keepers. The street-traders buy their seeds by the quarter of a pound—or any quantity not considered retail—of the nurserymen, who often write the names for the costers on the paper in which the seed has to be inclosed. Seed that costs 4d., the street-seller makes into eight penny lots. “Why, yes, sir,” said one man, in answer to my inquiry, “people is often afraid that our seeds ain’t honest. If they’re not, they’re mixed, or they’re bad, before they come into our hands. I don’t think any of our chaps does anything with them.”
Fourteen or fifteen years ago, although seeds, generally, were fifteen to twenty per cent. dearer than they are now, there was twice the demand for them. An average price of good mignonette seed, he said, was now 1s. the quarter of a pound, and it was then 1s. 2d. to 1s. 6d. The shilling’s worth, is made, by the street-seller, into twenty or twenty-four pennyworths. An average price of parsley, and of the cheaper seeds, is less than half that of mignonette. Other seeds, again, are not sold to the street-people by the weight, but are made up in sixpenny and shilling packages. Their extreme lightness prevents their being weighed to a customer. Of this class are, the African marigold, the senecios (groundsel), and the china-aster; but of these compound flowers, the street-traders sell very few. Poppy-seed used to be in great demand among the street-buyers, but it has ceased to be so. “It’s a fine hardy plant, too, sir,” I was told, “but somehow, for all its variety in colours, it’s gone out of fashion, for fashion runs strong in flowers.”
One long-established street-seller, who is well known to supply the best seeds, makes for the five weeks or so of the season more than twice the weekly average of 5s.; perhaps 12s.; but as he is a shop as well as a stall-keeper, he could not speak very precisely as to the proportionate sale in the street or the shop. This man laughed at the fondness some of his customers manifested for “fine Latin names.” “There are some people,” he said, “who will buy antirrhinum, and artemisia, and digitalis, and wouldn’t hear of snapdragon, or wormwood, or foxglove, though they’re the identical plants.” The same informant told me that the railways in their approaches to the metropolis had destroyed many small gardens, and had, he thought, injured his trade. It was, also, a common thing now for the greengrocers and corn-chandlers to sell garden-seeds, which until these six or eight years they did much less extensively.
Last spring, I was told, there were not more than four persons, in London, selling only seeds. The “root-sellers,” of whom I have treated, generally deal in seeds also, but the demand does not extend beyond four or five weeks in the spring, though there was “a straggling trade that way” two or three weeks longer. It was computed for me, that there were fully one hundred persons selling seeds (with other things) in the streets, and that each might average a profit of 5s. weekly, for a month; giving 200l. expended in seeds, with 100l. profit to the costers. Seeds are rarely hawked as flowers are.
It is impossible to give as minutely detailed an account of the street-sale of seeds as of flowers, as from their diversity in size, weight, quantity in a pennyworth, &c., no calculation can be prepared by weight or measure, only by value. Thus, I find it necessary to depart somewhat from the order hitherto observed. One seedsman, acquainted with the street-trade from his dealings with the vendors, was of opinion that the following list and proportions were as nice an approximation as could be arrived at. It was found necessary to give it in proportions of twenty-fifths; but it must be borne in mind that the quantity in 3/25ths of parsley, for example, is more than double that of 3/25ths of mignonette. I give, in unison, seeds of about equal sale, whether of the same botanical family or not. Many of the most popular flowers, such as polyanthuses, daisies, violets, and primroses, are not raised from seed, except in the nursery gardens:—
| Seeds. | Twenty-fifths. | Value. |
|---|---|---|
| Mignonette | Three | £24 |
| Stocks (of all kinds) | Two | 16 |
| Marigolds (do.) | One | 8 |
| Convolvulus (do.) | „ | 8 |
| Wallflower | „ | 8 |
| Scarlet-beans and Sweet-peas | „ | 8 |
| China-asters and Venus’ looking-glass | „ | 8 |
| Lupin and Larkspur | „ | 8 |
| Nasturtium | „ | 8 |
| Parsley | Two | 16 |
| Other Pot-herbs | One | 8 |
| Mustard and Cress, Lettuce, and the other vegetables | Two | 16 |
| Grass | One | 8 |
| Other seeds | Seven | 56 |
| Total expended annually on street-seeds | £200 | |
Of Christmasing—Laurel, Ivy, Holly, and Mistletoe.
In London a large trade is carried on in “Christmasing,” or in the sale of holly and mistletoe, for Christmas sports and decorations. I have appended a table of the quantity of these “branches” sold, nearly 250,000, and of the money expended upon them in the streets. It must be borne in mind, to account for this expenditure for a brief season, that almost every housekeeper will expend something in “Christmasing;” from 2d. to 1s. 6d., and the poor buy a pennyworth, or a halfpennyworth each, and they are the coster’s customers. In some houses, which are let off in rooms, floors, or suites of apartments, and not to the poorest class, every room will have the cheery decoration of holly, its bright, and as if glazed leaves and red berries, reflecting the light from fire or candle. “Then, look,” said a gardener to me, “what’s spent on a Christmasing the churches! Why, now, properly to Christmas St. Paul’s, I say properly, mind, would take 50l. worth at least; aye, more, when I think of it, nearer 100l. I hope there’ll be no ‘No Popery’ nonsense against Christmasing this year. I’m always sorry when anything of that kind’s afloat, because it’s frequently a hindrance to business.” This was said three weeks before Christmas. In London there are upwards of 300,000 inhabited houses. The whole of the evergreen branches sold number 375,000.