The scale of the flower industry becomes almost fantastic, and
there is a very fair export trade in seed, though our climate (always excepting one little dry, sunny district round about Coggeshall in Essex) is not particularly suitable for seed-growing. The flowers themselves character the trouble spent on them. Take that typically florist's flower, the begonia, on which one firm has specialised for many years. The immense blooms of the cleanest shades of pink may be mistaken for roses ; and the astounding development is due to almost extravagant energy in hybridization. This year in the one nursery garden alone are growing 250,000 begonia seedlings—produced, for the most part, not for sale but for the sake of discovering in their multitude one or two varieties that may to a practised eye indicate some slight advance in size, habit or purity of tint.
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