=Button-holes.=--Ladies do not need to be told that the button-holes in fine dresses are made by hand. This kind of work has become a separate business, although there are some seamstresses who combine the making of button-holes with their regular sewing. Dress-makers who employ twenty-five or thirty needlewomen usually keep one button-hole maker, paying her from $9 to $12 a week; very few pay the latter price. Some women who work at this trade prefer to be paid by the piece. In this case they are paid at the rate of two cents and a half per button-hole. A good worker can make fifty button-holes in a day, and earn $1.25. It would be a very smart woman who could make eighty, and earn $2 a day. One trouble about working by the piece is that the woman very often has to wait until the work is got ready for her. As she is obliged to attend on several customers during the day she often suffers from this loss of time, sometimes losing a customer through the failure to keep an appointment, or being obliged to do a part of her work at night.
The button-holes in white vests are done by hand. The pay is one cent a button-hole, and a woman can make $1 or $1.25 a day. The work is always done during the winter months, there is plenty of it to do, and never any time lost in waiting.
=Florists.=--There are eight or ten ladies in New York and Brooklyn who have charge of floral establishments. Most of them assist their husbands; some are widows who have inherited the business. There is one lady in Brooklyn who has built up a good business solely through her own efforts. This is a very good occupation for women who love flowers, who have good taste, an eye for color and the necessary executive ability to carry on a business by themselves. Most of the florists in New York and Brooklyn get their plants and flowers at wholesale from nurseries on the outskirts, purchasing such stock as they may require from time to time. Land is so valuable in the city that florists have long since been compelled to give up the cultivation of flowers; besides, the streets in the central and business parts are so built up, both in New York and Brooklyn, that the ground cannot be obtained at any price. Now, they have small stores where they make a display of "samples" of the different varieties of flowers.