FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 87 



ino- it with a capital A. There may have been instances of genuises 

 whose work has been the result of swift and sure intuition, but none of 

 them is practicing in landscape or any other branch of design today. 

 Thomas Edison says: ^'Genuis is nothing but drudgery." So the good 

 landscape gardener b}^ hard work must gain an attitude toward his work 

 which will direct him. This attitude is acquired by deep study and a 

 knowledge of the several allied branches. 



In every other art there are certain established rules or general princi- 

 ples to w^hich one may appeal to support ones' views, but in landscape 

 gardening every one delivers his sentiments or displays his taste with- 

 out having studied the subject or even thought that it was capable of 

 being governed by rules. In a way every landscape proposition that 

 arises is a problem in itself, and yet all successful landscape schemes 

 have obeyed the general laws of design. 



Whatever the problem in hand, and whatever the medium to be em- 

 ployed, the primary requisite of good landscape' designing is fitness 

 for the function which it is to perform. 



When these ideals of landscape gardening are properly considered in 

 the improvement of our home grounds, each property owner will ac- 

 complish his share in making a more beautiful Michigan. 



BUD SELECTION. 



BY F. M. BIRD. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlem.en : Scientific breeding operations 

 have long been used in dairy production, in which the "robber" or 

 "boarder" cow has been eliminated ; it has also been used to great profit 

 in the selection of the best strains of grain, sugar beets, tobacco, etc., 

 and It is an astonishing fact in face of the progress made in other 

 lines of agriculture that the idea of growing better fruit through the 

 selection of buds had not been thought of before. 



A few years ago an orange-grower of California in setting some 

 stocks that he had received from a nurseryman of that state, found that 

 when his trees came into bearing, some of them Avere much more pro- 

 ductive than others, and. that the fruit was large and had the hitherto 

 unheard of advantage of being seedless. As he was realizing nearly as 

 much from these few trees in dollars and cents as from the rest of his 

 orchard he wanted a whole grove like them. So he selected buds from 

 them which were grafted on stocks, and as a result he obtained a large 

 orchard of this productive type of seedless oranges. 



Naturally the matter came to the notice of the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry, and they sent Mr. A. D. Shammel, assisted by W. G. Powell to 

 investigate this and to find out if there Avere these differences existing 

 in other orchards. They found that there were great differences in 

 trees growing side b}^ side, on the same soil and having the same care. 

 All fruit growers in the State co-operated with them and in fact agreed 



