208 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HOETICULTUEAL 



care — what it wants — and it repays us with a harvest. We only- 

 get what we give, and to nothing is this truth more vitally appli- 

 cable than to our flowers and gardens. A perfectly healthy growth 

 of plant or tree, having all of its needs of rootlets supplied with 

 proper food and moisture, with the soil properly tilled, with plenty 

 of light, air and heat, will produce perfect foliage, fruit and flowers 

 of its kind. The fact that insects do not as often attack a perfectly 

 healthy tree or plant is sufficient in itself to satisfy the most skepti- 

 cal that a starved parentage cannot sufficiently vitalize its kind. The 

 food elements depend upon the perfect growth to maturity of either 

 vegetable or fruit. Oae to be successful must ever be on the alert, 

 or nature, uncurbed, will give us a great, straggling bush or tree, 

 that will be choked and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. Air 

 and light are essential to perfect growth, and the knife must make 

 space for them, for cutting back and shortening branches develop 

 fruit and flower buds, otherwise we will have long unproductive 

 reaches of wood, which are far from ornamental and entirely use- 

 less. 



Pruning naturally leads us to the subject of propagation, for 

 much of that which is cut away is of great value to the nursery- 

 man and florist. The skillful cultivator will preserve the most 

 healthy cuttings, and, if treated in accordance with their demand 

 for moisture and coolness, they grow with almost certainty. If sub- 

 jected to heat and drouth, they will soon become like dry sticks and 

 die. This necessitates our planting cuttings in the early spring, or 

 in the fall. The wood-cutting, like the root-slip, must make a cal- 

 lus at its base before there can be growth, from there the root starts 

 out and pushes itself in the direction in which it finds food for fur- 

 ther growth, provided it does not meet some resistance which stops 

 its progress in that direction. In the cultivation of house plants 

 the smallest pots are used, so that the roots may soon meet with re- 

 sistance, and then they will throw their strength and nourishment 

 to the plant above. 



Looking at any of the common wild flowers of our prairies we 

 find that everything concerning any one of them, whether the shape 

 or the length of the petals, or the shading of the beautiful colors of 

 those petals, or the delicate perfume from the fljwer. or the useful- 

 ness of fruit or fiber, all come from the adaptation of the plant to 

 its surroundings. But the roots beneath the soil, which have no 

 complexity of surroundings, all grow alike, and it would be difficult 

 for an expert botanist to distinguish the roots of widely different 

 orders of plants. To the upward growth there are limitless possi- 

 bilities; and in the reports of the horticultural journals we find that 

 every year some tree, shrub or fruit has grown to immense propor- 

 tions, or has surpassed last year's growth in beauty and usefulness, 

 so that we cannot say any one contains all the beauty and perfec- 

 tion, and so long as man shall cultivate and renew and experiment 



