THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29 



DeVries, experimenting with various plants, found that some 

 of the fasciations came true from seeds — in good years as 

 many as 30 or 40 in a hundred. In the first-year plants of 

 biennials, the rosette of leaves may be affected in such a way 

 that the stem spreads out on one side in a ribbon-shaped object 

 to which the leaves are attached. In this journal for 1914, a 

 fasciated example of thistle was illustrated due to this latter 

 cause. The most familiar case of fasciation is found in the 

 cock's-comb (Celosial) where the fascicled condition is so 

 common as to seem the normal one. 



Values in Floriculture. — The application of scientific 

 principles to floriculture is of comparatively recent date. The 

 flower-growing business, however, is an old one. In the early 

 days of American flower production, commercial growers of 

 flowering plants recognized the need of but few scientific 

 principles. The greater number of these florists received their 

 training abroad, and the apprentice system through which this 

 was obtained taught methods rather than principles. These 

 men learned how to grow plants and to know under what 

 conditions they attained their best development, but they knew 

 little of the reasons for their successes and failures. During 

 the past decade, conditions have changed to a marked degree. 

 The demand for rare flowers of better quality has steadily 

 increased and with this demand there has come a keener com- 

 petition. This competition and the demand for better products 

 has made it necessary for present day leaders in the flower- 

 producing industry to call on science for every assistance pos- 

 sible, so that there should be better methods of production at 

 the least possible expense. The margin in the flower business 

 is not a broad one. The flower-growing business in the United 

 States is important. The total annual production in the United 



