252 STATE HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Don't fill them too full ; keep good open spaces, always bearing in mind when 

 planting shrubbery the plants must grow and live in the same place for many, 

 many yeirs, the longer the better, and that as long as they live they ought to in- 

 crease in size and beauty. 



When you buy a Snow-ball, Lilac, Hydrangea. Althea or Cydonia from a flo- 

 rist and the plant is only two or three feet high, do not make the mistake made by 

 too many hascy and incompetent professional as well as amateur florists, who place 

 the plants within three or four feet of each other on spaces where each is expected 

 to become an individual specimen. When planting such shrubs, try to bear in mind 

 that these beautiful ornaments will grow to a height of 10 or 12 feet and their tops 

 be fully as wide as the plant is high. If planted too closely together they become 

 long, slender, weakly ; too many trying to get sustenance from the same poorly 

 refreshed soil, the result bding quite unsatisfactory; no flowers appearing to 

 brighten the plant, and everything assuming a neglected, uncouth appearance. 



Driving through a newly dedicated park in a city not far from here, a few 

 days ago, I found, time after time, clump after clump of really beautiful young 

 shrubs that had been planted two years before. Every clump was made of 10 

 shrubs, and covered a space of not over 150 square feet, scarcely enough space for 

 one good-sized shrub, as each of the 10 should make in five or six years. Imagine 

 planting ten cabbages where only one can mature, or placing ten fruit-trees where 

 only one ought to be, or more yet, compelling ten beeves to feed from a pasture 

 sufficient for one. You have, the same example in each case, the only diff'erence 

 being in the length of time required to show the eff'ect of the error. 



Aside from the shrubs and trees you must, of course, plant some flowers. Last 

 year I wrote a very short paper on what you should [plant in jour flower gardens ; 



» 



some one said it was too short, but as it would require the best half of an hour to 

 read it, I will be merciful. May it suffice that I say that my experience in this line 

 is not worth one-tenth of your own to you, if you have been at all successful. If 

 you have had nothing but failures, I might help you to beautify your flower gar- 

 den, or to make one, but if you have succeeded in brightening your surroundings 

 so that your neighbors would always admire your place, the only valuable advice 

 I feel able to give is to follow the mandate of that excellent teacher "experience," 

 and keep right on in the future as in the past. 



OUR BEST BEDDING PLANTS. 



Mr. President and Members of Greene County Horticultural Society : 



At every returning springor planting season the question is asked many times, 

 what are our best bedding plants ? As now there are an endless number of kinds, 

 and the planter can hardly fail to made a good selection, it is rather a difficult 

 task to say what is the best. 



In my boyhood days it was easier to make a selection, for the number of kinds 

 was quite limited ; but now floriculture has made such rapid strides and improve- 

 ments, especially in the last few years, that every taste and whim of the planter 

 can have his or her fancy in the arrangements and harmonious blending of shapes 

 and colors. Of late years the taste and love for bedding plants h&ve kept up with 

 the supply, and every season the wide-awake florist brings out some new or old 

 candidate for bedding purposes. To give a list of what is best would be quite an 

 undertaking, for the multitudes of florists' catalogues sent broadcast over the land 

 every sprirg tells of all sorts of wonderful, rare and beautiful plants adapted to 

 bedding out ; but sometimes the novice gets misled by the gorgeous and fanciful 



