ARBORICULTURE. 



291 



Many pickers, many seedmen and n'lrserymen, 

 do not know one seed from anotlier. A promi- 

 nent seedhouse of Cincinnati said to me: "How 

 can we tell the genuine from the spurious ? — 

 we don't know the difference." And so it is. 

 A large proportion of the seedmen either do 

 not know, or do not care. The pickers gather 

 whatever comes first and easiest and sell it for 

 "speciosa." They know that is what is wanted. 

 It is then and there so labeled ; and so goes to 

 the nurseryman, and he plants it and sells the 

 seedlings and young trees for speciosa. 



IGNOR.XNCE IS COSTLY. 



If the Robinsons, the leading forest seed- 

 house of the country, buy five hundred or one 



twenty-two was genuine. Even the Douglasses 

 have trouble. Two or three years ago they 

 bought three bags of "pure speciosa." When 

 the third bag was opened it was found to be 

 spurious. The firm ordered it to be destroyed. 

 The foreman said to himself, "That's too val- 

 uable to be thrown away," and in a few days 

 he quietly placed it on sale. About that time 

 John P. Brown wanted some seed, and as the 

 Douglasses had the best reputation of any firm 

 in the country as to genuine speciosa, he placed 

 his order there. The seed was sent. Its char- 

 acter was at once discovered. Brown reported 

 and protested. Douglass insisted on the purity 

 of stock and said that no bad seed was going 

 from the house. Brown knew that it was spu- 



Seeds Commonly Sold as Cat.alpa Speciosa. Note Wide 

 Distinction as Compared w'ith Top Seed. 



thousand pounds of such seed, as they often 

 do, and Philadelphia, and Bloomington. 111., and 

 Shenandoah, la., and Beatrice, Neb., and forty 

 other towns order ti\e, ten, twenty-five, fifty or 

 one hundred pounds, more or less, as they are 

 likely to do, the reader can see at what shrine 

 of mercy the tree-planter must bow — ignorantly 

 bow, till in after years, like ihousaiuls of others, 

 he wakens to find that he has been defrauded 

 of his money. 



The following iucidenls will shox^, the diffi- 

 culty nurserymen ha\-e in procuring g'.Mi une 

 seed : The Donaldson Company last year 

 bought twenty-two lots of "speciosa." g-iar- 

 anteed pure. At planting time, the prst spring, 

 it was discovered that but one lot rut cf the 



rious and said so. Douglass was firm and re- 

 sented Brown's charge. There was a racket. 

 Two dauntless warriors — both on the same side, 

 in fact, each fighting for pure speciosa. An in- 

 vestigation was had. Explanations followed. 

 A foreman lost his job. 



I ha\e seed out of that same bag, and I won- 

 der how many others procured seed out of it 

 and are to-day looking forward with hope of 

 fine plantations of pure speciosa in the dear 

 by-and-by. 



GOOD SEEDS and bad. 



Again, I tell you it is difficult to procure gen- 

 "ine seed; and he who says he has no trouble 

 in doing so dees not know the difference be- 



