THE 



GARDENER. 



FEBRUARY 1879. 



SELECTION" versus COLLECTION". 



AST month we advocated the growing of very limited 

 selections instead of large collections of Apples, as 

 being much more likely — as a general rule — to produce 

 a greater abundance of fruit. The same rule, we are 

 convinced, applies to every other variety of fruit, from the Pine- 

 Apple to the Currant or Strawberry; and if this rule had been 

 more frequently followed, the supply of fruits would, in numerous 

 instances, have been much more satisfactory, and their culture to 

 no inconsiderable extent simplified. Nor are fruits the only occu- 

 pants of our gardens to which it would be well to apply the rule — 

 vegetables and flowers, to our mind, require its application quite as 

 urgently; always, of course, making the selections to suit the locality 

 and the wants of the family. 



We have often looked with something like pity at the one, or it 

 may be, two or three vineries, into which have been crammed pell- 

 mell ten or a dozen varieties of Grapes, many of them decidedly 

 coarse and inferior ; and for the mere sake of having so many 

 varieties, the whole have to be trained much too closely together. 

 Four, or six at most, of the cream of our present numerous 

 varieties, allowed ample room, would yield a far more satisfactory 

 supply of fine Grapes than double that number of varieties. When 

 six of the cream of our Grapes are included in any extent of vineries, 

 on what point, we would ask, would a good judge of Grapes regret 

 the absence of any of the others 1 Would it not be well for horti- 

 cultural societies in offering prizes annually — as they have done for 

 some time now — for eight varieties of Grapes, to cut the number 



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