138 



HORTICULTURE 



February 3, 1906 



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Three Sterling Carnation Novelties 



Winsor, White Enchantress, and Helen IYI. Could 



See Illustrations On Page 135. 



There is nothing about any of these varieties that we wish to conceal; therefore, we cordially invite all carna- 

 tion growers to pay us a visit. Come at any time. 



WINSOR — Winner of Lawson Silver Medal. 



This is sure to prove a winner. Nothing approaches it in color, which is a clear silvery pink — a shade 

 between Enchantress and Mrs. Thos. W. Lawson — and much more beautiful than either. In fact, it is just 

 the shade that we have all been trying to get. The color will make it sell in any market. The stem is just 

 right. The flowers are considerably larger than Lawson and much better shaped. As a grower it has every- 

 thing that can be desired. So far we have not seen any large-flowering variety quite so free as Winsor. 



WHITE ENCHANTRESS. 



A pure white sport of Enchantress, at once the most popular and most profitable carnation grown today, 

 on account of its size and stem and freedom with which it blooms. White Enchantress is identical in 

 every respect but color. Those desiring quality as well as quantity will find it in White Enchantress. 



HELEN M. COULD. 



This is a beautiful variegated sport of Enchantress. The ground color is a lovely shade of clear pink, 

 the variegation carmine, making an exquisite combination of colors, besides being something distinctly new. 

 At a short distance the variegation does not show at all, the general effect being a beautiful shade of dark 

 pink. Growth, habit, size, and stem are the same as Enchantress. 



We have fine stocks, from which we can deliver healthy cuttings of Variegated Lawson, White 

 Lawson, Red Lawson, Enchantress, Mrs. M. A. Patten, Lady Bountiful, etc. 



Our Variegated Lawson is all that we claimed for it last season, and is giving the fullest satisfaction 

 everywhere — the best in the variegated class. Come and inspect our stock of new and standard sorts 



TARRYTOWN- ON- HUDSON, 



NEW YORK. 



F. R. PIERSON CO. 



THE BURBANK "CREATIONS"— A 

 CRITICISM. 



We acknowledge with pleasure the 

 receipt of the following letter, with 

 enclosure, from a subscriber. 



Being much interested in the mild 

 warfare waged by one of your con- 

 temporaries with poor Mr. Burbank as 

 the bone of contention, my interest 

 was great enough for me to make a 

 genuine and long-protracted effort at 

 reading that idiotic, flat and un- 

 profitable eulogy which the Macmillans 

 have recently published about him. 

 Yesterday, to my great delight, on 

 opening my copy of "Nature," the 

 English edition, I found a review of 

 the above mentioned book, which 

 strikes me as being about the fairest, 

 squarest, best thing on the whole 

 subject I have yet seen. It occurred to 

 me that you might not see "Nature," 

 so I had the article typewritten for you 

 and enclose it herewith. The article 

 seems to me very much in keeping 

 with the fine material you are giving 

 us in "HORTICULTURE," and you 

 may like to use this. Good wishes to 

 you and good luck to HORTICUL- 

 TURE. 



Plant-Breeding in America. 



New Creations In Plant Life: An Authori- 

 tative Account <>f Hi'' Life and Work of 

 Luther Burbank. By W. S. Harwood. 

 Pp. xiv., 36S; 50 illustrations. (New 

 York: The Maeinillan Company. Lon- 

 don: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.) Price, 7s. 

 6d. net. 



There is something to be said in favor of 

 this work. At the same time we imagine 

 no one will have more cause to regret its 

 appearance than Mr. Burbank himself. The 

 reasons for this expression of opinion are 

 easily supplied. It is decidedly desirable 

 that the outside public should be made 

 aware of the enormous practical importance 



of what is r.ill.-d plant-breeding, and that 

 they should be familiarized with the means 

 and methods adopted by experts for the 

 multiplication and improvement of flowers, 

 fruits and other vegetable products. A 

 slightly increased percentage of sugar in 

 the sugar-cane or the beet, an apparently 

 trifling improvement in the staple of cot- 

 ton, the development of a potato relatively 

 immune from fungus diseases, an increased 

 production of fruit or the introduction of 

 hardier varieties, of some that are earlier, 

 or others that are later, to say nothing of 

 the improvement of flowers in form, color 

 and perfume, are all points of great im- 

 portance and of very great interest from a 

 biological point of view. 



in this field of work Mr. Burbank has 

 long been known as an energetic laborer, 

 and it is quite possible that in actual 

 amount his work bulks larger than that of 

 any of his predecessors or his contempora- 

 ries. Moreover, as we learn from the book 

 before us, and from other sources, the ex- 

 perimenter is a man of high purpose, 

 modest and amiable. It is for these per- 

 sonal reasons we imagine that he will have 

 cause to regret the appearance of this vol- 

 ume. We have no desire to belittle Mr. 

 Burbank or to undervalue the importance 

 of what he has accomplished. We believe 

 that he would be the first to acknowledge 

 ■that there existed strong men previous to 

 the appearance of Agamemnon. But this 

 is a fact that his eulogist does not suffi- 

 ciently estimate. In perusing the glowing 

 paragraphs of this volume the casual reader 

 might imagine that there were no plant- 

 breeders before Burbank, or that their la- 

 bors were comparatively Insignificant, and 

 yet in our own country alone we seem to 

 have heard of Thomas Andrew Knight, of 

 Dean Herbert, of Trevor Clarke, of Thomas 

 Rivers, of John Laing, of Dominy. of Sedan, 

 of Laxton, and of large numbers of others 

 whose productions at least vie in impor- 

 tance with those of the American experi- 

 menter, whilst a visit to the great estab- 

 lishments of Vilmorin near Paris, Benary, 

 and others at Erfurt and Quedlinburg, as 

 well as to the trial-grounds of our Veitchs. 

 Snttons, Carters and many others, would 

 show that the great American hybridist is 

 by no means without a rival in his line of 

 work. 



It would hardly be fair to criticise those 

 products of Mr. Burbank's skill and perse- 

 verance that have reached us, because it 



may well be that they are not yet adapted 

 to our climate. At any rate, to name only 

 a few instances, the Burbank plum, the 

 Burbank lily, the Shasta daisy, all so en- 

 thusiastically spoken of in the pages of 

 this hook and elsewhere, have not, in this 

 country, justified the encomiums passed 

 upon them by the American press. 



When we read of Mr. Burbank's meth- 

 ods of work we do not find anything dif- 

 ferent from the practices of our "raisers," 

 who are too modest to speak of their efforts 

 as "creations." 



Among the "creations" mentioned in this 

 volume is the "thornless edible cactus." 

 Surely we have heard of and seen a spine- 

 less Opuntia before attention was called to 

 it in this volume, where it is stated that 

 "nothing more marvellous has ever been 

 done in plant life"! 



Again, "the rare effects developed in the 

 transformation of the columbine" do not 

 differ (so far as we can tell from the il- 

 lustration facing p. 359) from the stellate 

 columbine known in our gardens for cen- 

 turies and figured on p. 273 of Parkinson's 

 Paradisus (16291). 



A man who has experimented on such a 

 colossal scale for so long a time might be 

 expected to have gathered valuable informa- 

 tion on such points as heredity, adaptation, 

 inheritance of acquired characters, as well 

 as formed opinions on Mendelism and mu- 

 tation. We gather from the book before us 

 that Mr. Burbank's attention has, almost of 

 necessity, been directed to these subjects, 

 and we earnestly hope that now that the 

 Carnegie Institution has granted him a 

 subvention of ten thousand dollars a year 

 for ten years he will find time to record and 

 co-ordinate his experiments for the benefit 

 of future workers and the increase of bio- 

 Iogical knowledge. 



Incidentally, we glean that Mr. Burbank 

 is not inclined to accept the views of Wels- 

 mann or of Mendel, but that he looks favor- 

 ably on the mutation theory of De Vries. 

 Surely no practitioner has had better op- 

 portunities of judging of these matters than 

 has Mr. Burbank. and if he will give us his 

 own experiences in his own words, rather 

 than in those of some too partial biog- 

 rapher, the world will be the gainer, and 

 the value of Mr. Burbank's work more ac- 

 eurately gauged than it can lie from the 

 perusal of the present volume. — Copied from 

 "Nature" (No. 1889, Vol. 73). January 11, 

 1006. 



