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HORTICULTURE 



May 12, 1906 



HORTICULTURE 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE, BOSTON. MASS. 



Telephone, Oxford 292 



WM. J. STEWART. Editor and Manager. 



A correspondent writes in approval of 



A fair our policy of giving full liberty for the 



field for all expression of opinion in our columns. 



We do not always agree with the views 

 expressed by those who write for us, but all are welcome 

 so long as they discuss things and policies and opera- 

 tions rather than individuals and so long as it is done 

 in manly way over one's own name. In the ease of 

 trade journalism, in which the family character is so 

 inherent, the arguments against the use of assumed 

 names are many and those in favor very few. We have 

 always agreed with the late Peter Henderson, who fre- 

 quently expressed strong views on this point, holding 

 that if a man was afraid or ashamed to sign his name 

 in full to a communication he would better not pub- 

 lish it at all. 



Only a brief space of three months now 

 Get ready separates us from the S. A. F. conven- 

 for Dayton cion at Dayton, Ohio, the leading horti- 

 cultural event of the year. It is not too 

 soon to begin active individual and concerted work to 

 the end that a large attendance may be assured and 

 the greatest pleasure and profit derived. Club officials, 

 committees. State vice-presidents, and others interested 

 in organizing parties to travel together to the conven- 

 tion or otherwise promoting its success are free to use 

 the columns of Horticulture for such announcements 

 and notices as they choose to make at any time and we 

 shall give them prompt dissemination. Dayton is very 

 centrally located and had every qualification needed in 

 a convention city. The normal convention attendance 

 is a foregone conclusion but it is possible to increase 

 this largely by early effort. So "get busy." 



A revival in the demand for bedding 



Bedding plant plants is noted in many places. We are 



prospects glad it is so. There are innumerable 



spots which nothing else can fill so 

 well,- — little spots all through the crowded city where 

 nothing would ever be planted were it not for the entic- 

 ing baskets of assorted geraniums, salvias, helio- 

 tropes and pansies, which awaken the dormant 

 fondness for a bit of blooming garden. There 

 is no garden so small or so large in which this class of 



plants has not an appropriate place and their use, by the 

 gardener blessed with good judgment and correct taste r 

 will not interfere with but rather assist and supplement 

 in a pleasing manner the 'hardy herbaceous and shrub 

 plantings which in recent years have taken the place of 

 the garish, unsatisfying displays of bedding plants once 

 so prevalent. The past decade has seen many real im- 

 provements among this class of plants in the way of 

 more compact habit, greater variety of color, larger 

 flowers and other points of excellence and it is very 

 gratifying to see that these new and improved sorts are 

 being grown and offered generally by the large adver- 

 tising growers. We hope their enterprise will be amply 

 rewarded with big business and remunerative results. 



Trade prices, where and how 



Concerning they should be published, or 



the dissemination whether they should be pub- 



of wholesale prices Hshed under any circumstances, 



have long been and are likely to 

 continue to be a fruitful subject for critical 

 discussion in certain quarters. There is no known 

 method whereby the limit of distribution of 

 printed matter can be controlled or any authority 

 exercised as to whose eye it shall not reach. 

 The publisher of a journal in which wholesale 

 prices are quoted can and generally does endeavor to 

 place some reasonable limit on its circulation, but the 

 destiny of each copy, after it has left his hands, is beyond 

 any further control on his part. We contend that it is 

 to the wholesale dealer and advertiser that the retail 

 dealer should look for protection against the selling of 

 goods to retail consumers at trade prices. The whole 

 matter will easily adjust itself in all horticultural lines 

 when the wholesale dealer adopts the plan of demand- 

 ing from every applicant a business card of other sat- 

 isfactory evidence that he is in the trade and entitled to 

 trade prices before consenting to have any dealings with 

 him. This is the method pursued in other lines of 

 trade of any extent commercially and, when lived up 

 to, covers the ground fully. 



It now becomes evident that, despite the 

 Fighting myriads of moth nests and eggs that have 

 the moths i, eeu destroyed through public and pri- 

 vate effort in eastern Massachusetts and 

 neighboring states during the past three months, the 

 campaign will have accomplished little more than the 

 saving of a great many trees that would otherwise have 

 been ruined. That the number of moths to be fought 

 next winter will be appreciably less than has been the 

 case this season or that any reduction of the extent of 

 territory infested will have been effected can hardly be 

 expected for there are vast numbers of the pests that 

 have not been reached, — extensive wood lands on which 

 the cost of extermination would far exceed the actual 

 value of the land and for which any appropriation the 

 state could make would be entirely inadequate. Ex- 

 termination of either brown-tail or gypsy moths is no 

 longer dreamed of by anyone who realizes the situa- 

 tion and it would seem inevitable that unless some nat- 

 ural foe of the moths should interpose, the scourge will 

 in time over-run the entire eastern section of the coun- 

 try. We urge upon those of our readers who have not 

 already done so that they send to Superintendent A. H. 

 Kirkland, Boston, for such documents as may enable 

 them to recognize the insects and detect their presence 

 early, and giving information as to the best methods 

 for combatting them. 



