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HORTICULTURE 



February 17, 1908 



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. 



\ correspondent of the G-arden- 



Nicotiana Sanderae ers ' Chronicle, writing from 



in winter Canada, recommends Nicotiana 



Sanderae as a pot plant for 



conservatory decoration. He might safel} go further 



and approve it as a window plant for the ordinary 



dwelling house. We have in mind a specimen which 



was dug from the border last fall, potted and taken into 



the house, having at that time shown no evidence of 



blooming, which is at presnt writing a bright attrai i ion 



in the window, with every promise of so continuing 



until the did of the season. 



Another rhapsodist — a professor this 



Two varieties time — lecturing in Xew York, breaks 



of hybridizers 01 ,t in swelling laudation of the plant 



"creators."' What with the "professors" 



and rudimentary biologists and the "wizards" who 



change species by tramping on them or some similar 



proi ess — as witness the man in Michigan who metamor- 



I a celery plant — the plain everyday hybridizer 



who really does things, doesn't count. Perhaps it is as 



well that the shouters should occupy the front of the 



stage, lor the public has no particular interest in the 



slow, painstaking work by which our hybridizers are 



accomplishing real advancement. 



The approaching exhibition 



The rose show f roses at Boston furnishes 



will be a notable event a favorable opportunity to 



impress upon our readers 

 the great advantages to be gained by a risfl under such 

 circumstances to - : i. ih a centre of advanced horticulture 

 as Boston is recognized to be. Frequent trips to see the 

 products of brother cultivators, to observe the methods, 

 study the management, and learn the ways of those 

 ;ed in a calling similar to our own furnish a stim- 

 ulant as well as a rela: it ion and the additional advan- 

 tages of meeting face to face and conversing on topics 



of vital import; nr prosperity, with men ol 



eminent attainment-. bing the value of which 



cannot be overestimated. Tn all these respects the com- 

 ing affair at Boston a distinct pre-eminence. 



It will I"- .in occasion that no enterprising and ambi- 

 tion- man can afford to miss. In manj ways it will be 

 the opporl unity of a life time. 



Are our so-called varietal improvements 



The return really improvements? After having 



to nature worked zealously along one line until we 



have reached the limit of development 

 in that direction how often it turns out that we are 

 forced to confess an unalloyed beaut} in the despised 

 original from which we made our start in "improving." 

 The graceful subject of our frontispiece in this issue. 

 reputed to be the ancestor of our richly developed Chi- 

 nese primroses is a case in point. Turning away from the 

 pampered pets of our highly developed strains who 

 can help but fall in love with its natural simplicity of 

 outline and poise? After a surfeit of the Timothy 

 Eatons and Col. Appletons, chrysanthemums of the 

 single types come as a refreshing change and the once 

 spurned single roses and single dahlias are given a pla< - 

 of honor in our gardens and our exhibitions. 



The article on lilac forcing, contributed by 

 Forcing a French grower, which appears in this 

 the lilac issue, should be of great interest to Amer- 

 ican forcers, many of whom have had but 

 indifferent success in forcing good flowers on this pop- 

 ular favorite. An intimation of the remarkable future 

 in store for this branch of floricultural industry in this 

 country is given in the extent to which it is earned on 

 abroad, there being individual forcers who handle for 

 the Paris market from fifty to one hundred and twenty- 

 five thousand plants • -a eh of De Marlev alone. The 

 flowers are very popular in Paris; pot-grown plants are 

 used much less extensively. Even Charles X. and 

 Marie Legraye are forced more from field-grown stock 

 than from pot-grown. Properly grown the flowers are 

 cellent keepers and it only remains for our grower- to 

 put them on the markel in such shape and quantity as 

 to make them a staple the season through. 



From the earliest horticultural 



Vicissitudes literature down to the present 



of the novelty list t ime the ceaseless quest for new 



things has been going on and 

 novelty has not infrequently superseded sterling merit. 

 Generations back we find recorded the same spirit of 

 jubilation over the marvelous improvements in varieties 

 of the period which is so familiar to us of the present 

 day. What matters it that of all the bepraised intro- 

 duction- of by-gone days scarcely one out of a whole 

 year"- novelty list i- extant? What matters it that of 

 the vaunted triumph- of todaA the great majority are 



d ned to disappear from the lists long before some of 



the reader- of these lines have passed on? Other favor- 

 ites will fill their place only to be superseded also in 

 due time. This phase of the horticulturist's existence 

 will always be, as it has been, the /.est. the heart and 

 soul of his art. and all the rule- and by-laws that any 

 society may enact to protect the profession against itself 

 will go for naught against the universal propensity to 

 experiment and take a chance. Let us not lose sight of 

 the fact that a large proportion of the permanently good 

 things in our standard list got there regardless of certifi- 

 cate-, that -01 f the discarded things have met their 



fate in spite of certificates and medals and that, in all 

 probability, history will continue to repeal itself. 



