816 



H ORT1CULT URE 



June 30, 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 



WU. J. STEWART, Editor and Manager. 



With this issue Horticulture 

 The close of a closes its third volume. The many 

 profitable year appreciative words, oral and written, 

 which we have received, especially 

 of late, from readers and advertisers are most encourag- 

 ing and give pleasant assurance that Horticulture is 

 filling an acceptable and useful place in the uplifting 

 and advancement of the noble profession whose interests 

 it seeks to serve. The end of June brings also to most 

 of our readers the practical closing of a volume — the 

 ending of one season, and the midsummer respite which 

 precedes the opening of another. From the observa- 

 tions which we have been privileged to make we believe 

 that the season just closing may be recorded as a good 

 and profitable one and in no department of horticul- 

 tural industry is there reasonable cause for complaint 

 as to results. We hope the next may be equally 

 profitable for all. 



It does not always follow that mere 

 Planning for volume of business is a reliable gauge 

 next season as to profit or loss. The men who come 

 out at the end of the season with the 

 biggest profit are the careful managers — those who 

 think ahead and work on a well-matured plan. With 

 the grower under glass no qualification counts for more 

 than that of wise foresight so that every square foot of 

 greenhouse space is kept at work 365 days in the year. 

 Probably every one of our readers can call to mind 

 instances where there is enough idle room in a green- 

 to pay, if properly handled, a good interest on 

 the investment. Glass is different from the proprietor 

 and his help in that it requires no vacation. Xow. 

 when one lias time and opportunity to survey the past 

 and tabulate its resttlts. i^ the time to map out the 



operations for the coming year. See to it that there is 

 no idle space and that unprofitable methods, if such 

 exist, are abandoned. 



We should like to suggest to the 



The store window fl or j s t w lio has been in the habit 



m summer f slighting his show window or 



conservatory during the dull 

 weeks of summer that he try the experiment of main- 

 taining a neat, attractive, but not necessarily expensive, 

 display all through the slack period. One clean, healthy 

 plant, one vase or dish of fresh flowers of any kind, if 

 the surroundings are tidy, is infinitely better than a 

 window full of old trumpery that will not be needed 

 until next season. "It doesn't pay" is a very bad maxim 

 wdien applied to cleaning up. An always dainty flower 

 window and orderly office cannot fail to attract the 

 attention of the people who make desirable patrons and 

 its owner will not be forgotten when the busy times 

 return. An insistence upon these principles will also 

 serve to keep the help from lapsing into that listless 

 languor which is seen to prevail in so many places dur- 

 ing the summer season and which, wdien it once gets a 

 good hold, is so hard to shake off, even when a windfall 

 comes in the shape of an order. 



Some very good and instructive 

 About speeches were made at the sessions 



formal gardening f the park superintendents in 

 Washington recently but they con- 

 tained not one word in approval of the formal gardening 

 fad. Instead the key note of everything that was said 

 was the doctrine of fellowship with nature as the best 

 motive in all park work. As a rule the less of arti- 

 ficiality displayed the more satisfying the pleasure to be 

 drawn from a garden or park. A knowledge of trees 

 and shrubs and their proper adaptation is one of the 

 fundamentals in park construction. Compare the work 

 of the man actuated by a refined appreciation and lov- 

 ing regard for these products of nature's handiwork 

 with the strained mechanical effect produced by the most 

 skilful builders of "Italian" gardens. We are sorry for 

 him who sees more to admire in the latter. Much is 

 made of the argument that a certain amount of formal 

 treatment is required to harmonize and "break" the 

 severity of architectural structures into the informal 

 surroundings of rural scenery. In a measure this may 

 be reasonable but it furnishes a very insufficient excuse 

 for the aggregations of clipped deformities on which so 

 many wealthy people, merely because it is a fad. are 

 squandering their money. We shall be very much sur- 

 prised if a reaction does not soon set in and circum- 

 stances make it discreet for the high priests of this 

 unnatural school to turn back and learn the first prin- 

 ciples of true gardening art. 



