1877.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



125 



of its practical working are so many and so 

 serious as to forbid any attempt at legislation on 

 the subject. There is no reasonable ground for 

 hope that the good sought could be attained. 

 In reply I have several things to suggest. 



1st. This is the standard objection of conserv- 

 atism to all attempts at progress. Almost every 

 proposed reform is met by the same criticism : 

 " The principle is good, but it cannot be carried 

 out. The movement is impracticable." Some- 

 times, doubtless, the objection is just. Butwecan 

 all of us remember more instances than one in 

 which actual experiment has shown it to have 

 been groundless. Perhaps, if a fair test should 

 be made of the practicability of protection, the 

 objections now so confidently urged against it, 

 might soon be consigned to the Limbo of Vanity, 

 as were the arguments that a few years ago used 

 to prove so conclusively to those who used them, 

 the impracticability of freeing tlie Southern 

 slaves. It is usually safer and more desirable 

 than we are apt to think, to test the practicability 

 of what is clearly right in principle. 



2nd. If some of the objections to protection 

 are now unanswerable, that does not make its 

 practical test unwise. And for two reasons : In 

 the first place, actual experiment might nullify these 

 objections, as the experiment of freeing the slaves 

 has nullified the objections that used to be urged 

 (and some of tliem with great apparent weight) 

 against sudden manumission. And in the second 

 place, protection may fail in some respects, and yet 

 be wise and desirable. It is objected to any legis- 

 lation on this subject that no such description 

 can be given of a patented fruit as would enable 

 a "patent office clerk " to decide whether or not 

 the patent was infringed. I do not see the ne- 

 cessity of leaving such a question to a patent 

 office clerk. A committee of three intelligent 

 horticulturists could easily be had in Washing- 

 ton, and they could generally decide such a 

 question with ease. But grant that they could 

 not, that this objection is unanswerable, still, 

 sufficient good could be attained by such legisla- 

 tion to make it wise. Suppose a patent had been 

 issued to Mr. Bull for his Concord grape. No one 

 could have sold vines as Concords witliout his 

 permission. And the name ani the grape would 

 have been so connected that the public demand 

 would have been for Concords; not for some- 

 thing else, said to be as good, or even for the 

 same grape if called by another name. In other 

 words the patent would cover not merely the 

 fruit, but the name ; and the reputation of the 



grape would make the name a scrt of trade-mark. 

 And that trade-mark would have a pecuniary 

 value to Mr. Bull, proportionate to the reputa- 

 tion of his grape. He would virtually have a 

 monopoly of the market for the sale of Concord 

 vines. Honorable nurserymen would not sell 

 them without paying him for the right; and dis- 

 honorable ones (if there are such) would be de- 

 barred from selling them by their inability to 

 offer them under their appropriate and popular 

 name. And so Mr. B. could reasonably hope to 

 secure an ample compensation for the good he 

 has done the nation in originating this valuable 

 fruit. 



But my article is already so long that I must 

 close with only a brief allusion to some of the 

 benefits which it seems to me might be secured 

 by horticultural protection : 



1st. It would make our patent law legislation 

 uniform and self-consistent. 



2nd. It would be doing what all acknowledge 

 to be just and right; or, in other words, what the 

 originators of new fruits have an equitable right 

 to demand. 



3rd. It would save the community from the 

 imposition of worthless varieties that could not 

 secure a patent, and of old varieties sought to be 

 disseminated under new names. 



4th. It would secure to originators of new 

 fruits a more adequate compensation for the 

 time, labor and expense involved in their pro- 

 duction. And in so doing 



5th. It would give a new stimulus to the work 

 of horticultural improvement, and thus bless the 

 nation with the more valuable fruits and vegeta- 

 bles Avhich would thus be produced. As our 

 present patent laws stimulate invention, and 

 confer upon us improved machinery ; so, similar 

 legislation, applied to horticulture, would tend 

 to stimulate the production of new and improved 

 fruits, and so enrich the nation with more de- 

 sirable ones than those they noAv possess. 



[We must class ourselves with the unlucky 

 ones. We asked W. H. W. to point out the 

 novel points in the Secretary Grape, for which 

 the " protection " is claimed, but he was not 

 sufficiently familiar with it. We asked iiim then 

 to take the Concord, which he must know well, 

 but, instead of responding to this simple request, 

 he gives us a lecture on " rights," the substance 

 of which has appeared in our pages over and 

 over again. We make room for the paper, how- 

 ever, because it is written in fair and dispassion- 

 ate style, unlike two other papers we have on 



