1880.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



Ill 



that are dark and peculiar." I reprint it pretty 

 closely : 



" ' If the Court understand herself, and we 

 think he do,' we cannot uphold the plan put 

 forward, to better this vegetable through its 

 seedlings. Neither in the books, nor in the na- 

 ture of things, do we find any warrant for such 

 hope of better asparagus. The plant seems to 

 have reached its highest development in the 

 preadamite gardens. In fact, if we might bor- 

 row an illustration from another field of nature, 

 asparagus, like the bumble-bee, never gains 

 much on the bigness of its first hatching. This 

 comes from its sexual nature, first shown by the 

 members of this court. The asparagus is dioe- 

 cious, its sexes stand apart in different foot-stalks. 

 They are not in its, as in most vegetable life, 

 found in close mating on the same flower, or on 

 different flowers on the same plant. We there- 

 fore counsel the sanguine pleader for better 

 asparagus to waste no thought on the morrow 

 of trial for its improvement by seed. It cannot 

 thus be bettered. We very well know, as claim- 

 ed in the argument, that through all nature 

 choice mating of the sexes leads to better kinds 

 of breeds. That the very fact of separate sexual 

 growth has brought to skillful men a vast ad- 

 vance in almost all that grows for man's food or 

 comfort. But the comparison is a cheat, if not 

 odious. Separate vegetable sexuality, follows 

 not its laws in animal life. Conover's aspara- 

 gus, or a Rose potato, can be divided by its root- 

 buds, but not a Grand Turk or an Alderney 

 heifer. Therefore we counsel against the likeli- 

 hood of better asparagus crossings from choice 

 seedlings. We are sorry to refuse our assent 

 to the method presented to us for improving 

 this vegetable, but we are reluctantly compelled 

 to declare it helpless." — Gardener^s Monthly, 

 English Gardener''s Magazine. 



Now this " is an opinion as is an opinion." 

 Its reasoning has only been equaled by the mas- 

 sive logic, so much admired by Capt. Cuttle in 

 the great Bunsby, — that mental profundity thus 

 utters these opinions which so filled the Captain 

 with awe, — "For why, which way, if so, why 

 not? therefore. What 1 says I stands to. 

 Whereby, why not. If so, what odds. Can any 

 man say otherwise. No, awast then !" I trem- 

 ble before this august court and that profound 

 opinion ; I hardly dare to doubt, much less 

 to lift my voice against this array of brains 

 and logic. But, I timidly ask, what barriers has 

 nature put against better kinds of asparagus 



through thoughtful sexual mating? Why is this 

 plant shut out from the sure methods of advance 

 open to most others ? Wherein does the monoe- 

 cious or monogamous or polygamous plant hold 

 out higher chances through seedtime and har- 

 vest? Why deny to asparagus the hopes and 

 methods that have became fruition amongst the 

 fruits? Has she no right through happy chance 

 or utmost skill or patient trial, to all gained by 

 other growing things? When, by planting or 

 chance, there comes to either of its sexes, plants 

 more stalwart and thrifty, why not plant these 

 apart, and await bigger, quicker and tenderer 

 growths in their progeny ? 



See how the pear, — sometimes by lucky self- 

 seeding, sometimes by studious trial, — has slowly 

 gained through the ages, till Van Mons or 

 Knight, by wise plan or forecast lifted it into the 

 front rank of fruits. Let us hope that asparagus, 

 so healthful, so widely liked, so delicious a vege- 

 table, so holding, carried its excellence through 

 the seasons, may, in its lower level, greet some 

 Van Mons or Knight. 



What has the growth methods of the potato 

 or asparagus, from division of its underground 

 body, to do with the betterment of either through 

 seeding? The Summer Rose, or Hebron, or 

 Peachblow were never born out of any root di- 

 vision, or underground; or tuber-bred of the old 

 styles of this vegetable. Neither Goodrich nor 

 any other potato — Van Mons ever got beyond the 

 tuber he planted, by the replanting of its produce. 



Such trial brings every time a Summer Rose, a 

 Peach-blow or a Mercer. You reap the harvest 

 that you sow. Better kinds come only through 

 seed-planting and choice, and this routine many 

 times repeated, before a kind of lasting excel- 

 lence rewards. So it must be with the aspa- 

 ragus. I close with the memorable words of the 

 immortal Bunsby: "The bearings of this obser- 

 vation lies in the application of it." 



[Neither the Gardener's Monthly nor the 

 Gardener'' s Magazine, has ever thought of saying 

 that the asparagus could not be improved by 

 seed.— Ed. G. M.] 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Sweet Home, Black-cap Raspberry. — 

 This Illinois variety, a seedling from Lum's 

 Everbearing, is commended by Tyler McWhor- 

 ter of Aledo, a reliable gentleman who says 

 that while he would plant the Doolittle Black- 

 cap for an early crop, he would replace the 



