94 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[March, 



ed. The wide difFusion of such knowledge as is 

 contained here, cannot but be of untold value to 

 the country in dollars and cents; for though the 

 intelligent man generally gains what the igno- 

 rant one loses, it is always an absolute loss to 

 any country where even one man's labor is 

 thrown away. 



How TO Learn Short-Hand without a 

 Teacher, we have from S. R. Wells & Co., 

 New York. 



Dairy Farming, Part 7. — This part has for 

 its frontispiece a beautiful colored plate of Ayr- 

 shire cattle. The leading chapters are on the 

 nutrition of plants and application of manures. 

 Cassell, Petter «& Galpin, New York, are the 

 agents. 



The Workshop Companion, Industrial Pub- 

 lication Co., New York. — A small but very use- 

 ful book. In gardening and farming, more than 

 in any industrial employment, one has to depend 

 on self-education in many a little thing. We 

 once knew a gardener who was in a " great 

 way," because some glass in a forcing house was 

 broken, and could not be repaired till a glazier 

 from a neighboring city had been sent for. 

 Such delays would not happen if people about 

 isolated places had such a little book as this for 

 their evening hours. 



Herman Munz,— A florist of Meadville, Pa., 

 died Jan. 25th, 1880, in his thirty-second year. 

 Mr. Munz came to this country from Germany, 

 in 1870, and located in Meadville, where he was 

 employed for some time by one of the old flo- 

 rists of the place, and finally began business for 

 himself. He was a man of unusual energy ; and 

 at the time of his death, in addition to managing 

 his own business as a florist, he discharged the 

 duties of Superintendent of Greendale Cemetery 

 in that city. 



Robert Fortune.— It is said that republics 

 are ungrateful to their benefactors ; but accord- 

 ing to the Gardener's Chronicle, it is the same 

 story all round. It says : " In this great coun- 

 try, where the arts and sciences flourish, not be- 

 cause of imperial patronage, but rather in spite 

 of it, it would doubtless seem incongruous were 

 any illustrious worker in horticultural pursuits 

 to receive any special notice at the hands of the 

 powers that be, or any of those honors that are 

 so eagerly sought for by the fighting services of 

 the country and so freely bestowed ; yet it is dif- 

 fflcult to repress a feeling of humiliation that so 

 little national recognition is given to the servi- 



ces rendered to the nation in general by other 

 than Government servants, and to horticultural 

 science and practice in particular, by such men, 

 for instance, as Robert Fortune, a record of 

 whose introductions from the far-off" countries of 

 China and Japan appeared in these pages before. 

 It is not possible to calculate the benefits the 

 country has received from Mr. Fortune's labors; 

 they were quiet, plodding and unpretentious, 

 carried on too often perchance under great pri- 

 vation and possible danger to life. None of the 

 clash and pomp of war shed a halo over his 

 work; there was no wading through slaughter, 

 or records of thousands and tens of thousands of 

 dead defenders of their hearths and countries to 

 chronicle. It is the men who can boast of these 

 trophies of civilization, that get the popular 

 cheer, the national welcome, and the imperial 

 honors, whilst the unpretentious seeker after 

 good, like Fortune, finds his reward only in the 

 almost utter forgetfulness of the nation that 

 such a man ever was its benefactor. Yet For- 

 tune's testimonials, silent but impressive, are 

 found amongst us in their thousands ; they exist 

 in abundance in every garden, and are found 

 now almost throughout the whole civilized world. 

 Wherever a love for flowers and trees is, there 

 also are the abundant evidences of his labors. 

 Not to carry into aboriginal homes death and 

 desolation was his mission, but rather to give 

 comfort, beauty and life to all humanity. Bye- 

 and-bye, perchance, when the grave has closed 

 over his earthly career, the world will realize 

 how much it owes to Robert Fortune." 



Brambleton Gardens, Norfolk, Va. — 

 Since Mr. Barker's death, these promising nur- 

 series are being continued with Mr. B. Reynolds 

 as superintendent. The collection is rich in 

 orchids as well as other rare plants. 



The Ladies' Floral Cabinet. — We note 

 that this pretty and useful magazine has passed 

 from the hands of Henry T. Williams to those 

 of Adams & Bishop, New York. 



Case's Botanical Index. — This little quar- 

 terly, published at fifty cents a year, at Rich- 

 mond, Indiana, is surely worth more than its 

 subscription price to any one interested in hor- 

 ticultural botany. The' January number has an 

 illustrated chapter on the celebrated water lily 

 of the Amazon, — Victoria regia. 



American Roses. — By H. B. EUwanger, 

 reprinted from the proceedings of the Western 

 New York Horticultural Society. This is one 



