1880.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



31 



light frost, others have never been in the least in- 

 jured. This will explain the apparently con- 

 flicting experiences recorded in our pages ; and 

 gives some hope that by a judicious selection of 

 varieties, fine fruit may be grown much further 

 north than has been believed possible the past 

 year. 



Montreal Horticultural Society. — Re- 

 port for 1878, from Henry S. Evans, Secretary. 

 A very valuable document, containing among 

 other interesting papers, a report on Canadian 

 timber trees, by A. T. Drummond. Birds and 

 insects, injurious and beneficial, have the So- 

 ciety's compliments paid to them. 



American Manual of Parliamentary 

 Latv.— By George T. Fish, Rochester, X. Y. 

 There are few Americans but are interested in the 

 proper management of societies or other organ- 

 ized bodies. Certainly of all Americans, those 

 connected with horticulture have a gi'eat deal to 

 do with deliberative or discussional assemblies. 

 This little book of Mr, Fish's is an excellent 

 thing for them. It contains all the rules ; and 

 the divisions are arranged as is the alphabetical 

 index of a ledger, so as to be referred to instant- 

 ly. We have seen many works on this subject, 

 but I'egard this as the cheapest and best. 



Russell P. Eaton.— This gentleman, for 

 twenty years Editor and Proprietor of the Xew 

 England Farmer^ has parted with his interest in 

 this excellent agricultural weekly. Mr. Eaton 

 is a high-toned, intelligent gentleman, and one 

 who spared no pains or expense to get at the exact 

 truth of what he reported. We are always sorry 

 when we have to close " official " relations with 

 people like this. Editorial life has such all too 

 few, while the outside world is overflowing. We 

 don't know what possessed the man to do it. 



Dr. Edward Fenzl. — Dr. Fenzl, Professor 

 of Botany at Vienna, and after whom the well 

 known Fenzlia of our gardens is named, died on 

 the 29th of September, in the sevent3--second 

 year of his age. 



Deaths of Xoted French Pomologists. — 

 M. Baltet at the age of 80, and M. AVillermorz 

 aged 76, are among the recently deceased. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



The Indian Question. — A friend who has 

 in past times been the traveling companion of 



the Editor through wild Western regions, thus 

 writes : 



" I have just returned from south-eastern 

 Kansas, and thought of you when I picked up 

 this little (enclosed) arrow head, which I am 

 sorry is not a better specimen. Ever since you 

 took such an interest in our friend Ij's Indian 

 stories, I never see an Indian but I think of you. 

 The traces of Indians in the locality I have 

 been lately, are nearlj- as completel}' obliter- 

 ated, as where I now reside. The last Indian 

 trail has about disappeared from the north bank 

 of m}' ravine ; and the only signs I saw twenty 

 miles south of Fort Scott, were about a dozen 

 trails parallel with each other, where mounted 

 Indians had been in the habit of riding to Fort 

 Scott to draw blankets, and rifles, powder and 

 bullets from the government to shoot the set- 

 tlers, and hunting knives to scalp the poor wo- 

 men and children. You and I judge Indians 

 from diftei'ent standpoints, just as florists judge 

 roses from different standpoints; some for their 

 form and color, others from their odor, and 

 others from the description in the catalogue. I 

 confess that their odor may have prejudiced me 

 against them, for I know I do not admire them 

 as you do. I think you admire them for their 

 color and description, and that you have taken 

 the description from Cooper (in his novels) and 

 the coloring from Catlin in his pictures. Really 

 this is too serious a matter for jest, and I do not 

 know what is to be done with them. All senti- 

 mentalit}' must be laid aside, sometime, and 

 then they will be treated like other people. The 

 government, when thej^ want any white man's 

 land for the public convenience condemns the 

 land and pays the owner what it is worth, and it 

 seems to me the}' could do the same with the In- 

 dians, and make them obey the laws just as 

 white men are compelled to obej- the laws or 

 abide the consequences. If a lot of tramps 

 should band together and murder a few such 

 men as Gen. Canby and our friend Meeker, I do 

 not think the government would send a few well 

 meaning gentlemen to parlev and have a 

 month's talk with them. 



[Perhaps the nation began wrong, and we 

 are suflEering for our own errors. No man 

 has a natural right to the soil. There 

 is as much truth as poetry in the song 

 of the ancient: "The earth is the Lord's 

 and the fullness thereof." Mankind start on 

 the earth all alike ; but some make two blades 

 of . grass grow where the Lord only made 



