1879.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



91 



Literature, Travels \ Personal Notes 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



THE NURSERIES OF MILLER & HAYES. 



BY WALTER ELDER, PHILADELPHIA. 



On a recent visit I was interested to notice 

 how rapidly a wild piece of land may be made 

 to blossom in beauty. Here which but a little 

 over half a dozen 3'ears ago were nothing but 

 corn fields, old apple trees and waste, now is a 

 pretty little nursery, with numerous glass houses 

 for rare exotic, choice bedding plants and cut 

 flowers, comprising over 50,000 square feet of 

 glass. 



A special feature of these nurseries is the neat 

 ajid tasteful arrangement of the front, which is 

 in striking contrast with the neglected, not to 

 say dirty appearance of the approaches to many 

 nursery grounds ; but the elegant appearance of 

 the grounds of the Mount Airy Nurseries are 

 only what one might expect from the eminence 

 of one of the firm in the landscape gardening 

 art. The out-door department is devoted to 

 rare and ornamental trees in immense variety, 

 amongst which may be especially noted the rho- 

 dodendron wliich grow here without any more 

 care than any nursery plant receives, and with 

 a vigor and luxurance far superior to what we 

 find them in their native localities, and which 

 show how far at sea are those who regard them 

 as requiring extraordinary knowledge and skill 

 for their successful culture. Altogether no one 

 will fail to derive great enjoyment from a visit 

 to these very pretty nurseries. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Plant Protection. — We liave a request to 

 publish a series of articles on " Plant Patents," 

 which we have to decline, because we have 

 already given a great deal of space to the sub- 

 ject, and see nothing new in the proposed treat- 

 ment now. Willing as we are to give the utmost 

 freedom to our contributors in the use of our 

 very limited space, we look on this project as 

 sheer waste of type, and have inserted articles on 

 it in the past, solely because we would not be 

 regarded a.s unfair to those who differ from us. 

 We admit and deplore the fact that tliose who 



introduce new things are generally poorly paid. 

 We are ready to advocate anything that would 

 add to their rewards. We oppose the " patent "" 

 project, as our readers know, because it cannot 

 possibly work as its advocates suppose, but it 

 would make matters worse than they are now. 



We gave Mr. Glen a full and free hearing be- 

 cause his proposition to patent names was new, 

 though it seemed to us as impracticable as to 

 patent the plants themselves. If any new sug- 

 gestion be made we may publish it whether it 

 commends itself to the editorial judgment or not. 



Low Prices. — As we desire to keep our read- 

 ing pages as free as our advertising columns, we 

 give the following just as it was received : 



" It is always a pleasure to receive and read 

 your Monthly, and I for one would kindly aid 

 in getting new subscribers and spreading its cir- 

 culation. But I must plainly tell you it is with 

 me, and others I know, quite the other way, for 

 we never allow your paper to be seen or speak 

 of it to any one. Our reasons are these : You 

 seem to have a class of advertisers who are 

 anxious to give their stuff" away — and next thing 

 to pay you if you will take it. Now this would 

 be all very good if it were confined to nursery- 

 men and from nurserymen to their patrons- 

 We have many small nurseries in the land who 

 would buy from your advertisers, say several 

 hundred plants at S6.00 per hu^idred, or thousand: 

 at S50.00, to supply their customers, &c., but 

 they find them already supplied from these ver^r 

 advertisers six, ten or twelve plants mailed free 

 at 1000 rates. But Yankee and Yankee tricks 

 go together; and while you have many honor- 

 able nursery firms, they are disgraced by cheap 

 Jew tricksters, who stoop to anything and who- 

 are found in all papers as well as yours. There 

 ought to be a line of discretion in all lines of 

 business, and between and among nurserymen. 

 This way of advertising so-called trade prices^ 

 sending indiscriminately cheap trade lists to 

 everybody, and cheap printed postal cards and 

 the like, is all wrong, they can all reach those in 

 the trade by the commercial reports. 



S., Memphis, Tenn." 



[The main point of our correspondent's note- 

 is this : Is it a nurseryman's interest to aid the cir 

 culation of agricultural and horticultural papers- 



