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THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[JVarcA, 



which admit advertisements of wholesale prices, 

 surplus stock at low rates, and so forth? We 

 think it is. The one who sells below cost can- 

 not do so long ; it is an evil that will cure itself 

 in time. On the other hand the increase of hor- 

 ticultural or agricultural taste which agricultural 

 or horticultural papers engender is for all time, 

 and will make a healthy legitimate trade long 

 after the poor fellow who sells below cost is 

 crowded out. Of course reckless men who ad- 

 vertise to sell goods below cost are an injury to 

 legitimate trade, but there is no way by which a 

 publisher can know whether a man can afford to 

 sell what he has at the price he offers ; he has to 

 take all advertisements that have an honest 

 look. It only goes to show that there is nothing 

 on earth — not even a horticultural or an agricul- 

 tural paper — that is an unmixed good. But ad- 

 mitting the worst against agricultural i)apers ia 

 the line sketched by our correspondent, the 

 question for the nurseryman narrows down to 

 this : Is it to my advantage to have a person 

 take little or no interest in agriculture or hor- 

 ticulture, suffer him to know nothing of what 

 is going on in our world, and leave him where he 

 certainly will buy nothing at all from us or anyone; 

 or is it better to quicken his tastes, and make him 

 an enthusiast in culture, though once in a while 

 some of his orders may go to an unworthy 

 source ? The fact is that though the sales of 

 honorable firms are certainly injured by a few 

 reckless advertisers, their sales would be infi- 

 nitely more restricted if there were no agricul- 

 tural or horticultural papers at all. "We trust 

 our correspondent, therefore, will see that the 

 advantages of a newspaper are very far beyond 

 its defects and that it is really the permanent 

 interest of every nurseryman to increase the cir- 

 culation of agricultural and horticultural maga- 

 zines. — Ed. G. M.] 



The Word Mignonette. — A correspon- 

 dent of the Gardener''s Chronicle explains : 



"Mignonette is an old-fashioned French term 

 for ordinary pepper, ground a little more coarsely 

 than usual, to be eaten with oysters, or to season 

 ragouts, and is not applied to any difterent spe- 

 cies or substitute for pepper. ' Mignonette ' 

 means simply ' little favorite ; ' we apply it to 

 the sweet smelling plant, which the French, 

 with greater precision, call Reseda." 



The Fairmount Park Commission. — Hon. 

 Alex. Henry has been appointed by the law 

 judges of Philadelphia to the seat in the Board 



of Fairmount Park Commissioners, made vacant 

 by the death of Mr. Morton McMichael. Like 

 Mr. McMichael, Mr. Henry has been Mayor of 

 Philadelphia, and is one of Philadelphia's most 

 honorable citizens. 



It is a curious reflection on the way in which 

 the poplar wheel revolves that Mr. Henry's 

 political life terminated chiefly through his abor- 

 tive attempts to prevent the mass of the peo- 

 ple from riding to Fairmount Park in street-cars 

 on Sundays, while no attempt was made to pre- 

 vent the wealthier classes from hiring hacks or 

 carriages to take them there ; and that one of the 

 first public positions he should be re-called to is 

 in connection with the management of this same 

 Fairmount Park. 



Mr. Geo. Cruiksiianks.— As we go to press 

 we notice the death of this estimable Massa- 

 chusetts horticulturist, which occurred on the 

 7th inst. Though not known much to the gene- 

 ral public, in a quiet way few have done more 

 to make horticulture popular with intelligent 

 people in his part of the world. 



F. E. Elliott. — The recent death and burial 

 in a pauper's grave at Cleveland, Ohio^a fate re- 

 sultant from dissipated habits — should not pre- 

 vent us from doing justice to the valuable services 

 he rendered to horticulture in the earlier portion 

 of his career. We have nothing at hand to in- 

 form us of his birth-place or parentage, but it was 

 stated by Dr. Houghton in a speech complimen- 

 tary to Mr. Elliott, before the American Pomo- 

 logical Society in Philadephia many years since, 

 and the statement apparently accepted by Mr. 

 Elliott, that he was a decendent of the celebrated 

 Elliot who more than two hundred years ago 

 translated the Bible into the language of the J^a- 

 tick Indians ; a wonderful work for that time. 

 We can only commence with his early life, when 

 with his brother, two young single men, they 

 started business together in New York as im- 

 porters of dry goods, in which they were remark- 

 ably successful, being at one time supposed to be 

 worth about a quarter of a million of dollars 

 apiece. They were burnt out, and tlu'oughsome 

 misunderstanding with the insurance companies, 

 obtained nothing and were financially ruined. 

 About 1836 or '37 he left New York and removed 

 to Xewburg, where he became acquainted with 

 A. J. Downing, by whom his ver}^ ready pencil 

 found temporary employment, and from whom 

 he imbibed an enthusiastic love for landscape 

 gardening and horticulture irenerallv. The un- 



