1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



381 



■1885. I hope the Editor will give me ample sat- 

 isfaction, and save me the expense and trouble to 

 seek legal redress. Very respectfully, 



" R. C. POPPEY, Wilmington, Mass." 



Mr. Grove P. R.wvson. — Mr. Rawson writes: 

 " If you will take the trouble to ascertain the facts, 

 you will find that I have the largest florist estab- 

 lishment in South-western New York, a character 

 above reproach and honorable in all my deal- 

 ings." 



[We can only repeat our regret that we were 

 led into those personal matters, by what seemed 

 to us as a wholly impersonal and innocent com- 

 munication. — Ed. G. M.] 



Prospects of Gardening in Georgia.— A 

 lady correspondent writing from Dalton, says, 

 that fruits grow so easy that everybody has thou- 

 sands, therefore no one needs to buy. Thousands 

 of bushels of peaches and apples rot on the 

 ground. 



It is not likely to be so long, as that section is 

 rapidly seeing the advantages of a consuming as 

 well as a producing class. She says : 



" This section is struggling bravely to keep 

 abreast with the spirit of the age, and in its 

 schools and colleges, its cotton mills, factories 

 and many varied industries, agricultural and me- 

 chanical, displays commendable activity and earn- 

 estness in the march of progress. Its native 

 wealth is great, and when its vast . mineral re- 

 sources are developed, and its mines of gold and 

 silver, of iron, manganese, coal, stone, talc, etc., 

 are made to yield up their treasures to man, and 

 every vale and hilltop and mountain side shall 

 ring with the glad notes of thrift and prosperity, 

 then shall a glorious destiny be realized by this 

 sweet summer land of Georgia." 



E.xaggerated Pictures. — A correspondent 

 who has had much to do with the staggering task 

 of making pictures for catalogues, desires us to 

 publish the following from the London Garden: 



" It is said that even the humble worm will 

 ' turn again !' — if trodden upon too often. There 

 cannot be a more humble and inoffensive individ- 

 ual tlian the horticultural artist. I, alas I am one. 

 I have no pretensions to independence of thought 

 or hand ; I am a mere nurseryman's drudge. I 

 am not benefitted when I portray a dingy dwarf as 

 a gorgeous giant. 1 merely do what my kind em- 

 ployer tells me ; he pays me my humble pittance, 

 rubs my name off my work, and publishes my 

 picture. Sir, I am so well acquainted with nur- 

 serymen's requirements, that I have in constant use 

 a ' nurseryman's proportional compass' — devised 

 by myself ; there is a movable screw in the mid- 

 dle, so that one end may be made to open twice, 

 thrice, four, or even five or six times more than 

 the other. If I have a plant from Mr. Swaggs, I 



move the screw to Mr. Swaggs' mark, and I 

 ! measure with the small end and draw with the 

 big one. If Mr. Pelter sends me a plant, I move 

 the screw to Mr. Pelter's mark, and I always give 

 satisfaction. 1 call my compass a ' horticultural 

 i florometer.' When young 1 did not like these 

 exaggerations, and I trembled for my reputation 

 and honesty, but my chief nurseryman told me it 

 was all right, as • he always rubbed the artist's 

 name off.' 



" I was also not long in learning that nursery- 

 men not only hold the poor draughtsmen in 

 slavery, but that they ' had ' the publishers as 

 well. For instance, ^Ir. Topper writes to his pub- 

 lisher, 'Dear Mr. Sj cophant, — If you will send 

 your artist to paint my new magnificent Mimulus. 

 I will take 500 copies of your monthly magazine.' 

 When the submissive artist goes to the rich nur- 

 seryman he is told that all the best Mimuluseshave 

 'gone off;' that a lew poor blooms are left, but 

 they are not one-quarter the size of those just 

 'gone off.' If the inoffensive artist will draw 

 these small flowers exactly four times the size of 

 natuie, they will well represent the missing blooms. 

 Should the poor drudge remonstrate, a threat is 

 held out that the 500 copies will be cancelled, and 

 Mr. Sycophant, the publisher, will come down on 

 the draughtsman 'like a thousand of bricks." 

 Well, sir, I made a mistake once, and I did quietly 

 enjoy it — behind my master's back. There was a 

 plant race : Two nurserymen were each madly 

 eager to get a ■ new plant ' out first. Mr. Swiggers 

 sent the blooms on to me by post in hot haste, 

 with a request that I should get his out first at all 

 risk and an extra half-crown would be my reward. 

 Sir, I got out my compass — Mr. Swiggers' stretches 

 more than any other man's; I polished the plant 

 off like lightning and got it out first. On the day 

 of its publication I received a letter from Mr. 

 Swiggers' under-secretary suinmoning me imme- 

 diately to the plant emporium. Of course I went 

 — instantly. Mr. Swiggers was there with dilated 

 eyes, hair on end, and his tongue cleaving to the 

 roof of his mouth — speechless. At last he said, 

 'Oh ! Mr. Staggers, 1 tremble under the blow you 

 have put upon me ; the plant my young man sent 

 was a dwarf variety, and ought to have been 

 shrunk in size at least three times; whereas you 

 have enlarged it with your peculiar compass six 

 times. I am ruined ! I am ruined ! You artists 

 are a bad lot ; you have got no sense.' Mr. Swig- 

 gers took good care never again to employ the in- 

 i offensive Staggers." 



I The Past Year in Washington Territory. — 

 A lady writes; "Our Washington Territory 

 weather is nothing if not in an extreme one way 



\ or another. March and half of April were hot 

 and dry as July usually is. Spring-blooming 

 bulbs were scorched with heat, and 'June roses' 

 bloomed in April. Now we have had two weeks 

 of cold rain, and some hail, and prospect of 

 'more.' Mrs. Thomson's plan for propagating 

 reminds me that I used to fill my wash-boiler with 

 boiling water, set over it a shallow box with the 



