September li, 1909 



HORTICULTURE 



408 



A Great Pomologist 



In Xortheasterii Iowa near tlie beautiful town of 

 Charles Citj' there lives a quiet man who has given 

 forty years of his life to the improvement of the apple. 

 Few men have done so much with so little assistance 

 and accomplished sucli results as Chas. G. Patten. Un- 

 fortunately like many others who have performed won- 

 ders for horticulture he has reaped but a meagre reward. 



He found himself in a bleak cold region where the 

 fruits raised in the East could not grow. Orchards af- 

 ter orcliards were planted only to be killed by old Boreas. 

 A hardier race must be provided. He set himself to 

 this task with unwearied patience. His first success was 

 Patten's Greening which proved to be next if not 

 superior to the Wealthy in hardiness and productiveness. 

 I think today it takes the lead of all. He showed me 

 the original tree now forty years old and laden with 

 fruit, some times producing twenty-five to thirty bush- 

 els a year. And yet with all this drain it is very robust 

 and is in thriving condition. This tree of itself is 

 worth millions to the people of the great prairies. He 

 received but little from it. It has now, in a measure, 

 gone out of his hands and is enriching nurserymen and 

 planters all over the West. 



It is not a shapely nursery tree. Here let me say a 

 word for homely things; they may be good for all that. 

 Some of our very best apples grow on unshapely trees. 

 Tolman's Sweeting is on of our best and yet it is the 

 meanest tree in the nursery. Jonathan is a poor grow- 

 er and not very handsome. It is next to imposeible to 

 get a Patten's Greening up to be a nursery dude. But 

 it is there for biisiness ancl a great deal of it. 



The next tree wiiich has been a success is the Iowa 

 Beautjr. This was branched low — a very sturdy tree 

 and a prolific bearer. Mr. Patten has hundreds of very 

 choice trees from carefully hybridized seeds which prom- 

 ise well for the future. 



I suppose the two best apples of the finest flavor are 

 Jonathan and Grime's Golden Pippin. These are not 

 hardy in the Xorth. They must have a hardier stock. 

 In making experiments it is found that scions of a ten- 

 der tree are made hardier by grafting them on ironclad 

 stocks. So with care these choice apples were started 

 in protected places. Then when they blossomed they 

 were crossed with the hardiest kinds to be liad and the 

 problem was solved. The most luscious apples now grow 

 on the hardiest of trees. But how much time and pa- 

 tience this requires. Mr. Patten and the writer are of 

 the same age — both born in 1832. His work is now in 

 a critical stage. If he is taken away who will carry it 

 on? Burbank is doing a great work for the Pacific coast, 

 but nothing in comparison to the work of Iowa's grand 

 old man who wants to see the great bleak prairie states 

 filled with orchards of hardy tra^s which will pour mil- 

 lions of luscious fruits into the homes of the people. 



Mr. Patten is also having phenomenal success with 

 plums. He found none that were satisfactory and so 

 he is building up a new race. He shows his faith by his 

 works and he and his sons are planting good sized or- 

 chards with his new productions. One in this work 

 must be conservative. A tree may do well where it is 

 born and when moved to a different locality it may not 

 succeed. So it takes time, research, infinite patience 

 and a good deal of cash to produce results. The strang- 

 est thing is that the State and General Government do 

 not take this enterprise so successfully launched and 

 carry it to its fullest development. 



Garden Leaves 



Lord Eosebery's recent eulogium of garden literature 

 at a Scottish flower show is a timely reminder of the 

 important part played by liorticulture in the world of 

 letters. A whole library is at the disposal of the novice 

 to enhance his enjoyment of the "purest of all human 

 pleasures." A dozen weekly journals in Britain keep 

 his cultural knowledge in line with the season's changes. 

 One marvels that tlie amateur tiller of the soil is able to 

 do justice to his garden and the numerous writers who 

 desire to instruct or enthuse him. The hesitant ama- 

 teur has biit to follow the daily practise lucidly set forth 

 in Mr. Eider Haggard's "A Gardener's Year," and all 

 the difficulties and dangers vanish, whilst one gains an 

 added zest in the enjoyment of the necessary toil. The 

 result of the daily labors is appraised at a greater value 

 when viewed in the light of the Poet Laureate's well 

 known work, "The garden that I love." "The reader re- 

 turns to his flower beds with an extended knowledge ob- 

 tained from a close observer of the limitless delights of 

 garden life. Many recruits to the gardening anny have 

 been attracted by the charming pen pictures in Mrs. 

 Earle's "Potpourri from a Surrey Garden." The gifted 

 authoress is as skilled in raising plants as in depicting 

 garden scenes with a facile pen. 



A STANDARD WORK 



One of the most popular gardening works is the late 

 Dean Hole's "A Book About Eoses." The genial Dean 

 wrote with the full belief that "The happiness of man- 

 kind may be increased by encouraging that love of a 

 garden — that love of the beautiful which is innate in all 

 of us." This book was first published in 1859; it ran 

 through twelve editions in as many months and has 

 been translated into nearly every European tongue. It is 

 to the gardener what Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler," 

 is to the fishing fraternity. Not only is it a standard 

 work on rose culture, but it is full of the versatile Dean's 

 humor and broad-minded toleration. One of the les- 

 sons inculcated is that "He who would have beautiful 

 roses in his garden must have beautiful roses in his 

 heart." He put into practice his precepts, for at the 

 time of his cleath there were over 5,000 rose trees in 

 the Deanery garden at Rochester. 



The works of several novelists reveal the practical 

 knowledge of their authors in gardening matters. For 

 example E. D. Bhiclauore had a market nursery in the 

 Teddington district, and was very successful in fruit 

 culture. George Meredith, in his robust years, was a 

 keen gardener. Eden Pliillpotts has given ample evi- 

 dence of his intimate knowledge of gardening in the 

 liortieultural work he has published. The great fasci- 

 nation of gardening to the literary worker has been 

 summed up by Mrs." Loudon, who in one of her books, 

 states : "The great secret of being happy is to be able 

 to occupy ourselves with the objects around us so as to 

 feel an interest in watching their changes." 



The love of gardening creates a sympathetic feeling 

 between the author and liis readers. Mr. Alfred Austin 

 has commented on this fremasonry. "The apron of the 

 gardener, like the apron of a freemason." Dean Hole 

 once wrote, "means not only honest work but a brother- 

 hood." 



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