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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



sit upon it in comfort it must be well upholstered with rug 

 ■and cushion, and the only virtue it possesses is its short life. 

 It dies young; and I hold it only slightly less abhorrent in the 

 ■car-wig stage than it is when, as a specious imitation of some- 

 thing that never was on land or sea, it is rather more obviously 

 ■a bundle of faggots and a pound of nails. 



If you must, or think you must, invoke Nature in the making 

 of yo'ur garden seat, then let the latter consist of no more than 

 the bole of some fallen tree, some great rock tumbled as by an 

 -avalanche to the brink of your shady walk. And as they fall 

 so let them he. They will not be comfortable: if you fall asleep 

 upon one or other you will probably have disturbing dreams, as 

 Jacob had on his heap of stones, but you will at least have been 

 honest in your effort to "copy Nature." 



But there is no need to do any of these things; indeed, there 

 ■are good reasons why you should not do so, and the first of 

 these is: There are plenty of seats, good to sit upon, tasteful 

 to look at and which will enhance the beauty and interest of 

 even the wild garden without our indulging in obvious extremes 

 or suffering for "art's sake" a hole in our trousers. Utility, 

 :as I have said, and comfort are the first essentials in a garden 

 seat. You can secure both these in wood, iron and other material, 

 but I prefer good honest wood even if you can afford the best 

 of hammered iron. Let the craftsmanship of a cunning worker 

 be expressed in every line of your wooden seat, but avoid any 

 trickery in design, any flamboyant ornament. For honest work- 

 manship in a garden seat is as pleasurable and satisfying a 

 thing as enameled tiles and specious adornment in carving, plaster 

 of Paris and glue are loathsome. In a word, your garden seat 

 should be the creation of an architect, one who is also a gardener, 

 if you can ever find such a happy combination. Like a beautiful 

 house amid beautiful surroundings, it must possess no offending 

 feature. It need not of necessity be fashioned so as to harmonize 

 with its environments: indeed, it were wiser to have it so that 

 it constitutes a contrast in line and color. Just as heavy Norman 

 architecture is often admirable among the Gothic arches of 

 towering Beeches, so a well modeled garden seat— the more 

 -severely plain the better— will give zest to the grace and subtle 

 charm "of a Fern glade. By contrast the one will give point to 

 the other. — The Garden.- 



M 



THE PRICES OF NEW PLANTS 



R. W. E. ARNOLD-FORSTER, in his article in The Garden 

 refers to the prices of "novelties," using hard words 

 which are unjustified and unfounded. As he mentions in particu- 

 lar an Iris sold at £5, and the only Iris sold at that price is Do- 

 minion, of which I am the raiser, perhaps I may be allowed to 

 make some reply (I have no pecuniary interest in Dominion what- 

 ever). I know many who have bought it during the last two 

 years, and most of them are not rich people. There is no question 

 of snobbery or "bad form" : it is simply a question of whether a 

 novelty is worth the price asked for it or not. The value of a 

 novelty is most fairlv measured by the cost of its production, and 

 by its capacity for producing descendants of exceptional merit — 

 its pedigree value. Dominion was quite a new break, and from 

 the seedlings alreadv obtained from it, it is not too much to say 

 that it must be the foundation of the Irises of the future; that is, 

 no Iris will be able to hold its own against varieties of Dominion 

 ancestry, except such as possess some special character that it 

 may be found impossible to obtain in combination with the Do- 

 minion qualities— and this is not very likely. Hence the "pedigree" 

 value of Dominion is difficult to estimate, and on that ground 

 alone it is probably worth far more than £5, which, in view of 

 the demand, is only possible owing to its good rate of increase. 

 Compare the i50 for Daffodil Peter Barr, or a thousand guineas 

 for a pedigree bull where the rate of increase is slower and more 

 uncertain. " Pedigree value, however, is a matter for experts, but 

 the cost of production may be estimated directly and can be ap- 

 preciated by all. I wonder if Mr. Arnold-Forster realises the cost 

 of producing first-class novelties. There is no magic about it : new 

 varieties may be obtained by anyone who takes the trouble to 

 collect and sow seed, but to produce novelties of exceptional 

 merit requires (like everything else of high quality") the exercise 

 of intelligence and imagination and much patient labor. It is no- 

 torious that no one has ever made a living out of raising novelties 

 alone, seldom indeed recovering out-of-pocket expenses, and for 

 my part I do not see that there is any "honorable tradition" or 

 "good form" in paying prices for novelties which do not provide 

 a living wage for those who produce them. Why should raisers 

 of new flowers alone be expected to give their work for nothing? 

 They have no protection and cannot "patent" their productions, 

 and what they receive depends ultimately on the prices at which 

 the novelties are sold. It is true that the best work is seldom 

 produced for gain and most breeders of flowers have worked 

 mainly for their own interest and pleasure ; but comparatively few 

 are in a position to do so, and the result is both tliat the possi- 

 bilities of breeding are greatly limited, and that many novelties of 



second-rate quality are sent out. A good example is provided in 

 the earlier part of Mr. Arnold-Forster's article, where he notes 

 the prevalence of purples and violets in Delphiniums. This is to 

 be seen in many other flowers also, and the reason is simply 

 that these are generally the easiest to obtain, and if people do not 

 pay a fair price for the best work — they will get just what they 

 pay for. With higher prices breeders would "scrap" more se- 

 verely and send out only their very best. And if this applies to 

 flowers, which are interesting in themselves, how much more does 

 it apply to improvements in fruits, vegetables and economic plants. 

 If we wish to keep our country in the honorable position which 

 it holds in the forefront of progress we must give due encourage- 

 ment to the best work. — A. J. Bliss in The Garden. 



DEPARTMENT OF BOOK REVIEWS 



Horticulture, by Kay Cadmus Davis, Ph.D. ; large 8vo, 

 VII-J-416 pages, with 287 illustrations ; The Macmillan Company, 

 New York. 



The Foreword is especially worth reading, as are many 

 prefaces, and as all introductions in books ought to be, of 

 course. In this case there is particular advisability in grasping 

 the author's preliminary point of view and in getting his help 

 in the use of the book because it is designed as a te.xtbook for 

 schools and yet attempts to cover the entire field of studies that 

 might in any way be ranged as horticultural studies ; the grow- 

 ing of field crops and animal husbandry are not touched upon. 

 Six chapters are devoted to preliminary studies and plant propa- 

 gation ; six chapters to vegetable gardening; si.\ chapters to va- 

 rious phases of orcharding ; four chapters to small fruits, nuts, 

 etc.; one chapter to the home wood lot and forestry; and one 

 each to soil improvement, the home and school grounds, weeds 

 and birds. 



This is certainly for one book an ambitious programme, the 

 adoption of which is perhaps justified by the desire of some 

 schools, teachers or students for a comprehensive survey of 

 these important subjects condensed into the time of a one year 

 course. It is fortunate that the author possesses unusual powers 

 of summary and arrangement. What space obliges the omission 

 of concerning any particular topic he provides for by giving 

 references at the end of the chapter. These references are in a 

 number of cases made up of the L'nited States Farmers' Bulle- 

 tins. They will naturally be supplemented by the properly in- 

 formed teacher or intelligent reader of any class. Chapter X, 

 Cool Season \'egetables of Early Spring and Fall, with its ap- 

 pended Exercises, Surveys and Projects, is comprehensive and 

 thoroughly excellent. Chapter XI, Cool Season Vegetables that 

 Endure Summer Heat, is even better. These chapters compose 

 a garden manual as satisfactory as many others of several times 

 their bulk. The treatment of fruits for different parts of the 

 country is most successful; it is, for a brief setting forth of this 

 interesting subject, very, very admirable and very valuable. 

 Grapes are handled particularly well. For readers in the north- 

 ern part of the country there is unusual interest in learning how 

 fruits more tropical in nature are raised. In the table giving 

 the qualities of apples, however, some varieties are not assigned 

 as many merits as in the Ohio bulletin upon which the table is 

 largely based. 



The author's skill in condensation is at once evident in the 

 first few pages which he devotes to a general treatment of botany, 

 including the propagation of plants. In quoting Mendel's law, 

 however, it is unfortunate that he stops short of telling that 

 one-fourth of the offspring in the second filial generation, if 

 smooth peas, permanently breed all smooth and one-fourth all 

 wrinkled. In advising about the selection of seed corn he would 

 better have counselled attention to the character of the plant 

 rather than that of the ear alone. The picture showing bulblets 

 forming upon a section of a hyacinth bulb has unluckily been 

 allowed to get in upside down ; the student would be misled and 

 ruin his bulb. 



Beyond a few incorrect spellings of words there are not many 

 other oversights. On page 74 crimson clover is recommended as 

 one of the best cover crops for growth in the Winter, even 

 though, as is well known, it is regularly killed by freezing north 

 of New Jersey. On page 147 it is not clear what is meant by 

 advising that bulbs of narcissi, tulips and others started in Jan- 

 uary or February may be planted out in March. On page 152, 

 stilf referring to the northern states, the same treatment is at 

 least apparently recommended for the dahlia as is given colum- 

 bines, larkspurs and other perennials that occasionally need di- 

 vision. Not all authorities surely would agree in ranking tim- 

 othy among the good lawn grasses, as is done on page 376. In 

 the planting table of perennial flowers one looks in N-ain for the 

 chrysanthemum, the iris and the poeny. 



