HORTI CULTURE 



July i, 1905 



HORTICULTURE 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE. 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephone, 0>ford. 292 



WU. J. STEWART. Editor and Manager. 



The Editor Has His Say 



Onlv six weeks remain until packing up for the 

 trip to Washington will be in order. There are con- 

 ventions and conventions, but none are so full of 

 interest to so many departments of horticulture as 

 this annually recurring S. A. F. meeting with its 

 unrivaled business and social advantages. The fact 

 that the society reaches its majority this year, being 

 2 1 years of age, lends an added interest and, with the 

 attractions offered by the Capitol City, a very heavy 

 attendance may reasonably be counted on. A fine 

 exhibition is assured. The proceedings will be full 

 of attraction. Let every one who can, come and 

 help to make this a record-breaking convention in 

 everything that makes for the prosperity of the 

 national society and the good of the profession. 



With this number Horticulture begins its second 

 volume. Started with the conviction that the horti- 

 cultural profession would welcome and support a 

 weekly conducted on broadly helpful lines. Horti- 

 culture has been, from the first issue, a success. 

 No plunging has been indulged in; we have set off 

 no fire-works, being contented to base our claim for 

 popularity on the literary worth, artistic excellence, 

 and practical value of our contributions. It is highly 

 encouraging to the promoters of the paper that its 

 merits have been so quickly recognized, its short- 

 comings so magnanimously overlooked, and its ad- 

 vertising value so thoroughly tested by the leading 

 horticultural firms. It is fitting that we here re- 

 iterate the words of our "Greeting" in Horticul- 

 ture's first issue: "Its sponsors express the earnest 

 wish that, favored with the encouragement and for- 

 bearance of a host of good friends, it may grow better 

 and better with each issue, take deeper root in the 

 affections of all those who find their life work among 

 flowers and plants, fruits and trees and gardens, and, 

 that it may, in due time, reach the eminence to which 

 it aspires, as the foremost .\n\erican exponent of liorti- 

 cultural aspiration and achievement." 



Signs are not wanting to indicate that the rose as 

 a garden favorite is coming rapidly to the front, not 

 in a visionary, ])oetic way, but in the most practical 

 manner. The public has demonstrated at every re- 

 cent opportunity that there is a wide-spread and 

 sincere interest in the questions of rose culture and 

 the reliability of varieties offered for garden plant- 

 ing. In short, people seem ready to undertake the 

 serious work necessary in order to establish and 

 maintain rose gardens, and that is practically the 

 whole battle, for, with the willingness to make the 

 investment of labor and devoted attention, is the 

 assurance of results which cannot but charm and 

 awaken enthusiasm of the liveliest sort. Florists and 

 nurserymen can do their part towards this much-to- 

 be-desired consummation, by studying the rose from 

 the standpoint of its adaptability "to their immediate 

 neighborhood, so that they will be able to impart 

 that knowledge of the needs of the Queen of Flowers, 

 which is so deplorably lac'king. A fruitful harvest 

 awaits the man who plants the educational seed 

 now, particularly in the line of ever-blooming roses, 

 which, as M. H. Walsh confidently predicts, is 

 destined to push very hard the old-fashioned hybrid 

 perpetual tyyje. Killamey, The Burbank, Baby 

 Rambler, Maman Cochet, and others might be named 

 as varieties that have already acquired a prestige 

 that will extend to the balance of the list named by 

 Mr. Walsh as soon as they become better known. 



By all means adorn the railroad-station grounds. 

 If the railroad company is not disposed to do it, the 

 citizens should undertake it, and the local florist or 

 nurseryman can afford to contribute liberally to this 

 or any other public improvement that tends to a 

 better appreciation and demand for his goods. But 

 there is a right and a wrong way in station planting 

 as in everything else. The subject has been re- 

 ceiving much attention of late in the magazines and 

 the daily press. The railroad corporations that have 

 made effort in this direction . merit commendation, 

 particularly the Boston and Albany which has set 

 a shining example for the world, the educational 

 value of which can not be overestimated. There is 

 however, one other New England railroad system 

 that, instead of putting the planning and planting 

 into competent professional hands, as the B. & A. 

 did, chooses to spend its money through the medium 

 of its station agents, making the work competitive 

 and awarding prizes annually. The results are not 

 exactly such as to gain any surplus renown for 

 station-master horticulture. Among the "unique and 

 beautiful displays" presented at one station there 

 were last season, according to a local paper, "plainly 

 and artistically worked out in living plants, repre- 

 sentations of a farmer being chased by a goat, while 

 a Chinaman attemjits to get out of the way, an 

 equestrian statue of George Washington, holding in 

 his hand a hatchet; a full-rigged ship, and a repre- 

 sentation of Liberty Bell." 



A remarkable collection, surely! We would sug- 

 gest that it be augmented by the representation of 

 a full-rigged dining-car (which would be a rare 

 novelty on that particular railroad), flanked by a 

 carefully worked-out group showing a lady and a 

 conductor discussing as to whether her youngster 

 liad yet reached the fare-paying age! Verily, great 

 are the possibilities of railroad gardening. 



