HORTICULTURE 



October 28, 1905 



HORTICULTURE 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FLORIST, PLANTSMAN, LANDSCAPE 



GARDENER AND KINDRED 



INTERESTS 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING CO. 



II HAMILTON PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. 



Telephone, Oxford 292, 



WM. J. STEWART. Editor and Manager. 



The work of combating the gypsy motli 

 Gypsy moth has now reached a magnitude where it 

 not local shoiild have the aid of the national gov- 

 ernment. The time has come when 

 Congress should take up the subject seriously, for the 

 infliction is no longer local neither can it be suppressed 

 by local effort. Procrastination only makes the under- 

 taking greater and vastly more costly. The menace is 

 not understood or realized by those remote from the 

 present field of destruction. Later on there will be a 

 rude awakening. 



Overcrowding is an almost uni- 

 The artistic quality versal defect in the arrangement 

 of floral exhibitions of exhibits at our flower shows. 

 In the great exhibitions which 

 are about to open the managers have the opportunity to 

 introduce a great reform in this respect, particularly in 

 the cut flower section. It is to the public that we must 

 look for the financial support necessary to maintain 

 these affairs and general effect has much more influence 

 with the public than scales of points and other technical 

 considerations that appeal especially to the craft. A 

 table of chrysanthemum blooms crowded so closely 

 together that they touch, each group distinguished from 

 its neighbor only by a pencil mark across the table, may, 

 or may not, display to the initiated cultural excellence 

 in a high degree but to the public eye it is only a mass 

 of flowers with no claim to notice except its quantity 

 and to the artist it is but a crude and meaningless con- 

 glomeration, an altogether uninviting and uncouth 

 array. The lamentable absence of taste in arrangement 

 of many floral displays forces the visitor to make com- 

 parisons with exhibitions in other lines of industry by 

 no means advantageous to the horticulturist. 



When Cowper sang, over one 



Growth of the hundred years ago. "Who loves a 



private greenhouse garden loves a greenhouse too," 



ho stated a self-evident truth. 



There may be a few exce])tinns — we have heard of such 



— garden-lovers who in tlidr enthusiasm for the garden 



as they would have it, decry everything but their own 

 ideal, but a flower is a flower and an assembling of 

 flowers and verdure is, to most of us, a garden whether 

 under open summer skies or beneath protecting glass 

 while winter rages outside, and, in the latter case, pos- 

 sibly more of a delight because of its contrast with the 

 bleakness witliout. The greenhouse of Cowper's day 

 must have been a crude affair as compared with the 

 well-proportioned, iron-ribbed crystal structure now so 

 familiar. The enormous, annually-increasing business 

 being done by the greenhouse building concerns is the 

 American people's response to these flrms for their 

 successful efforts to produce glass structures not only 

 of the highest utility but architecturally elegant in pro- 

 portions and plan and an ornament to their place. The 

 number of private conservatories is bound to increase 

 enormously, thus opening up new flelds for the well- 

 trained gardener and an enhanced demand for com- 

 mercially grown plants in great variety with which to 

 stock these houses. The outlook is indeed encouraging. 



At last Jack Frost wins out 

 Gardening — and gardens are blighted and 



the florists' opportunity defaced. From a certain 

 business standpoint the florist 

 will doulitless welcome the passing of the unusually long 

 and salubrious autumn. No longer will the lavish 

 product of the garden stand in the way of adequate 

 remuneration for his activities under glass. But he is 

 not a true horticulturist if, with it all, he does not 

 experience a twinge of regret as he sees the outdoor love- 

 liness vanish. American horticulture is now shaping 

 itself, however, so that the exotic flower and fabrications 

 thereof are no longer to hold an exclusive or even pre- 

 eminent place in the florists' art. The love for growing 

 plants for indoor and outdoor enjoyment is rapidly 

 extending and he who would serve the public in their 

 broader horticultural appreciation must perfect himself 

 in garden craft. It is safe to say there is abundant 

 room for improvement for, judging by the examples 

 that we see, garden art is with us, still in the kinder- 

 garten stage. A manifest lack of fitness pervades it 

 wherever we go. How many gardens there are, elab- 

 orately laid out, well-cared for, each plant and tree a 

 gem in its way, and yet the master touch, needed to 

 bring the scheme into full harmony with its environ- 

 ment, is lacking. Few of us have the talent to enable 

 us to say why this or that feature is \vrong and still 

 fewer are they who can prescribe the remedy — we simply 

 know that the picture is, at best, incomplete. For the 

 florist, imbued with the true horticultural spirit, the 

 quest will be a fascinating one and he is the man above 

 all others who should find the kev. 



'Accuse not Xature ; 

 Do thou but thine." 



he hath done her 



irt ; 



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