162 



HORTICULTURE. 



August 18, 1906 



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 



WU. J. STEWART. Editor and Manager. 



Eareh' has the landscape been so beautiful 

 "•"^"^ in August as this year. The copious rains 

 abundant — qI almost nightly occurrence for sev- 

 ralns eral weeks — have given a verdure effect to 

 forest and garden and lawn that is a per- 

 fect feast for the eye and the luxuriant growth of all 

 garden and field crops goes far to offset the serious in- 

 jury, down to the hay crop by the prevalent dampness. 



John Thorpe, always optimistic to the limit 

 About but usually right in his deductions, favors 

 phloxes the readers of Horticulture with some in- 

 teresting communications this week. His 

 article on phloxes will be read with pleasure and profit 

 by all lovers of this sturdy old garden favorite. Mr. 

 Thorpe's cultural notes on the subject are likely to 

 kindle an unusual train of thought for those who have 

 been accustomed to leave their phloxes to themselves for 

 years after planting, just because the plant would stand 

 for it. The possibilities under intensive cultivation as 

 suggested by Mr. Thorpe are charmingly promising and 

 we all know that the phloxes are well-worthy of all the 

 labor and attention we may bestow on them. 



We read in an English exchange 

 Gardening taste that the taste for gardening is on 

 in England the decline in that country. So 

 much at variance with our estab- 

 lished notions regarding our neighbors across the sea 

 is this that we find ourselves inclined to be sceptical as 

 regards this disquieting statement. It is to be hoped 

 that the condition referred to is only local and does not 

 truly indicate the tendency generally in that country 

 from which we have learned to expect so much in the 

 way of advanced gardening. Our contemporary had in 

 mind, unquestionably, the amateur — not the professional 

 gardener— but it is to the amateur and the neiahborlv 



rivalries engendered by his gardening enthusiasm that 

 tlie British liorticultural societies have looked for the 

 most valuable support in their exhibitions, and it fol- 

 lows that any popular backsliding must soon bring 

 about a decadence in professional gardening efficiency 

 that would be most deplorable. 



The Society of American Florisc^ and 



The S. A. F. Ornamental Horticulturists is gradually 



moves on but surely growing out of the "l)est-ten 



varieties-for-winter-forcing" epoch and 

 broadening out into the consideration of the wider 

 phases of horticulture. If any one questions this let 

 him compare the programs and the discussions of recent 

 years with those of earlier date. The convention about 

 to opeu at Dayton promises to be an almost complete 

 breaking away from the engrossing topics of the past. 

 The outlook for this movement was foreshadowed in the 

 action of the executive board in providing liberally for 

 an exhibition of out-door planting on broad lines. The 

 apathy of the dealers in hardy material and their piti- 

 able inability to grasp the splendid business opportunity 

 thus freely offered to them is convincing evidence that 

 the society and the country arc more advanced in the 

 great gardening revival than are the nurserymen them- 

 selves, wlio are, at the present time, apparently so deeply 

 engros.^ed in the game of separating the man of wealth 

 from a substantial slice of his coin in exchange far blue 

 spruces, carved box trees, and car loads of ''maximums," 

 that they can see nothing Ijeyond. 



The great revival of popular 



Where are our garden- gardening interest which our 



ers to come from? country is experiencing at the 



present time suggests the 

 query as to where tlie capable gardeners needed are to 

 come from. Hitherto the supply has been aimost 

 exclusively foreign and principally British. A scru- 

 tiny of the list of private gardeners about Boston. 

 Philadelphia, New23ort, Tarrytown. Lenox, and similar 

 places along tlie coast or inland, preeminent in hor- 

 ticultural art, will show this. Of those, it i- only 

 rarely that one i-ises and stands out above the com- 

 m'on level in intelligence and zeal and thrills us with 

 his brilliant abilities and every little while we hear 

 of some shining light deserting the ranks of jtrivate 

 gardening to enter the more remunerative (and much 

 more laborious) field of commercial horticulture. 

 Beyond a doul)t tlie old-fashioned system of slov dril- 

 ling in the groundwork of horticultural practice hfls been 

 the great factor in the making of good gardeners. 

 But. for those who have attained any distinction in 

 their calling, it has been supplemented in every in- 

 stance by a self-education in the higher things bv 

 reading and attentive study of a loved subject. Our 

 American young man is not averse to the acquirement 

 of the latter qualification— t lie first named is what feascs 

 him. and the emoluments apiiertaining to general gar- 

 dening as a vocation must be much greater than thev 

 liave hitherto amounted to before he can be induced to 

 make any serious effort in that direction. Make the 

 salary adequate for the talents required — douljle or 

 treble what is now commonly paid — and perliaps he 

 will get a move on. 



