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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



something was said or done in relation to three chief 

 things, namely; 1, facilities for gardeners acquiring 

 technical education ; 2, protection of the bona fide pro- 

 fessional gardener against untrained interlopers, thus 

 reducing the status of the calling; 3, provision for 

 sick, disabled, or indigent gardeners — a sort of old age 

 fund. The time seems to be ripe when the whole 

 body of gardeners in this country should unite in this 

 association and fight for certain ideals that are agreed 

 upon by the whole membership. One of the best would 

 be the provision of a fund whereby the needy old 

 men of the gardener's calling could be provided for, 

 or at any rate, they would feel that their last days 

 would not be desolate or in want so long as the as- 

 sociation existed. Secondly, the young men should 

 have provision for the intellectual part of their train- 

 ing; this at times now is difficult of realization. 



"onlooker" answers "bvst.\nder." 



So I have at least one close reader of these discursive 

 notes on "Things and Thoughts of the Garden," one 

 who signs himself "Bystander." I will answer his 

 ■questions as briefly and as well as I can. "Bystander" 

 thinks that in sowing Sweet Pea seeds in the autumn, 

 "the idea is that the seeds remain dormant all winter, 

 as the germinating power of some seeds is improved 

 after being subjected to frost in the ground." I would 

 rather keep my seeds in the bag all winter and place 

 them in a little sulphuric acid in the spring if it were 

 merely a matter of getting "improved germination." 

 Sulphuric acifl is now recimimended for over-ripened 

 or very hard-shelled Peas, the seeds being immersed 

 for a very brief period in the liquid, when it is found 

 that the testa or outer coat ruptures readily. Sweet 

 Peas are sown out of doors as late in November as 

 possible or practicable to insure germination taking 

 place, yet to prevent more than half an inch of growth. 

 If the plants are sown much earlier than this it has 

 been found by Mr. Kerr at Burpee's trial grounds, and 

 also at Cornell, that too much growth is likely to 

 result, and hard frosts coming, nip the plants back 

 and rot sets in. By the end-of-November-sowing, 

 however, the small stubby growth lies too low to get 

 easily hurt, and moreover, is readily protected with 

 the straw and soil. As regards the root growth, no 

 one could expect lively root action or any action 

 "through the frost-bound winter months ;" yet just 

 as all good bulb growers like to plant their tubers in 

 time for the roots to strike far down before the tO]i 

 growth makes much headway, cm the same reasoning 

 do the Sweet Pea men sow in autumn. It is on this 

 basis and with the idea in their minds of giving the 

 seedlings the o])portunity of "getting away" whenever 

 the weather is at all favorable at any time in the 

 winter and spring, that autumn sowing is practised 

 and advocated. The Sweet Pea is a hardy annual and 

 will hear a great deal of punishment before it suc- 

 cumbs, albeit it will often fail in the winter, but those 

 that come through are so sturdy and deep-rooted, that 

 not only do they flower much earlier than those put 

 out even from pots, but they last longer and better 

 during dry spells, have superior blooms, and on the 

 whole resist insects and disease better. For these 

 reasons autumn sowing is considered worth the time. 

 labor and chances. 



"Bystander" then turns to an entirely different mat- 

 ter, the vexed question of plant names. Scholars have 

 told me that plant nomenclature is "anyhow," mean- 

 ing that there was no uniformity or true agreement 



in the terminations, the application of the genders and 

 such like. Perhaps one would have to apply to Max 

 Miiller or a Prince I'ounaparte, each of them famed 

 etymologists, fcir an answer, but we of the garden 

 have enough to do without troubling over these very 

 abstruse considerations, interesting though they im- 

 doubtedly are. I certainly do not think, "Bystander" 

 (m answer to your question), that plant naming is com- 

 plete and final as we have it today, and I am not averse 

 to a name being changed if it has been rendered neces- 

 sary by the introduction of new species which, as we 

 all know very well, fill up previous gaps between other 

 species or even genera, and show them to be co-related 

 members or mere varieties, as the case may be. Some- 

 times a recasting may be necessary, but I think the 

 time is past when any great amount of this work is 

 actually essential with our chief garden or cultivated 

 genera. But I certainly do strongly object to seeing 

 names — yes, the ones he talks . of as having been 

 handed down from father to son — altered for a mere 

 whimsical reason or merely to flatter the vanity of 

 some rising young botanist with a desire to see him- 

 self shine in the Annals of Botaiiv, or similar pub- 

 lication as the restorer of some long-lost name, or 

 as the recaster of a genus, thus giving him a chance 

 to rename a couple of species or maybe a whole series 

 of them. For be it remembered these changes can 

 seldom be made without disturbance elsewhere. Be- 

 lieve me, "Bystander," I have seen and heard on this 

 subject more than I would care to state in The G.\r- 

 deners' Chronicle. In connection with my protest 

 against the useless, harmful, and totalh* unnecessary 

 changing of the names of well-known garden plants, 

 ask intelligent nurserymen what they think about it, 

 ask the seedsmen who have to keep their catalogs 

 straight, ask the gardener in charge of a large place 

 and who also has the farm to look after, and see what 

 they think of the changing of well-known names. One 

 thing they do think, and that is that they, as the every- 

 day commercial and jjrivate users of plant names, 

 have some propriety in them, indeed quite as nnich 

 as the botanists. Let me conclude with a quotatiun 

 from a paper or address by Prof. L. H. Bailey, which 

 I have seen, in a contemporary in which he said : "The 

 present situation in nomenclature is a vivid illustration 

 of the failure of arbitrary means of standardization. 

 We should recognize more fully 'the principle of usage' 

 which, in the end, controls all language. We have 

 probably made a mistake in trying to substitute ar- 

 bitrary priority for stability; at all events, we might 

 have saved _ ourselves the very amusing exercise of 

 trying to upset well-established naines for the purpose 

 of substituting an older one in order that we might 

 make the name staple. It looks as if usage were, 

 after all, to triumph in the end and in some regards 

 quite independently of arbitrary regulations. The 

 principle of undeviating priority has not yet controlled 

 for any length of time in the development of language. 

 It is a false premise. The public has real rights in 

 the names of plants." Perhaps the professor could 

 have said what he had in his mind in a simpler, clearer 

 fashion, but at any rate he says, as your humble scribe 

 does too, that the botanists ought to consider the 

 confusion and harm their name-changing does, which, 

 were it followed, would outweigh the scientific value 

 of it. But they so often change — not once or twice 

 even, but several times. Look up the long string of 

 synonyms that many plants have and ask yourself 

 who's going to try and adopt every new name these 

 systematists chose to adopt. Let's have a name and 

 the author of it and stick to it, change it who will. 



