26 



HOETICULTURE 



January lu. 11920 



HORTICULTURE 



KntnbUshril by » lllliiin J. Stewart In IB04 



VOL. XXXI 



JANUARY 10, 1920 



No. 2 



PUBMSllEI) WEEKLY BY 



HORTICULTURE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

 78 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass. 



EDWARD I. FARRINGTON, Editor. 



Trlephoni- Fort Hill SfiiM 



ADVERTISING BATES: 



Per Inoh, SO Inches to pace J1JB6 



Dlscoont on Contracts for consecatlTe insertions, as follows; 



One month (4 times), S per rent.; three months (13 times), 10 

 per cent.; six months (26 times), 20 per cent.; one year (62 times), 

 80 per cent. 



Pag:e and half page space, not consecntlve, rates on application. 



Entered as second-class matter December 8, 1004, at tbe Post Office 

 at BoBtoD, Mass., ander the Act of Congress of March 3, 1897. 



It is pretty liard for growers not to sell 

 Carnations all the carnations they can cut when the 



price climbs to ten, twelve and even to 

 fifteen cents. As a natural result of market conditions, 

 there is an unusual scarcity of cuttings. Of course the 

 growers are looking out for their own stock, but at pres- 

 ent they much prefer selling flowers to cuttings and 

 florists who have to buy cuttings find them very hard 

 to get. It does not reijuire much astuteness to see that 

 this presages a short crop later on. From all appear- 

 ances carnations are going to be good property for a 

 long time. 



Letters alx)ut the billboard campaign of 

 Billboards the S. A. F. and 0. H. continue to come 



in, but Horticulture feels that it is time 

 to stop the discussion. There will be time for further 

 criticism, if any is needed, after more of the signs have 

 been placed in position. For our part, we believe that 

 the public in general and those in the trade who have 

 been opposed to this fomi of advertising will \)e sur- 

 prised at the care which the florists will exercise in the 

 use of the signs and at the pleasant effects produced. 

 We feel that the florists themselves will avoid anything 

 which is offensive or likely to merit public condemna- 

 tion. They are too public spirited and too good business 

 men to do otherwise. 



There has been some criticism in the 



American Iris English papers about the multiplica- 



Society tion of societies on that side of the 



water. No such difficulty exists here, 

 however, and the new organization to lie called the 

 American Iris Society will be welcomed. This society is 

 to be organized at a meeting to be held January 29 in 

 the Museum Building of the New York Botanical Gar- 

 den, New York City. There seems to be a real need for 

 a society devoted to the Iris, which is keeping pace in 

 jjopularitj' with the peony and rose. 



One of the important objects of the new organization 

 will be a proper classification of new varieties. At the 

 present time new kinds are being produced in great num- 

 bers, but are catalogued and disseminated in a more or 

 less haphazard way. There will always be a place for 

 worth while new varieties, but many of those now lieing 



put iiul should properly be discarded at the very start. 

 If tlie American Iris Society is willing to take a leaf 

 ridiii tlie experience book of the peony growers it will 

 make an early start with test gardens and in this way 

 avoid many of the difficulties which peony lovers have 

 encountered. If these gardens are properly supervised 

 and all new seedlings judged in them by expert com- 

 mittees before they are named and introduced, iris grow- 

 ers and the public in general will be benefited. There 

 should be desirable rewards for novelties of merit, but 

 those which are inferior or closely resemble existing 

 varieties, should be set aside as unworthy of propagation. 

 It is to be hoped that the new society will issue bulle- 

 tins and reports containing valuable information. The 

 American IJose Society and the American Peony Society 

 have already shown the value of such publications to 

 growers, both amateurs and professionals. The new 

 .society should make itself of great use not only to 

 amateurs and to breeders but to commercial nursery- 

 men as well. It can do this by circulating cultural 

 directions based on experiments in its trial gardens and 

 by stimulating interest in the iris to such an extent 

 that tlie demand for plants will be greatly increased. 



Is Ambition Dead ? 



Calcium, N. Y., .Jan. 5, 1920. 



Your editorial under the above heading in your 

 December fith issue is noted with interest. 



Xo, ambition is not dead, but it is taking a wrong 

 direction, and tlie remedy is perhaps not as plain as it 

 should be. 



Your suggestion to encourage reading is one of the 

 very best that can be made, but it is difficult to interest 

 the rising generation in reading. They are too busy, 

 and time is too much taken up by trying to find some 

 new form of entertainment. If people could only be 

 induced to read it would doubtless solve tlie problem to 

 a great extent. Any man who does not read the trade 

 literature in his own particular line is surely heading 

 for the discard, and people find this out only when past 

 the time when reading would do them the most good. 

 If young people could be induced to form the reading 

 habit early in life it would go far toward solving the 

 problem presented in your editorial. It matters not so 

 much what they read when young providing it is at 

 least harmless, and so long as they form the reading 

 habit and read regularly. If this habit is kept up until 

 mature years, naturally reading of a more soHd and sub- 

 stantial character is taken up and that is where the 

 benefit is derived. 



Back of all this is the question of education. In what 

 direction does our present education tend? Does not 

 our present educational system teach the young that if 

 they follow a certain course of study they will be quali- 

 fied to hold positions that do not require labor? Should 

 not our institutions of education teach primarily the 

 dignity and honor of work, just plain ordinary labor 

 without frills? Should not the primary grades teach 

 children that every person owes it to the world that he 

 should earn his own living? Should not the earning 

 of one's living by some useful pursuit be the first element 

 of good citizenship? 



It seems that there is no doubt but what the present 

 tendency of the day is toward demoralization an(i disin- 

 tegration. It is to be hoped that the tendency will he 

 checked before too much damage is done. 



Madison Cooper. 



