30t) ANNUAL UEPORT 



higher forms of lile. He knows that what some are pleased to 

 call sports, in the vegetable world, are simply the results of 

 higher cause little understood; that Nature never makes mis- 

 takes, takes freaks, nor produces "sports," — yet with all the fas- 

 cinations of the study and work connected with the profession of 

 horticulture, the high road to success is far from being a smooth 

 one. The horticulturist is constantly called upon to deal with 

 new factors; new avenues of exchange are being opened; greater 

 requirements must be met. 



Propagation and cross-fertilization constantly produce new 

 varieties which must be carefully tested, and the good culled 

 out from the worthless. Climatic changes have to be met which 

 require new methods of adaptation. The present era of sharp 

 competition — an era which has come to stay — is doing much to 

 change the relation of the horticulturist to his profession, and 

 to be able to acquire any degree of pecuniary success he must be 

 fully alive to the exigencies of the case; he must be constantly 

 on the qui vive to seek out and adopt every agency for the en- 

 largement of his knowledge of the facts surrounding him and 

 the wider relations to which his interests are constantly tending; 

 in short, he must put forth greater elforts to x)rovide for better 

 methods. He must have lists of facts, every one of which may 

 be separately verified, valued and revalued, and the whole ac- 

 curately summed up. A clear recognition of the possibilities 

 and limitations of the profession is of vast importance to those 

 who would woo success; to be able to acquire any possible de- 

 gree of success, there is necessity for mental activity — a hun- 

 dred times more so than was the case a half century ago. 



He can no longer follow in the furrow which his predecessors 

 have turned, but must strike out new lands for himself Horti- 

 culturists will have accomplished much toward driving out the 

 unequal and damaging competition of the oily tongued tree 

 peddler with his wonderful and unnatural productions, if they 

 will confine themselves a little more closely to the text of the 

 golden rule and cultivate conscientiousness more. A perfect 

 confidence once established between them and their patrons 

 will not allow the intervention of those dishonest scavengers 

 who reap the fruit of honest men's toil. 



The man who conducts the long line of experiments necessary 

 to produce a new variety that shall prove satisfactory for general 

 cultivation is a public benefactor and should be regarded as 

 such, but alas! the truth is, the public is usually very slow to 



