PLANTS FRO^I EAST ASL\, ETC. 105 



damaged in summer it is born anew the next spring. The ever- 

 greens are more severely handicapped by their injuries. 



With few exceptions deciduous trees, shrubs and vines from 

 western Europe are not happy here. They suffer more from 

 fungus diseases than our natives, and the bark and trunk are 

 mere Hable to crack when the temperature goes below zero. 

 The foliage often feels softer, less leathery, less able to stand 

 drought, darker green and arranged more at the ends of the 

 branches so that looking up into the trees is as into a hollow 

 dome. 



Most of the fruits brought from Europe to the eastern 

 coast of the United States is less healthy than the native trees. 

 Fortunes have been spent trying to introduce fruits that failed. 

 We hear of these European fruits thriving better on the Pacific 

 coast. 



There should be a series of experiments along the east 

 coast of the United States to introduce the economic and orna- 

 mental plants of eastern Asia and other regions of similar cli- 

 mate, and carry on extensive plant breeding with them and with 

 the native plants and the more highly improved plants of Europe. 



The above conclusions have been reached from observations 

 on plants mostly growing on Long Island, northern New Jersey, 

 New York State, the vicinities of BtDston, Philadelphia, Wash- 

 ington and Norfolk, Virginia. Long Island has been probably 

 the oldest and most extensive testing-ground for European and 

 Asiatic plants. From the Prince Nursery or Linnean Botanic 

 Garden were distributed many foreign trees in Colonial days. 

 Later the Parsons Nursery introduced the Hall and the Hogg 

 collection of Japanese plants. The Charles A. Dana collection 

 is on Long Island. Nursery stock imported from Europe and 

 Japan has been very extensively used. 



Dr. Asa Gray's discovery of the close relation of the floras 

 of eastern Asia and eastern North America led me about seven- 

 teen years ago to begin noting the behavior of those plants here. 

 At that time we were importing a large part of our young nurs- 

 ery stock from France and Scotland. Later I imported most of 

 the species ofifered by the German, French, English and Japan- 



