TIMELY TOPICS FOR THE AMATEUR.— XII, 



'HE month of February brings to our 

 notice the usual business heralds of 

 j^; approaching; spring, that come to us 

 in the shape of seed and plant catalogues. 

 A great improvement is noticeable in the 

 general appearance and get-up of these use- 

 ful adjuncts and aids to floriculture. Not 

 only are the species and varieties of seeds 

 and plants offered in them of a much more 

 comprehensive and varied type and charac- 

 ter, but the illustrations used have a much 

 more genuine and true-to-nature appearance 

 than formerly. This is more particularly 

 the case with catalogues of ornamental trees 

 and shrubs, some of these deserving more 

 the title of magazines of photographic art 

 rather than that of catalogues ; depicting as 

 they do scenes of summer beauty and blos- 

 som that make them very acceptable visit- 

 ors, coming at this season of the year when 

 garden and lawn is usually covered deep in 

 its mantle of snow, and when tree and shrub 

 are for the most part bare, gaunt and un- 

 attractive in appearance. 



Seed and plant catalogues, as well as 

 those of trees and shrubs, also bear the same 

 impress of improvement, showing the same 



marked tendency to depict in a more natural 

 manner than heretofore the many varieties 

 and types of plants included under this 

 category. 



We see less and less every year of the 

 style of illustrations or cuts representing im- 

 possible and unnatural looking specimens of 

 plants and flowers, the originals of which 

 could only have been purely imaginative in 

 character. A few of these pictorial exag- 

 gerations can still however be found in the 

 pages of catalogues for igoi. 



Reproductions from photographs of actual 

 specimens of plants and flowers, as well as 

 a better and truer type of wood-cut, have 

 done much toward banishing many of these 

 made-up and unnatural illustrations from 

 the pages of seed and plant catalogues. 

 Reproductions from photos, if at all well 

 executed, have at leas^ the merit of portray- 

 ing the form of flower and habit of plant 

 correctly, two very essential points to be 

 taken into consideration when making a 

 selection of seeds or plants. Color photo- 

 graphy and its successful reproduction seems 

 to be the only feature now necessary to 

 make its use absolutely indispensable for 



