THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 121 



are ripe enough to be gathered. This quality of early ripening is 

 ^'aluable, and it is desirable that this new sort should be thoroughly 

 tested on account of its promise of giving us ripe fruit in paying 

 quantity a few days earlier tlian we have been wont to get it. We 

 suggest tluit Smith's Early would be an appropiate name for this new 

 sort. 



trep: agents. 



Considerable attention has of late been given by the agricultural 

 and rural press to the doings of a class of men usually known as tree 

 agents, men who travel through the country from house to house 

 soliciting orders for trees and plants, both fruit bearing and ornamental. 

 The articles that have appeared — some of them at least — have not been 

 very discriminating. In some, these agents have been represented as 

 great public benefactors, who at no little pain and weariness take the 

 trouble to go about tlie country introducing fruits and flowers, thus 

 mattering blessings along their path. In others they are denounced as 

 a set of liars and swindlers, deceiving the people and cheating them 

 out of their hard earnings by selling them worthless trash. These 

 laudations and denunciations show that public attention is being roused 

 upon the sul>ject, and it seems well that the Canadian Horticulturist 

 should take this opportunity of contributing what it may be able to 

 give towards a fuller understanding of this matter. There is a measure 

 of truth and justice in both the praise and blame that have been 

 liestowed upon tree agents. They have been the means of calling the 

 attention of men to the planting of improved fruits, and to the orna- 

 mentation of their grounds with flowering trees and shrubs, and the 

 result has been, beyond question, a more rapid 'and wide-spread 

 diffusion of a better class of fruits, and of an improved taste for home 

 idornment than would have taken place but for their labors. And 

 on the otlier hand there have been, and doubtless may be now found 

 among their number, men wlio richly deserve all the denunciations 

 that can be heaped upon them — men who do not scruple to give new 

 names to old things in order .to get a larger price for them, — who do 

 not hesitate to make false representations whereby they may dispose 

 of articles absolutely worthless to the purchaser. 



