specialties for Ntirserymcn. 287 



SPECIALTIES FOR NURSERYMEN. 



By Edward C. Herbert, Boston, Mass. 



The amateur who examines the catalogues of our nurserymen and 

 florists is not unfrequently lost in wonder at the number of species and 

 varieties of plants and flowers therein enumerated. He can scarce con- 

 ceive how such collections can be grown in any nursery or greenhouse 

 of reasonable size, and thus derives an exalted idea of the magnitude 

 of the establishments giving birth to such catalogues. 



Two experiences are yet before the novice : the first, to visit, person- 

 ally, the various establishments ; we need hardly chi^onicle the disap- 

 pointment which will be the result : the second, to order a moderately 

 large list of plants from the catalogue, to which a reply will come, that 

 a large proportion cannot be supplied. 



Now, it is plain there is some fundamental error in the general plan 

 of business, which is neither more nor less than the attempt, with small 

 means, to do too much. There are establishments, employing hundreds 

 of men, with acres of glass houses, that are able to do all they under- 

 take ; but such hardly exist in our country. 



The mistake is, with limited means we attempt almost unlimited 

 objects. With a greenhouse, or houses if you please, twenty feet by one 

 hundred, we would grow a plant of everything which the earth pro- 

 duces. There can be but one result, and that is failure. 



The remedy, or the way to success, is very plain — simply to confine 

 our nursery culture to a specialty. Let one nursery grow fiTiit trees ; 

 another, evergreens ; another, deciduous trees ; another, small fruits. 

 In the greenhouses let one grow New Holland plants ; another, bed- 

 ding plants ; another, camellias, and so on ; and let no one interfere 

 with the other. 



Among the trade an intercourse of exchange should be instituted. 

 The plants, being a specialty, would be of the best. Amateurs would 

 order evergreens from A, roses from B ; and smaller buyers could easily 



