38 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



compete without protection. The government ought to protect 

 this infant industry. 



Mr. Dawson took a more cheerful view of the matter than the 

 preceding speaker. While he knew there is great competition 

 in the immense amount of seedlings annually sent to this country, 

 besides the immense numbers of small shrubs or trees sold at 

 auction in our seaboard cities, he believed that the well known 

 pluck and energy of the Americans, added to their mental activity, 

 would enable them, if they were ever roused up, to produce a 

 better class of tre^s or shrubs, which would take better with the 

 general public and give better satisfaction, than the imported stock, 

 and with close attention, close application, and hard work in 

 America, nurserymen would succeed, and through them the Ameri- 

 can public would be better served. 



Mr. Temple again alluded to the foreign grown plants sold at 

 auction in our seaboard cities, remarking that they were largely in 

 no condition to be sold. The}* were mere beginnings of plants 

 and therefore not such as could seriously affect the regular demand. 

 He spoke of the barberries, like knitting needles, which would 

 require years of culture to be of use. They could not meet his 

 needs when he has to furnish plants to landscape gardeners. 

 There is no trade in America that warrants the gathering and 

 planting seeds of forest trees, to any great extent. 



Mr. Dawson said that two bushels of barber' les would produce 

 a hundred thousand plants six inches high the first season ; but 

 one cannot raise a specimen plant of it under five or six years, 

 neither can a specimen plant be grown from the small imported 

 seedlings in much less time. He a^so thought that Ameiiean 

 seedling nurseries are a great want in this country to counteract 

 the importation from Europe of plants which can be grown as 

 easily here. Such men as Douglas, Meehan, and others, who 

 have made a specialty of this business, can and do sell as cheap 

 and as good plants as many of those in Europe. 



A vote of thanks to Mr. Temple for his interesting paper was 

 unanimously passed. 



It was announced that on the next Saturday Professor James 

 E. Humphrey, of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, would read a paper upon " Mildews." 



