23 



VI 

 HINTS ON NAMING. 



I have always felt sorry for Adam, not so much that he missed 

 the advantages of a dress suit and the protective tariff as to think 

 what a hard time he must have had in naming all the plants and 

 animals which the good Creator sent him. I have seen a trained 

 botanist worry and fuss for a week trying to find the name for one 

 little undersized plant ; and when I remember how my great-great- 

 grand-parent Adam, who, unfortunately, had never been to college, 

 was obliged to go through the whole garden and the menagerie and 

 the museum and the fish ponds and name every living creature in 

 one day, why I can't suppress a throb of sympathy for him. This 

 naming business is hard work at the best, especially to us, when other 

 people have worked over the field for a hundred years or so. 



The selection of a felicitous name for a new variety seems to be a 

 matter of peculiar difficulty. Only a small minority of the names 

 actually given are to be regarded as happy and appropriate. I sup- 

 pose it is not altogether for advertising purposes that some seedsmen 

 adopt the method of offering large prizes for names of new vegetables 

 or flowers. I have noticed with interest the clause in the announce- 

 ments of such competitions providing that names which fail of prizes 

 shall nevertheless become the property of the company, and may be 

 used for other varieties. It shows that a good name is rather to 

 be chosen than riches, that is, has a definite cash value. Let not 

 the man with a new baby or fruit or vegetable enter lightly upon the 

 duty of providing a name to last the young individual all its life. 



On the other hand it strikes me that many men feel too much 

 the importance of a name in sending out a new variety. A name is 

 merely a handle by which we may pass a fruit or a vegetable around 

 the horticultural table. It is only a convenience, a label, a designa- 



