82 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



for distribution and for collection. A book has a more permanent 

 character. People instinctively save books while they destroy 

 current journals and magazines, and they will pay more money 

 for books. 



The periodical literature of horticulture in North America has 

 been vastly greater than the literature of bound books in the same 

 field. There have been started from time to time, approximately 

 500 journals most, if not all, of which are but memories today. 

 Associated with this class of publications must be included the 

 reports and proceedings of various societies and associations, but 

 in this type of garden writing the spirit which we are specially con- 

 sidering today has had very little place. The pomological and 

 other fruit-growing interests have completely swamped the more 

 intimate associations, the aesthetic side that deals with home 

 surroundings. The reports of the " flower committee" or the " gar- 

 den committee" are usually perfunctory documents of little or no 

 practical value to anybody. With the exception of parts of the pro- 

 ceedings of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Horti- 

 cultural Society of New York, and some local Canadian Societies, 

 there is very little of permanent garden interest to be found in 

 these records. Special flower societies devoted to the gladiolus, 

 the peony, the rose, the sweet pea, the carnation, etc., record from 

 time to time matters of progress in their particular fields, and more 

 permanent value has been given to some of these documents, 

 through the cooperation of certain State Experiment Stations. 

 Records of the introduction of new varieties may be found here 

 and in the combined reports of these organizations included in the 

 proceedings of the Society of American Florists. Here some 

 attempt is made to keep a record of new plant introductions in 

 so far as they are brought to the notice of the organization through 

 registration. 



A few of the garden clubs have separate periodical publications 

 printed for circulation among their members only, and these con- 

 tain some notes of a critical nature, that bear relationship to the 

 imaginative and the record type of writings of which we have seen 

 the beginning in some of the more recent books. 



The periodical maj^ be said to blaze the way for the book. It 

 can feel the way and get a quick response; but more than this, the 



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