38 Notes and Gleanings. 



once by the magazines and newspapers, which keep him posted in regard to every 

 novelty in the horticultural world, whether in plants, trees, or methods of culti- 

 vation ; while he who fails to learn from these sources the improvements in his 

 business is equally certain to be behindhand in the race. Nursery-men should 

 be interested in horticultural journals, and in promoting their circulation, not only 

 from the direct benefits derived from them, but because that among them are 

 found the best customers for their seeds and plants. 



Among the subscribers to " The Journal of Horticulture " are thousands of 

 the most enthusiastic amateurs in the United States, who all want to buy the 

 new plants which they see described in its pages, which is but another way of 

 saying that they are ready to be customers to some nursery-man ; and the more 

 readers such journals have, the more customers has the nursery-man. But how 

 is the nursery-man to profit by his new customers unless he also has read of the 

 new plants, so as to obtain them, and propagate them for sale ? 



The objection that they "can't afford it" is never made by such men as 

 Peter Henderson, Ellwanger & Barry, and Charles Downing ; and it is a 

 source of much gratification to us that the last-named eminent pomologist was 

 the first subscriber to " The Journal of Horticulture." Men of this stamp sub- 

 scribe to horticultural journals, and pay for them, because they know they can- 

 not afford to be without them ; while another class of men send us a two or 

 three dollar advertisement, and think it strange that we object to throw in a 

 year's subscription to the magazine. 



Another reason for refusing to take a horticultural periodical, often given, is, 

 "no time to read ; " and we know there are many nursery-men whose time is so 

 much taken up with physical labor, that they really think they have no time for 

 reading. Here, again, they mistake their true interest ; for the activity of mind 

 produced by coming in contact with the best horticultural writers, and the in- 

 formation gained, will convince any one who will try, that they are well worth 

 the money and time spent in buying and reading them. So we urge all the nur- 

 sery-men who are not already subscribers to horticultural journals to begin 

 at once and take them all ; but if they are determined that they will have 

 but one, of course we should recommend our own first ; but we say, " By all 

 means take some one," for we know, that the more other horticultural journals 

 are read, the more our own will be. 



Origin of Cultivated Varieties. — We have always thought that a great 

 deal of the difficulty of referring species, either of fruit-trees or any other cul- 

 tivated plant, to their wild original, was owing to the length of time during which 

 they have been cultivated, which has given opportunity for new conditions to 

 produce an alteration in their characters, or perhaps to confirm some accidental 

 variation which has first led man to appropriate to his use some exceptionally 

 fine or useful plant. — Gardener'' s Chronicle. 



