NEW VARIETIES 121 



The better point of view will be apparent if we inquire why 

 the books do not tell what real inducement there is for you to part 

 with five dollars for any rare species,when you can buy the common 

 species of the same genus for fifty cents. It will not do to say that 

 rarity alone accounts for costliness. There may be a thousand rare 

 species of ragweed, but nobody would give a cent to grow them. 

 Every rare species that is offered for sale is supposed to be better 

 in some one respect, than anything else in cultivation, or if not 

 better it has some different human interest, wholly aside from its 

 botanical rarity. The chances are that it is also inferior in some 

 important respects to something that is already in common 

 cultivation. But the all-important point is this the rare species 

 offers a chance for progress. 



And now the secret is out. For all of us would like to make 

 the world better, and the keenest pleasure in life is in creating - 

 not hoarding. Therefore every one of us who makes a collection 

 of plants ought to go a step further and produce some new va- 

 rieties that will add to the world's pleasure. The collector has a 

 great advantage over others, since, as a rule, it is only by making 

 a good collection that one can perceive what the world really needs. 

 For example, if you collect perennial larkspurs you can hardly 

 escape realizing what the next great improvement in that group 

 must be, viz., a disease-resistant stock. But if you were to judge 

 by books you might think that we ought to concentrate on the 

 red, orange, and yellow larkspurs, so that these might be made 

 easy of cultivation. That problem, however, can wait. For 

 what use are any larkspurs if they are all doomed to be disfigured 

 by the black spot and eventually killed ? 



Can any one tell me why thousands of Americans order col- 

 lections of plants, while only one or two will try to grow new 



