ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARinXG. 



195 



deners as la\\r on this subject. When Loudon published his 

 invaluable "Encyclopedia of Gardening," he was permitted 

 by the London Horticultural Society to avail himself of the 

 services of the distinguished Monro in the department of 

 culinary vegetables. 



Let us compare the catalogues of three first rate seedsmen 

 as it respects a multiplication of varieties, Avith Mr. Monro's 

 gelections : 



Mr. Monro names nineteen kinds of peas only, instead 

 oi forty-seven : twenty-two kinds of beans instead of sixty- 

 one ; seven varieties of turnip instead of twenty-two^ or, 

 worse yet, thirty ; fourteen sorts of lettuce, instead oi fifty- 

 two. 



To the uninitiated a catalogue may look meagre with only 

 eight kinds of lettuce instead oi fifty / fifteen beans instead 

 of sixty-one^ etc., but these corpulent catalogues make 

 meagre pockets, except in the case of the seedsman. A 

 much greater latitude of varieties is allowable in a nursery 

 catalogue than in a seedsman's list. But in even these 

 there is a disposition to extravagance which needs to be cor- 

 rected. Where the disproportion of knowledge between 

 the buyers and seller is so great as it is, and for some time, 

 must be, in horticultural matters, it becomes nurserymen 

 and seedsmen who are honest (and we have many such, and 

 they are increasing) — those who regard their business as an 

 honorable branch of science^ as well as a proper means of 

 livelihood, and who hope to gain a high reputation^ even 



