HUMBUGS IN HORTICULTURE. 233 



blaze of beauty on his lawn; the hotel man, whose win- 

 dow boxes were to perfume the air; all had fallen easy 

 victims to the wiles of Comanche George. George dis- 

 appeared from New York, though there is but little doubt 

 that his business had been too successful for him to 

 abandon it. A newspaper paragraph, cut from a paper 

 last week, which reads as follows, looks as if it might 

 be the Texas scout in a somewhat different role: 



"The prepossessing appearance, gentlemanly demeanor, 

 and foreign accent of the man who called himself Carlo 

 Corella, botanist to the Court of Brazil, convinced a 

 number of wealthy San Francisco ladies that he was 

 truthful. He said to each that the failure of a remittance 

 compelled him to sell some rare bulbs of Brazilian Lilies, 

 which he had intended to present to Mrs. R. B. Hayes. 

 ' The flower/ says the Chronicle, ' was to be a great scarlet 

 bell, with ecru ruchings on the petals, a solferino frill 

 around the pistil, and a whole bottle of perfumery in each 

 stamen.' He sold about fifty almost worthless bulbs at 

 $4 each." 



The nurserymen present are no doubt better posted in 

 the swindles practised in their particular department 

 than I am; but operators engage in different lines in 

 different parts of the country: for example, we have 

 never yet seen in the Eastern States any one trying to 

 sell an apple tree bearing blue apples as big as melons, 

 as we were told, at our meeting at Cleveland last year, 

 had been successfully done in Ohio and Illinois. Still 

 we have men of fair ability in the nursery swindling line, 

 one of whom last winter succeeded in disposing of hun- 

 dreds of winter-bearing grapes, by carrying with him a 

 few good bunches of the white Malaga of the shops. 



One great detriment, not only to the florist, but to the 

 purchaser, is begotten of these swindles in horticulture. 



