HUMBUGS IN HORTICULTURE. 217 



ing the main parts of it here, in the hope that it may be 

 the means of preventing my amateur readers (those who 

 are "gardening for pleasure") from falling into the 

 many traps set for them by those who make a business 

 of swindling in trees, plants, seeds, or fertilizers. 



The lifetime experience of any man is not too short 

 to be imposed upon by many of the hundreds of old va- 

 rieties of fruits, flowers, or vegetables that are sent out 

 annually under new names. Any well-posted nursery- 

 man can easily detect when a Bartlett Pear or a Baldwin 

 Apple appears under a new name ; or a florist, making a 

 specialty of Roses, knows, as, for example, when, some 

 years ago, the old Solfaterre Rose was sent out under the 

 name of " Augusta " (claiming it to be hardy in every State 

 of the Union, and sold as a great bargain at five dollars 

 apiece), that the venders thereof were either swindlers or 

 entirely ignorant of the business they had embarked in ; 

 or when the confiding market gardener is induced to buy 

 a new and superior Cabbage or Tomato seed at five dollars 

 an ounce, and finds them identical with varieties that he 

 can buy at half that price per pound, he has good reason to 

 come to the conclusion that the man from whom he pur- 

 chased was either a humbug or else unfitted, from his 

 ignorance, to engage in the business of a seedsman. 

 . But, unfortunately, from the varied nature of these 

 impostures, it is exceedingly difficult to mete out justice 

 to those who, knowingly or otherwise, place such swindles 

 on the horticultural community; for the man who grows 

 fruit trees is as likely to know as little about Roses as the 

 man who grows Roses is to know about fruit trees, and 

 either is less likely to be posted on the merits of vege- 

 tables. So, then, if the partly experienced horticulturist 

 may be imposed upon in such a way, how safe is the 

 field when the swindler tries his tricks upon the general 

 public ? 



The sharp man of the city falls as quickly into the 



