The Canadian Horticulturist, i i i 



to voraciousness for improvements, meets Supply with his products, from the 

 modest and unornamental, on through all that is probable — possibly on to every 

 exaggeration of size, form, color, quantity and quality. We do not intend to 

 stigmatize all these fine things as so many willful deceptions. It is easy to under- 

 stand how an expert in horticulture, in possession of all the requisites for the 

 highest success, find^ little or no difficulty in obtaining many of these charming 

 results, and so hastily conclude that his customers can do the same. Then, too, 

 there are both culture and merit in aiming at the best, and the best to be aimed 

 at must be held up to view. The general resnlt, however, is that the customer 

 trusting to these fine " appearances " gets wofully disappointed. It is nonsense 

 to say, " Let the intending purchaser read up " before buying, for the very 

 essence of a Novelty is that it is not in the books, and the representations are 

 that none but the one man has that or those particular things to sell. Moreover, 

 as the number of species is very great, amounting to hundreds now catalogued, 

 and to many hundreds of varieties of some species (there are nearly a thousand 

 varieties of roses alone), amounting all told to so many thousands, that not one 

 expert perhaps could "be found to identify every one. What then can he, who 

 needs all his time to know and conduct his own specialty successfully, do toward 

 protecting himself from horticultural quackery ? As well call upon every man 

 to be his own physician or his own lawyer. This unavoidable ignorance of the 

 buyer is the opportunity of the jobber, and of the impersonal and irresponsible 

 (because impersonal) nursery or seed company. 



Armed cap a pie, with gorgeous pictures of many wondrous novelties, so 

 called, some of them really new with nothing but their newness to recommend 

 them, others nothing but new-named, old and long-ago discarded varieties, which 

 have figured so often as novelties that they have acquired as many synonyms 

 and aliases as a burglar or any other outlaw, the innocent and enthusiastic 

 seeker after the " best," buys or subscribes for " The ne plus ultra — the 

 Remontant Arbor Vitae — the Persica Palustris, or seed of the Ever-blooming 

 Fungus." We have hinted farther back that Canada is less afflicted with this 

 plague than our neighbors. Well, we are so, first, because we have only about 

 one-twelfth of their population, and according to Isaiah's, Plato's, and Matthew- 

 Arnold's Law of Numbers, we have only a twelfth as many as our cousins, open 

 to this kind of fraud. This is our negative defence. — Our positive, is to some 

 extent our fiscal policy, and also the characteristic prudence of our people, who 

 are generally mindful of the admonition festina lente. Occasionally, some 

 one buys, not because he wants the " wonder," but because he don't want the 

 agent in his house any longer. And of the most cautious, now and then, one 

 gets ensnared. The following, told by a very worthy old lady to the writer, 

 will illustrate. She had a respectable collection of house plants, and, like all 

 amateurs, desired to add beauty to beauty and novelty to novelty. The ubiqui- 

 tous agent was presently there and offered her a wonderful " New Moss Rose,'' 

 price $1. She subscribed — in due time it came. It was tenderly and assiduously 



