AWI08T 28, 1919. 



The Florists^ Review 



21 



ington a show garden which should be 

 ba&ed upon the results of the test work 

 carried on at the Arlington Farm. It is 

 believed that this plan of maintaining 

 test plots and show gardens will yield 

 the largest return to the interested 

 rosarians of the country. 



It is a significant fact that a consider- 

 able portion of the correspondence 

 growing out of the publication of the 

 rose annual has to do with the report of 

 the committee on the behavior of the 

 varieties of roses in the several field 

 test gardens. Mr. McFarland clearly 

 brought this out in his discussion of 

 the matter and commented upon it as 

 a significant indication of the character 

 of information which appealed to 

 rosarians the country over. The im- 

 portance, therefore, of the maintenance 

 of the test gardens such as the one at 

 Arlington is clearly indicated by the 

 reaction of the public to the informa- 

 tion carried in the rose annual. 



Experimental Work. 



There will be submitted to the chief 

 of bureau, who we hope will transmit 

 it to the Secretary of Agriculture, an 

 estimate and request for $35,000 to un- 

 dertake work under glass with the 

 standard florists' crops, including roses 



and carnations in particular, and for 

 the purpose of erecting and maintaining 

 a small bank of greenhouses to be do- 

 voted to investigational work, which 

 may be of benefit to the florists of the 

 country. In addition to this, we are 

 also asking for a small fund to be used 

 in conducting eflSciency tests on the 

 heating plants used by the florists 

 throughout the country, in order that we 

 may cooperate with them in an effort to 

 make their fuel consumption mor> .effi- 

 cient and economical. A preliminary 

 study has been made of the results ob- 

 tained by the florists' and vegetable 

 forcing industries and we are convinced 

 that changes could be made in many 

 heating plants which would effect im- 

 portant advantage to the owners and 

 operators of these plants. It is this 

 type of work which we feel, in addition 

 to the actual investigational work in 

 connection with florists' i^d^siries, 

 could be undertaken by the department 

 with great profit to the industry. '^ 



Botanical Gardens. 



On the first day of the present session 

 of Congress, Senator Moses introduced 

 a bill to acquire twenty-two additional 

 acres to the botanical gardens in the 

 heart of the city of Washington. This 



bill is to be taken up as soon as the rail- 

 road and labor bills and the league of 

 nations are out of the way. Represen- 

 tative Norman J. Gould, chairman of 

 the library committee, under whose 

 jurisdiction the botanical gardens come, 

 is much in favor of the enlargement of 

 the gardens. Both Senator Moses, 

 chairman of the district committee in 

 the United States Senate, and Congress- 

 man Gould, chairman of the library 

 committee in the United States House 

 of Representatives, are deeply inter- 

 ested in the national capital and we 

 expect this project to become a reality 

 before long. 



Prosperity. 



Last year throughout the length and 

 breadth of the land, as far as I can un- 

 derstand, was a prosperous one for near- 

 ly all florists. While in some cases the 

 crops were much curtailed, the addition 

 in price more than made up for poor, 

 indifferent or short crops. The outlook 

 for the coming year is unusually bright 

 and the next twelve months should be 

 the best twelve months that we have 

 ever experienced in our business. I 

 want to take this opportunity to thank 

 all who have helped to make the work 

 of the Washington representative 

 lighter. 



^i y«iU'iiU'iujm^MiMiKJis^iu^iiyji^*itLL*ityjitii.*i*^ 



..Y7^ffi?rfiB^ff^!ff^tff?^^iy;ffirHiff^ 



haw to pr 

 we know 

 in one or 

 horse rad 

 power of 

 propagat 

 many thin 



OUR knowledge of plant propagation 

 and the factors limiting it meas- 

 ures our ability to provide plant mate- 

 rial for decorative and commercial uses. 

 That such demands are well met you will 

 say is attested by the extensive use of 

 ornamentatejand by the great acreage of 

 orchards aS^ vineyards. Yes, we know 

 te many plants; in fact, 

 ■to propagate most plants 

 ways. Even a plant like 

 uwhich has entirely lost its 

 ' produetion, is extensively 

 jS^0getatively. We know 

 about plants and plant 

 propagation, but most of our knowledge 

 af plant propagation is empirical and 

 some of it is not true. 



For generations we have been prop- 

 agating plants from cuttings. The 

 most of us think we know that a cutting 

 must callus before it will root and that 

 the root develops from the callus, all of 

 which is not true, but that in no way in- 

 fluences the success in propagating 

 plants from cuttings. It merely indi- 

 cates one of the great handicaps of our 

 present and past work in horticulture. 

 Plant propagation has developed as an 

 art, has succeeded, has been self-satis- 

 fied and many possessing great skill in 

 the art have considered their knowledge 

 as a personal trade secret. This point 

 of view has tended to foster and main- 

 tain the apprentice system which pre- 

 vails in England and on the continent. 

 We have depended upon foreign sources, 

 both for our propagators and for a con- 

 siderable portion of our plant material. 

 This, I believe, has tended to retard the 



An address on "Opportunity of the Society 

 of AmerlcaB Florists in Present Day Plant 

 Propa«;ation," prepared for the Detroit conven- 

 tion August 21, 1019, by L. C. Corbett, Horti- 

 ctiltnrist is Charge, U. S. Department of Agri- 

 cnltore. 



extension of plant business in this coun- 

 try. It has certainly retarded the de- 

 velopment of the art of plant propaga- 

 tion in this country, because investiga- 

 tors have not been induced to work in 

 this field as a result of demands from 

 the industries, as have many other 

 branches of horticulture. It has re- 

 tarded the introduction and improve- 

 ment of valuable native plants to which 

 we must look for material to make beau- 

 tiful wide stretches of our vast land to 

 which the ordinary plants of commerce 

 are not adapted. 



Propagation Problems. 



These native plants present problems 

 in plant propagation the same as do all 

 other strangers and newcomers. But 

 besides the actual problems of propaga- 

 tion presented by wild plants worthy of 

 introduction, the vast stretches of ter- 

 ritory encompassed within the confines 

 of tne United States and the great di- 

 versity of soil and climate represented 

 within this domain, present problems of 

 plant adaptation which all students of 

 horticulture recognize, but which, I am 

 sorry to say, have not received the at- 

 tention they should. The only attempt 

 at a systematic study of the adaptabil- 

 ity of the commercial ornamentals to 

 the great plains and to the inter-moun- 

 tain area of the country, and that is by 

 no means a comprehensive study, is one 

 jointly carried on by the forest service 

 and the Bureau of Plant Industry. 

 While this study is more comprehensive 

 than any heretofore undertaken, it is 

 necessarily confined to forest ranger sta- 

 tions in the national forest and to the 

 limited range of species at the command 

 of the Bureau of Plant Industry. This 

 is one aspect of the problem of plant 



propagation for this country which 

 should be given more attention. It will 

 take years at best to solve it, but un- 

 less it receives systematic attention at 

 the hands of investigators and members 

 of the trade, little worth while can be 

 accomplished. Yet there is no informa- 

 tion of greater value to the trade than 

 accurate knowledge regarding the ter- 

 ritory to which species and horticultural 

 varieties are adapted. Many costly er- 

 rors are annually made for lack of this 

 knowledge and every error of this char- 

 acter stands out as a striking monument 

 to our ignorance and marks the inter- 

 ment of many orders for nursery stock. 

 Not only should such adaptability work 

 be encouraged and extended for plants 

 on their own roots, but many varieties 

 can be rendered valuable assets in re- 

 gions where they do not thrive on their 

 own roots by placing them on congenial 

 adapted roots. In the field of fruit cul- 

 ture there is no more interesting or vital 

 problem. In some regions the whole 

 problem of fruit culture is involved in 

 the adaptability of a stock. The vinif- 

 era grape industries of France and of 

 the Pacific coast are striking examples 

 of what stock adaptation means to hor- 

 ticultural industries. Apple culture has 

 been retarded in the northern section of 

 the great plains area because we have 

 no satisfactory hardy roots. The cul- 

 tivation both of fruits and ornamentals 

 is retarded in the irrigated as well 

 as the semi-arid sections because many 

 plants of value elsewhere are not alkali- 

 resistant. 



Plant Congeniality. 



Coordinate with the problem of plant 

 and stock adaptability is the problem of 

 congeniality. Here ag&in we are talking 

 in a language without definite meaning, 



