April 8, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



149 



soft, not because this is its real character, but because it has 

 been forced too hard. L. longiflorum fails entirely under too 

 severe urging, the buds coming blind, or not appearing at all. 

 The two sorts potted on the same day will show flowers on the 

 taller-growing and more spreading Bermuda Lily by Thanks- 

 giving Day, while the older longiflorum, of more sturdy and 

 upright habit, cannot be flowered before February. An im- 

 portant and exacting detail of cultivation is the examination of 

 every lily as soon as it expands, for the removal of the pollen 

 before it is ripened and has been shed and made its yellow 

 stain on the pure white flowers. This is done by hand and 

 requires going over the stock once and even twice a day. It 

 may be worth while saying that no Ascension Lilies or Callas 

 were seen in any of these collections. While the regular stock 

 of Lilies is each year produced from freshly imported bulbs, in 

 some of these large nurseries the Lily plants, when returned, 

 are dumped out-of-doors and picked over later in the season. 

 The best bulbs are planted in July or August in frames and 

 protected over winter. These plants bear, during the next 

 spring, one or two flowers each, for the six to ten of the first 

 efflorescence, the blossoms being useful for funeral orders. 



The stock of Azaleas is imported from Belgium in October, 

 and these, with the Lilies, Spiraeas, Genistas, Hydrangeas and 

 other Easter plants, are started indoors at the same time and 

 under the same general conditions. They are all carried along 

 in gentle heat, Lilies being pushed forward about the begin- 

 ning of Lent, the general idea being that it takes six weeks to 

 get them into bloom from the forming of the bud. Azaleas, 

 as a rule, need a shorter time to be brought into flower, though 

 there is considerable difference in this respect in different 

 varieties. Hydrangeas, which are propagated from cuttings 

 made at the beginning of March a year ago. need longer forc- 

 ing, and are started on in December. These are usually 

 planted out in the open ground in summer, but Messrs. Weir 

 last year kept them in pots and plunged them. The plants 

 of Genistas are carried over from year to year, and when 

 new ones are propagated it is from cuttings which require 

 several years to bring them into flowering condition. Genistas 

 are not often sold, but loaned for the Easter season. When 

 returned to the cultivator they are repotted and pruned and 

 plunged out-of-doors until autumn. The stock of Spiraeas 

 comes from Belgium, and its treatment is not unlike that of 

 the other plants noted. Besides the old Spiraea, Astilbe Ja- 

 ponica, and the increasingly popular A. compacta, there are 

 this year some of the old-fashioned Spiraja palmata, with bright 

 rose-colored trusses and handsome, deeply pinnate raspberry- 

 like foliage. Bulbous plants, as Narcissus, Tulips and Hyacinths, 

 are, of course, profusely grown in pots and pans for dressing 

 up in baskets, and many cut blooms are sent to the stores. 



After the stock is sufficiently advanced the temperature of 

 the houses is reduced from the forcing heat of sixty-five or 

 seventy degrees to fifty degrees, to harden off the plants. On Mon- 

 day following Palm Sunday the work of removal of the plants 

 begins, and during frosty weather the carting over muddy 

 roads in immense padded wagons and heated vans is of itself 

 an enormous undertaking. 



New York. M. -». C. 



Protection for a Public Interest. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The bicycle has been taking people into the country of 

 late and setting them in touch with nature, teaching them 

 what they have never known before — that a landscape could 

 be beautiful or interesting or inspiring. As the exuberant 

 wheelman, who has just pulled himself up the hill, lifts his 

 feet from the pedals and comfortably settles himself for a 

 coast down the other side, he is peculiarly susceptible to the 

 view from that hill-top. If he finds the coasting good he is 

 likely to come to that hill again ; and it is not long before he feels, 

 and justly feels, that he has a right to the enjoyment of that 

 prospect, with all its inspiration and refreshment. Imagine 

 his feelings, then, when some day, as he pauses out of breath 

 for his usual eye-feast, he finds a huge board curtain drawn 

 across the landscape, and on it a screaming advertisement of 

 the virtues of somebody's "germ destroyer." He knows that 

 he has been robbed of what is his by right. If a painted land- 

 scape by Turner or Corot has a high money value, why shall 

 we not estimate the real thing as worth something, and why 

 should not its wanton destruction be counted a crime ? If 

 some man in the pursuit of his private business should blow 

 up the Smithsonian Institution or an art museum he would 

 meet with prompt punishment, yet the anarchist who paints 

 signs does the same thing all summer long in the rural and 

 suburban districts, and never hears a whisper of reproof. 



Why not legislate against such an evil ? It is a mistake to 

 suppose that the venders themselves delight in this method of 

 advertising. They are driven to it, perhaps, by competition, 

 but by a competition which they would gladly evade. The 

 advertising and bill-posting agency preys upon the dealers on 

 one side, and inflicts itself on the public on the other. The 

 agency alone would have to suffer if this unpleasant species of 

 advertising were suppressed. 



Could legislation reach this evil ? Probably. The most 

 feasible plan is, perhaps, that proposed in the Rural Adver- 

 tisements Bill, which was brought before the English Parlia- 

 ment at its last session. The proposition was to tax all publicly 

 displayed advertisements by the square foot. Such a tax could 

 be easily levied and apportioned, and there would be no one 

 but the bill-poster to lament if this tariff should be made pro- 

 hibitory. This would be protection in a proper sense — protec- 

 tion in the enjoyment of one of our natural inheritances and 

 against a nuisance. Suppose the patent-medicine man should 

 follow me all day crying out in my ear that his nostrum was 

 just the thing I needed to make me young again, would not 

 the police interfere in my behalf? And why should a man 

 assail his fellow-citizens' eyes with greater impunity than he 

 assails their ears ? All that such a plan of taxation would need 

 anywhere would be some one to draft the bill and watch it 

 through. Even the sign-painter would rather look for new 

 employment than hire a lobby to defeat it. 



University of Vermont. F. A. IVailgh. 



Recent Publications. 



Plant Breeding. By L. H. Bailey. New York : Mac- 

 Millan & Co. 



This little manual belongs to the Garden Craft Series, of 

 which the excellent Horticulturist's Rule Book was the first 

 number. It consists of five lectures setting forth those prin- 

 ciples of evolution upon which any successful efforts at 

 improving domestic plants must be based. There are few 

 subjects upon which popular knowledge is so imperfect as 

 the origination of new vegetable forms, and a compact 

 treatise on its essentials is evidently needed, for until the 

 horticulturist ceases to regard each novelty as a chance 

 phenomenon without looking at the laws under which these 

 organisms vary, there can be no sustained progress in the 

 development of plants in any desired direction. The firsS 

 lecture in Professor Bailey's little book treats of plant- 

 variation and its philosophy, and after stating the fact of 

 the individuality of the seed and of the bud, the principal 

 causes of individual differences are explained, and then the 

 reasons for choosing certain varieties and methods of 

 fixing these, so far as these can be fixed, are discussed. 

 The next lecture treats of the crossing of plants with refer- 

 ence to their improvement, after which a few concise rules 

 are laid down for breeding domestic varieties, with specific 

 examples. The book concludes with a practical chapter on 

 the structure of flowers, and especially of their essential 

 parts, with directions for manipulating them in crossing. 

 This last topic is carefully illustrated and shows the simple 

 tools needed, with such plain directions for using them, that 

 any person of ordinary skill can do the work. There is an 

 intermediate lecture, which consists of extracts from Yerlot 

 on the varieties of ornamental plants, Carriere's account of 

 the varieties of ornamental plants with a list of bud varieties 

 and Focke's interesting discussion on the characteristics of 

 crosses. This little manual, with a glossary and complete 

 index, comprises nearly three hundred clearly printed 

 pages, and it ought to be in the hands of every studious 

 horticulturist. If it does nothing else it will show him the 

 limitations of his field and warn him against attempting 

 impossibilities. But, besides this, it will point out the 

 directions in which he can hopefully experiment and give 

 him the assurance that he is working in the realm of law 

 and not in one of chance. 



Notes. 



Another Canna, named Austria, and of the same strain with 

 Italia, which was described and figured in our issue for April 

 1st, has flowered with Mr. Pierson at Tarrytown. We have 

 not seen the flower, but, according to reports, it is even more 



