December 23, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



5i3 



seasons. Box is industriously sought out, and the trim- 

 mings well paid for, while occasionally whole door-yards 

 full of box edgings with the plants of Tree Box on old 

 estates are bought outright and cut off above the roots. 



The cost for freightage is considerable. For a dozen 

 wreaths two cents freight is charged on the steamer, and 

 for stars four cents, while the light roping costs fifty cents 

 for 1,000 yards, and heavier roping $i.oo for the same quan- 

 tity. A dealer whose season's output amounts to 92,000 

 yards of roping and above 40,000 pieces, and who this 

 year used ten tons of Princess pine, besides other materials 

 in proportion, last year paid §400 for freight of raw goods 

 and manufactured articles. As many as 12,000 to 15,000 

 yards of roping and 150 dozen pieces are sometimes hauled 

 to the boat by a single dealer for one day's shipment to 

 this city. 



Some of the materials come from as far west as Chicago, 

 and not a few of the made pieces go to Boston, and even 

 into New Hampshire, where Holly is especially salable. 

 Hemlock is no longer in general favor on account of its 

 poor keeping quality. Much of the Princess pine this year 

 comes from sections in New Hampshire and Vermont 

 not previously picked over, and as there were no heavy 

 early snows the collecting was easy and the color ex- 

 cellent. Laurel, too, is good, and without disfiguring 

 spots, but the leaves of Holly are not as perfect as in recent 

 years, nor are the berries as plentiful. 



No little capital is invested in the trade, and the prepara- 

 tion begins in September, when the balsam is gathered 

 before it is too ripe and touched by frosts. During autumn 

 this is dyed, as are large quantities of Cape flowers, and 

 dried out-of-doors. Sometimes the natural colored immor- 

 telles are dyed at home, but they are usually bought in 

 bright hues from the importers. Quantities of laths are 

 sawed in suitable widths in the mills and made up into stars 

 and other designs at home, and " whips " are gathered in 

 the woods for wreath-frames. Rattan is also largely used 

 for horseshoes, hearts and anchors. Little bunches of 

 the dyed flowers, fastened to toothpicks with wire, have 

 to be prepared in advance. On the arrival of the first stock 

 in November it is taken out of the sacks, shaken out in 

 sheds or storehouses, wet and assorted, the brown and dull- 

 colored Lycopodium being put aside for cheap roping. 

 This is dipped into scalding green dye the day before 

 shipment after it is made up. German buyers prefer the 

 artificial green roping, and two city dealers who have this 

 class of customers sell 10,000 yards of this grade. There 

 is good and poor work in this business as in others, and 

 manufacturers with established reputations have earned 

 them by exacting careful work from the makers in the 

 removal of tiny spikes or cones from the Lycopodiums and 

 in well-overlapped twigs, so that no stems show and there 

 are no scant spots. The roping is measured off and tied 

 in twenty-five-yard lengths and the pieces in packages of 

 a dozen. Pieces made of holly, a specialty in Keyport, 

 must be stored during the few weeks before sales begin in 

 cool and dark rooms and wet every day. The other greens 

 are freshened with water just before shipment. A plentiful 

 sprinkling of Princess pine pieces and roping with scalding 

 water, which is allowed to freeze and then thaw out on the 

 boat, freshens the stock up wonderfully. Until a fortnight 

 before Christmas the shipments are comparatively light 

 and only of special orders, mainly for public places, as flor- 

 ists' shops, markets and saloons. One of the department 

 stores used 12,000 yards of roping in its decorations put up 

 three weeks ago. Since Monday a week ago the Magenta 

 has been closely packed with the greens, even in the pas- 

 sengers' saloon. The prices this year are not high ; small 

 wreaths of the more plentiful greens cost thirty to fifty 

 cents to the wholesale buyer on the boat, and stars $1.00 

 a dozen, while roping ranges from $1.50 to $10.00 a hun- 

 dred yards. Holly is more costly. Set pieces made of 

 cedar, moss, etc., for novel effect, do not find popular 

 favor, and are usually closed out at a loss. 



New York. M- B. C. 



The Value of Bud Varieties. 



EVERY bud on a tree may produce a new variety of fruit 

 just the same as every seed does. There is no dif- 

 ference between a bud variety and a seedling, except in 

 degree. A variety in horticulture is simply a variation 

 from the type which produces it and which is sufficiently 

 marked to allow of description. The determination of the 

 value of the variation depends entirely on the judgment of 

 the operator who names it. Varieties are not special crea- 

 tions but normal variations in a plant which can be prop- 

 agated with profit. To one mind the variation must be 

 very apparent to justify the formation of a new variety; 

 to another a slight difference may seem of equal value, 

 and thus it is that many varieties differ only in minor 

 points. If the various parts of a tree are studied, one is 

 impressed with the unlikeness of its branches, its foliage, 

 perhaps its fruit, which may differ in color, shape, size or 

 time of ripening. In fact, no two apples on a tree are 

 exactly alike, but a slight difference will appear in each on 

 close examination. The tree is composed of a collection 

 of individuals or buds, no two of which are surrounded by 

 the same environment. 



These slight differences have never been used as a start- 

 ing-point in the improvement of existing horticultural varie- 

 ties. In fact, a variety of fruit, after it once appears, is 

 accepted and propagated without thought of systematically 

 improving it. Animals are improved by careful selection 

 of parents through each generation and a corresponding 

 regard for the improvement of their environment, so that 

 any gain in good qualities may be maintained and new 

 ones started, but the improvement in orchard fruits is 

 looked for through the introduction of entirely new forms. 



It seems strange that the slight differences which appear 

 in the buds, and are manifested in the variations in the fruit, 

 should not have been more generally used as the founda- 

 tion for the systematic improvement of orchard varieties. 

 The fundamental principle of the Van Mons system of 

 originating varieties rested on the selection of favorable 

 differences in the seedlings through each generation, and 

 it is the one broad principle underlying the operations of 

 all plant breeders in building up new types. The ordinary 

 method of continuing varieties by the promiscuous selec- 

 tion of scions and buds is not accompanied by a gradual 

 betterment of the variety, but results in orchards with trees 

 that always bear, in trees that never bear, and trees that 

 sometimes bear. Improvement in horticulture should rest 

 on the same general laws which have operated in the 

 gradual evolution of the organic world, and that has ever 

 been by the slow but progressive improvement of existing 

 types. 



Those marked variations in buds, however, which are 

 particularly noticeable, are eagerly grasped after by florists, 

 and they have been the source of several prominent orchard 

 varieties. These variations are called sports, and a sport 

 is a bud whose difference from other buds is greater than 

 the ordinary differences which constantly occur. Among 

 the fruits which have originated as sports are the Isabella 

 Regia Grape of California, a sport of the Isabella, which 

 has larger branches and is propagated in that state as a 

 table grape with more profit than the other American or 

 Vinifera types ; the Hero and Storm King are sports of the 

 Concord, though neither has been valuable; Cannon's 

 Early Peach is a sport from the Mountain Rose, which 

 is ten days earlier, larger, more highly colored, and is 

 now quite extensively propagated in Delaware ; Hank's 

 Gravenstein of Canada is a sport of the Gravenstein Apple, 

 and promises to replace its parent in many sections ; the 

 Peento Peach of Florida often bears fruit with the common 

 flat form of its parent and an oblong point ; the Golden 

 Queen Raspberry is a sport of the Cuthbert, having origi- 

 nated in Berlin, New Jersey. 



The list of bud varieties could be further extended and 

 several hundred varieties of flowers named. 1 simply 

 mean to point out that bud varieties often originate through 



