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Garden and Forest 



[April 2, 1890. 



Such qualities as are attributed by the Governor to his Com- 

 missioners — integrity, general education, business experience 

 and what is comprehensively called good taste — do not, in 

 themselves, qualify men to guard against the waste of such 

 essential value, much less do they fit them to devise with 

 artistic refinement means for reconciling with its preservation, 

 its development and its exhibition such requirements of con- 

 venience for multitudes of travelers as must be provided in 

 the Yosemite. Whether it is the case with these Commis- 

 sioners or not, there are thousands of such estimable men 

 who have no more sense in this respect than children, and it 

 must be said that those most wanting in it are those least 

 conscious of the want. Men of the qualifications attributed 

 to the Commissioners are the best sort of men for the proper 

 duties of an auditing and controlling board. There could be 

 no better men for the usual business of a board of hospital 

 trustees, for example. But the best board of hospital trustees 

 would commit what the law regards as a crime if they 

 assumed the duties of physicians and nurses. Ability in a 

 landscape designer is, in some small degree, a native endow- 

 ment, but much more it is a matter of penetrative study, disci- 

 pline, training and the development through practice of a 

 special knack. Even men of unusually happy endowment 

 and education, who have not, also, the results of considerable 

 working experience, can rarely have much forecasting realiza- 

 tion of the manner in which charm of scenery is to be affected 

 by such operations as commonly pass under the name of 

 ' improvements.' " 



In our view, this doctrine cannot be too strongly or too 

 often insisted upon. If expert training is ever essential to 

 the creditable performance of any work, it is needed in just 

 such cases as this. No one but an artist in the truest sense 

 of the word can select in a landscape the elements which 

 fix its character, or estimate the relative importance of each 

 in the distinctive charm which invests the whole. How to 

 make this beauty available to visitors by artificial construc- 

 tion while preserving and developing in their due propor- 

 tion these essential natural features is not a problem to be 

 solved by journeymen. 



We surrender more space than we usually devote to a 

 single subject to the article below on "Sports," by Dr. 

 Masters, the distinguished editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle. 

 The subject is so important and its treatment so instructive 

 and complete that our readers will no doubt prefer to have 

 it entire and at once rather than in a continued form run- 

 ning through two or more numbers. 



Sports.* 



IT is highly desirable that we should attach a definite signifi- 

 cation to this word. Among gardeners it may mean many 

 things, whilst, among botanists, it is restricted to cases of bud- 

 variation as distinguished from variation from seed. In this 

 note we shall use the word in its botanical sense, as applying 

 to a special illustration of that tendency to vary which is com- 

 mon to all living beings. We shall, however, gain a clearer 

 idea of what true sports are by the elimination of certain 

 things which are not sports, though often called so. In the 

 first place they are not seedling variations. Out of a hundred 

 seeds of Lawson's Cypress that are sown it is possible, I sup- 

 pose, to get ten more or less distinct varieties, besides others 

 which are more or less indistinct. The great variability of this 

 species is now well known, and the seedlings of Abies subal- 

 pina, Engelmann {A. lasiocarpa of Hooker), furnish another 

 illustration of the same tendency. These seedlings may be 

 the result of cross-fertilization between varieties, or they may 

 be reversions to an earlier condition ; at any rate, of whatever 

 nature they are, they are not " sports " in the sense here 

 intended. 



Next, sports are not mere stages of growth. Most plants 

 put on a different appearance at various periods or stages of 

 their growth, and sometimes these changes are very remark- 

 able. The Retinosporas of our gardens furnish us with excel- 

 lent illustrations. Retinospora (or more strictly Thuya) pisi- 



•The notes here published represent the substance of an unwritten address lately 

 given to a society of gardeners. It is necessary to mention this circumstance to 

 account for the form in which they are couched, and for the circumstance that 

 no reference to authorities is made. This was not necessary at the time, as nu- 

 merous illustrations of the things themselves were on the table. Those who desire 

 to look into the literature of the subject should consult the writings of Meehan, 

 Morren, Naudin and others, and will find an excellent summary in Carriere's 

 "Production et Fixation des Variete's," and in Darwin's "Variation of Animals 

 and Plants." 



fera exhibits during its growth very different appearances in 

 its foliage. There is the squarrose form and the plumose 

 form, the golden form, the silver form, the pendulous form, 

 the thread-like form, the upright form, and perhaps others. 

 All these, however, are not separate entities; they may all occur 

 on the same bush. If cuttings or if grafts be taken they may 

 be reproduced almost indefinitely. 



Barring the mere color variation, these forms are but stages 

 in the growth of the plant, occurring with more or less regu- 

 larity and in greater or less degree of prominence in all the 

 individuals of the species, as may be inferred from watching 

 the growth of seedlings in a seed-bed. 



Other illustrations of variations arising during growth are 

 afforded by the differences often observable in the foliage on 

 the flowering branches as contrasted with that on those 

 branches which bear no flowers. The common Ivy furnishes 

 an illustration. The short contracted shoots of the Labur- 

 num, or the Apple, known as "fruit spurs," constitute other 

 examples. 



Another form of variation in flowers is that connected with 

 difference of sex. A " pin-eyed " Primrose does not greatly 

 differ in appearance from a "thrum-eyed" one, yet the differ- 

 ence between them is precisely of the same character as that 

 between the variously formed flowers of some species of Cata- 

 setum and Mormodes. So utterly different are the male and 

 female flowers of some of these species that they were at first 

 placed by very competent botanists in different genera. It was 

 only when the protean plants produced all the forms of flow- 

 ers on one and the same spike, that it was seen that so far 

 from belonging to different genera, they did not even belong 

 to different species. It was left to Darwin to show what this 

 paradoxical variation really means ; and now, when we meet- 

 with a case of the kind, we say, " Ah ! yes ; only a sexual 

 form," just as if we had known all about it from our earliest 

 years, and very possibly, in our haste, mixing up, or, at least, 

 not discriminating cases of a different nature. But this is not 

 what we propose to discuss just now ; we simply say that 

 these cases, though often so designated, are not sports, at 

 least in our acceptation of the term. 



What, then, are sports ? We have already characterized 

 them as " bud-variations," but we must give some further 

 indication of their peculiarities : First, as to the suddenness 

 of their production. A tree or a shrub, all on a sudden and 

 without any cause — that is, apparent to the eye — will put forth 

 a bud, which, as it lengthens into a shoot, displays leaves of a 

 different character to any that the plant has hitherto produced, 

 which have no definite relation to any particular stage of 

 growth and which are quite different from any that under ordi- 

 nary circumstances the plant in question has produced or is 

 likely to produce in future. In short, the occurrence is sudden 

 and unforeseen. Gardeners, of course, avail themselves of 

 these variations. They remove them, bud them, graft them, 

 strike them from cuttings, or, in some way or another, en- 

 deavor to perpetuate the variety, and thus have originated our 

 cut leaved Beeches, Maples and Limes. Thus, too, may 

 have originated some of our weeping trees and some of our 

 pyramidal shrubs, though, for the most part, these have, as I 

 believe, originated as seedling variations. 



Not only do these variations occur suddenly, but they are 

 very local in their manifestation. One particular shoot 

 " sports," while all the rest remain in their normal condition. 

 It is very different in the case of seedling varieties, where the 

 whole system of branches and leaves is more or less affected. 



Another and a most remarkable feature about these sports is, 

 that they sometimes occur simultaneously in widely different 

 localities ; thus the same sport of a Chrysanthemum " turns 

 up " about the same time, not only in different nurseries in 

 this country, but also on the Continent. This may be because 

 all the plants in question have originated from one and the 

 same stock. 



These, then, are the special characteristics of a true sport. 

 Ilustrations could be given by the hundred; but neither time 

 nor space permit, nor, indeed, for our present purpose, is it 

 requisite to do so. Whoever will investigate the cause of 

 these sudden outbursts of local variation must, of course, 

 sedulously examine each case for himself according to the 

 measure of his ability and of his opportunity. The circum- 

 stances, the history, the progress, the anatomy of each particu- 

 lar sport must be investigated, both absolutely and in relation 

 to similar outgrowths in other plants. Until this is done — and 

 it has not been done yet — any explanation as to the cause of 

 the phenomenon must be a matter of speculation. Still, we 

 Can not help guessing, and though we may be wrong in our 

 surmises, at least the process does good by setting us observ- 

 ing and thinking. Observing and thinking are processes 



