452 



Garden and Forest. 



[MUMBER 508. 



Horticultural Tombstones. 



ONE of the pictures which lingers in my mind after a 

 visit in northern Pennsylvania during the past sum- 

 mer is that of an old Pear-tree standing alone in a meadow. 

 Its top was partially dead, and the rest of the tree was 

 fighting a losing battle with that dreaded enemy of the 

 Pear, fire-blight. There is, perhaps, nothing peculiarly 

 worthy of note in such a picture as this, but the tree pre- 

 sents the last vestige of an unwritten history. It is a relic 

 of one of those visionary ventures which so often end in 

 disappointment and loss. Here, in times past, lived a 

 farmer, who was something of a character in his way. 

 This is but one of the fading traces which tell of ventures 

 in different lines. On the stream just above are still to be 

 seen evidences of an old milldam, which supplied the 

 motive power for a sawmill in the olden days. This in 

 itself might well serve as a basis for moralizing, for here, 

 where once the waiting logs and piles of lumber told of 

 many days of slow but steady work, the denuded hills now 

 look down upon a stream robbed of its strength, except as 

 manifested in an occasional fit of frenzy in which it far 

 surpasses its old-time vigor, only to quickly relapse again 

 intca lifeless condition and sometimes even entirely to 

 disappear. 



A short distance below the old milldam starts a now dry 

 and grass-covered race which led the water to another and 

 a smaller dam where a horizontal wheel with a tall and 

 upright shaft furnished the power to run a stave-saw, a 

 drag-saw for sawing wood, and perhaps one or two other 

 small pieces of machinery. The building with which these 

 were connected was primarily a cooper shop. From the 

 opposite side of the old milldam a small overshot wheel, 

 ingeniously connected with wires which played back and 

 forth, did the churning at the house some fifty rods away. 



A little w r ay from the milldam, in the same field with 

 the Pear-tree, is the site of an abandoned oil-well, which was 

 expected to make the owner of the farm wealthy and to 

 furnish the inhabitants of the community with unstinted 

 light, but which, unfortunately, only gave out in the morn- 

 ing the oil which had been poured in at night by others 

 while the owner slept. All these are within a quarter of a 

 mile of each other. Across the highway, on the same 

 farm, may be seen the traces of an old brick kiln, which 

 evidently met the same fate as the other ventures, perhaps 

 even before they had their birth. Yet primarily this man 

 was a farmer and made the business pay, leaving his farm 

 and home intact when, as an old man, he passed away. 



But the epitaph upon the Pear-tree is the one I wish to 

 interpret. Here, in days gone, was something of a Pear 

 orchard, of which this tree is the lone survivor. In the 

 height of its glory the orchard covered something like an 

 acre of ground. If memory serves me rightly, most of the 

 trees were dwarfs, but my earliest recollection only recalls 

 the orchard as badly thinned by blight and other fatal 

 enemies. At one end of the fenced-in field was a clump of 

 Lawton Blackberries, which served mainly as a temptation 

 and a vexation to the barefoot boy who passed that way. 



Doubtless the owner of this orchard had read or heard of 

 the success of some trained fruit grower with Pears, and 

 had visions of success for himself which were never real- 

 ized. Any one familiar with country life can call to mind 

 numerous examples of a similar sort, and the same charac- 

 teristic of human nature manifests itself just as frequently, 

 though in slightly different ways, in commercial life. The 

 broadest lesson to be derived from it is a lesson on the 

 frailty of human judgment, but the lesson of most interest to 

 the horticulturist is the lesson of changed conditions. There 

 may have been a time when such a venture would have 

 paid in a favorable locality, but if so, that time has long since 

 passed. The successful and thrifty farmer of the olden 

 time was the one who could most nearly provide for all his 

 wants in the products of his own farm. He not only pro- 

 duced the meat, the grain, the vegetables, the fruits and 

 the condiments which furnished the food for his family, 



but also the wool and the flax which were to provide the 

 clothing, these in turn being fitted and transformed into 

 the form in which they were needed without the aid of 

 capitalist, factory or employee, as we now understand 

 these terms. Gradually this field of production has been 

 narrowing. Another and another of the comforts and 

 luxuries of life have been found to be more conveniently 

 and cheaply furnished from an outside source. Sometimes 

 even yet the farmer most commended is the one who has 

 some minor product to count upon which can be exchanged 

 for things he wishes to purchase. Yet this method is just 

 as certainly and as surely passing out of date as has the 

 primitive one of producing everything at home. Whether 

 wisely or not is open to argument, but to fight against it is 

 only to fight the incoming tide of the world's progress. 

 The cost of production must be reduced to a lower point 

 than can be done in the cultivation of a little of one crop 

 or another by a man who has no special knowledge of the 

 needs of the crop and no special facilities or conditions in 

 its favor. 



Granting that the farmer already referred to knew how 

 or could have learned how to grow Pears as well as any 

 one else, his three-quarters of an acre could not be a suc- 

 cess to-day. The supply would be too great for the local 

 village market and too small to be profitably placed in a 

 large market. The cost of seeking a buyer, of packing and 

 of shipping would all be far greater in proportion than with 

 a larger product, while the amount would be too small to 

 attract any attention from buyers. Yet the most important 

 reason of all doubtless lies in the fact that the man must 

 be trained for his work. This law is just as inevitable in 

 horticulture as in commerce or professional life. Success 

 in any line demands study and a complete mastery of de- 

 tails. This the man who attempts to produce a multitude 

 of things cannot acquire. This old Pear orchard has failed 

 and passed into oblivion, not from any lack of adapta- 

 bility of the Pear to that locality, for Pear-trees in the 

 vicinity are loaded with fruit year after year, and seldom 

 fail to fruit from any cause. But because it was a venture 

 not backed up by the knowledge and training which could 

 have made it succeed. 



University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. Fred W. Card. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Hypericum lobocarpum. 



TWO weeks ago we published a figure of Hypericum 

 galioides, a plant which is now well established in 

 our gardens, and on page 453 of the present issue appears 

 a figure of a less well-known species, Hypericum lobocar- 

 pum, still to be introduced into cultivation. 



Hypericum lobocarpum * is described as a shrub with 

 upright stems from five to seven feet in height, linear- 

 lanceolate or narrow oblong leaves from one to three 

 inches in length, numerous flowers, somewhat smaller 

 than those of Hypericum densiflorum, and stoutly beaked 

 five-celled, deeply five-lobed fruits, the carpels being nearly 

 distinct and falling away separately from the central axis. 



Hypericum lobocarpum inhabits Oak barrens of middle 

 and western Tennessee, western Mississippi and southern 

 Louisiana, and, judging by other species of this genus 

 from the same general region, may be expected to prove 

 hardy in northern gardens. 



Crat^gus cordata. — Fifty years ago this so-called Wash- 

 ington Thorn was more frequently seen in our gardens 

 than it is to-day, although it is one of the most beautiful of 

 the hardy small trees available for our plantations. It is 

 very hardy ; it flowers later than the other species and its 

 flowers are produced in great profusion. These are followed 

 by small showy orange-colored fruits, which hang on 

 the branches until winter, and in November, after the 

 foliage of most native plants has fallen, the lustrous leaves 



*Coulter, Gray Syn. Fl. N. Am., i., pt. i., 285 (1S97). 



