March 14, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



101 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Floriculture for the Farmer JO i 



Forests and Floods 101 



Winter-blooming Plants in the Pines.. Mrs. Mary Treat. 102 



Exotic Trees and Shrubs for Florida Gardens . — IV H. Nehrling. 102 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter iV. Watson. 103 



Entomological: — The Plum Curculio on Apple Professor John B. Smith, 104 



New or Little-known Plants: — Cercidiphyllum Japonicum. (With figures.) 



C. S. S. 104 



Cultural Department: — The Cultivation of Violets IV. N. Craig 105 



Imantophyllum miniatum E. O. Orpet. 10S 



Orchid Notes PlantS7nan. 108 



Annual Flowers from Seed. — V J. N. Gerard. 10S 



Correspondence :=To Protect Lake-shores Derby. 109 



Meetings of Societies : — Forestry Congress at Albany 109 



Notes no 



Illustrations: — Cercidiphyllum Japonicum, Figs. 21 and 22 106, 107 



Floriculture for the Farmer. 



THE assertion that farmers, as a rule, know as little 

 about the processes of plant-life as any other class of 

 men, would seem at first a gratuitous insult. Certainly the 

 men whose livelihood depends on the successful produc- 

 tion of crops ought to know something of the vegetable 

 processes with which they constantly deal, and, no doubt, 

 they do. Nevertheless, dealing as they do with crops in a 

 large way, they often overlook the requirements of indi- 

 vidual plants, and neglect to study their special needs. 

 Anything, therefore, that promises to increase their spe- 

 cific knowledge of the functions of individual plants, of 

 the manner in which they feed, the laws which govern 

 their growth — in short, anything which would help to 

 give them familiar lessons in plant physiology — would cer- 

 tainly be of incalculable advantage. That farmers have no 

 such full knowledge of plants as florists have, is very evi- 

 dent. All the operations of lifting and potting and feeding 

 and watering, the constant handling and examination of 

 every part of every plant, the familiar acquaintance with 

 the relations between the root and the top, the constant 

 attention which plants insist upon when in a glass house 

 under particularly artificial conditions ; all these help to 

 give the florist a familiar acquaintance with all his plants 

 and with their particular habits and peculiarities, such as 

 never is attained by the man who harvests the grain by the 

 acre. And yet this intimate knowledge of individual plants 

 would certainly make the farmer more successful in his 

 calling. 



At a recent address before a farmers' institute in Ithaca, 

 Professor Bailey took up this subject and gave several 

 reasons why floriculture should make an essential part of 

 the curriculum of every agricultural college. This was not 

 because he thought that every student should become a 

 skilled florist, and make a business of it, but because a 

 knowledge of floriculture would furnish a training for farm- 

 work which could not be gained in any other way. In 

 enumerating the distinct advantages which the study of 

 floriculture would give to the farmer, we may mention, in 

 the first place, that it would teach him more effectively 

 than he can learn in any other way, how much can be pro- 

 duced from land. The farmer has a hundred acres, and 

 then wants to buy all the land that adjoins him in order to 

 raise larger crops, while the florist matures his plant from 



a handful of soil, and then uses the soil over again year 

 after year without apparently exhausting it. A pailful of 

 soil will bring an Orange-tree into bearing condition and 

 keep it there for years when it is cared for and fertilized as 

 the florist knows how. The farmer simply turns his land 

 over with the plow, and harrows it once or twice, while 

 the gardener mixes and sifts until there can be no mistake 

 as to the mechanical conditions or the fertility of the soil 

 he uses. When his potful of soil is prepared he knows just 

 what it will produce, and never thinks of failure. If the 

 soil in the farmer's field were half as well prepared, his 

 crops would be greater by tenfold, and yet the farmer 

 wears out his land, and the florist never thinks of exhaust- 

 ing his soil. 



Again, as we have already suggested, and as Professor 

 Bailey well pointed out, the florist learns his plants as indi- 

 viduals. Every one of them leads a distinct and separate 

 life and is an object of individual care and solicitude. The 

 florist does not think of his soil as the farmer thinks of his 

 fields. What he has in mind is his plants. Every one of 

 them has an individuality, and in this way not one of them 

 is neglected, and all make a better and a more profitable 

 growth. In the same line is the lesson of conscientious 

 attention which must be given to every detail. The fanner 

 cultivates his Corn-field rather than the separate plants, 

 and makes no account of the fact that there are many 

 vacant hills, and many hills only partly filled. The florist 

 watches his plants, and he does not spend his time over 

 empty pots. This lesson will become more important as 

 the practice of agriculture becomes more complex and its 

 theories more refined. It may sound fanciful, too, but it 

 has a solid basis in fact, that this engendering of a special 

 regard for plants as individual objects not only would 

 increase the farmer's interest in the farm and in his crops, 

 but would increase the joy of his life. Agriculture would 

 then be a companionship with living things, and this would 

 help to bring contentment and peace. 



Again, as we believe that agriculture has its basis in 

 science, anything which gives the farmer scientific instruc- 

 tion, which gives him accurate habits of observation and 

 comparison and record, is of great value. The study of 

 floriculture offers a rich field for scientific investigation, 

 and especially for studying practically and in an experi- 

 mental way the capacities of the plant for evolution, which 

 means, when properly directed, its capacity for improve- 

 ment in the direction of man's necessities. There is no 

 question that agriculture, so far as it is successful in the 

 future, must break up into specialities, and a study of flori- 

 culture will not only enunciate this truth, but it will open 

 possibilities of success in more than one direction. There are 

 few farms in which a small glass house could not be made 

 to pay in a great many directions. It is not impossible that 

 a few kinds of flowers or flowering plants could be profit- 

 ably cultivated, vegetable plants could be raised and sold, 

 and fruits or vegetables could be forced. At all events, it 

 would be a place where seeds could be tested and experi- 

 ments made every winter, not to speak of the pleasure the 

 family, and especially young people, could get from it in a 

 hundred ways. 



Floricultural schools for the special training of florists 

 will be more and more in demand every year. Floriculture 

 is a business which will attract more of the young men of 

 this country from year to year, and of the young women, 

 too, for that matter, for here is one field in which women 

 can excel. But we agree with Professor Bailey, that every 

 student who comes to an agricultural college should re- 

 ceive instruction in floriculture in considerable detail, not 

 for its own sake alone, but as an essential part of the train- 

 ing for every field of rural activity. In short, it offers the 

 soundest discipline for actual farm practice which can be 

 found in the whole curriculum of agricultural teaching. 



For illustrations of the dangers which follow the strip- 

 ping of the forest-cover from the elevated sources of 

 streams, we are usually referred to the desolation in the 



