PLANTING OF ALL SORTS 61 



possible. Indeed, there have been good results 

 here in this garden with seeding so late in the fall 

 that the germination did not take place until 

 spring, when it happened happily and completely, 

 to the destruction of weed seeds and weed prospects. 

 My preference for native trees and shrubs has 

 been expressed. It seems to me very much worth 

 while, in addition, to see and study shrubs from 

 other cHmes which may become valuable here. 

 There is a pleasurable feeling, a fascination, in 

 experimenting with possibilities, so long as the 

 main features of the planting are safely American. 

 To work with "novelties" in plants is httle less a 

 lottery than to sow the seeds that are to produce 

 something better than the best, even if the best 

 does not always happen. The Arnold Arboretum 

 — ^the most permanently organized educational 

 museum in all the world, about which I wish I 

 might write a book! — is looking out to bring to 

 America, to try, and to provide growers with, the 

 trees and shrubs found in lands afar off. For it 

 my friend Wilson, a prince of plantsmen, has 

 spent years in going over the western part of 

 China, that region having been selected because 

 of its greater climatic variations, the rigor of its 

 winters, and because of a singular geologic simi- 

 larity which seems to give the places six weeks 



