both to that part of the public which desires to keep 

 informed on, or to purchase, the newest developments 

 in these plants, and to the professional growers, who are 

 given an opportunity to exhibit their products. With 

 the increasing interest of the people in decorative garden- 

 ing and the expansion of the business of bulb growers, 

 seedsmen and nurserymen, there is great need of standard 

 floricultural plantations. The immediately practical 

 objects of such plantations, which should be grown under 

 standardized conditions, are the comparison of old and 

 new types, the identification of new types, the detection 

 of carelessness or fraud in presenting, as new, types 

 already known, and the determination of the hardiness, 

 artistic value, immunity to disease, and the require- 

 ments as to soil, light, moisture and food, of the plants 

 under observation. The increase in the number of 

 garden clubs and of societies devoted to special groups 

 of floricultural plants, such as roses, peonies, dahlias 

 and iris, indicates the practical importance of such work, 

 and many of these societies would probably be found 

 willing to aid in it. Work of this kind, indeed, is already 

 started by the Garden in connection with the Iris Society 

 of America, and it was included in the original plan of 

 our Rose Garden that it should be one of a world-wide 

 series of gardens which were to maintain test plantations 

 for determining the qualities of all new offerings in the 

 rose trade. Such work would require specially trained 

 gardeners for each group of plants, who are experts and 

 specialists both as to gardening practice and the work 

 of breeding. But, in addition, there would be needed 

 also the supervision and advice of scientific physiologists, 

 ecologists, geneticists and pathologists. While achieving 

 these practical results the Garden would be amply 

 repaid on the scientific side, for its staff would find in col- 

 lections sufficiently large to give reliable practical results 



Ci9 3 



