KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



365 



HONESTY AND DECEPTION. 



"NEW SEEDS,"" NEW FLOWERS " "NEW FRUITS.' 



There is so much deception used amongst 

 gardeners, seeds-men, and florists generally, 

 that it is only right to give a passing hint to 

 the public to " take care of their pockets." 



No one, perhaps,can speak more to the pur- 

 pose than we can ; for, in early days, believing 

 that what certain advertisements stated was 

 really true, we purchased a vast number of 

 " new and remarkable " strawberry plants, 

 raspberry canes, &c, on their recommenda- 

 tion ; and found they were even inferior to 

 what were then growing in our garden ! The 

 fact is, all " novelties " must be viewed with 

 suspicion. The dealers know John Bull's 

 weak point, and they live by his ignorance. 



Then, as to the seeds purchased to make 

 your garden look gay and animated, — three - 

 fourths of them are old and useless. You 

 complain ; and are told the soil was too dry, 

 or too heavy, &c-, &c. All those packets of 

 seeds, so carefully done up in brown paper, 

 and exposed for sale, with the names of the 

 flowers on them, are refuse seed. They 

 never come up, and we hardly need say they 

 are perfectly valueless. Yet are they sold 

 in hundreds. The public buy, and the 

 dealer laughs at them. 



This subject has lately been taken up by 

 the Gardeners' Journal, whose Editor has' 

 very honestly exposed the tricks of the trade. 

 " We would not for a moment," he says, 

 " discourage the introduction of valuable 

 novelties, either of plants or seeds. On the 

 contrary, we are always pleased to give our 

 meed of praise where praise is due, and to 

 do all in our power to recommend novelty 

 when we are convinced that it possesses quali- 

 ties worthy of such recommendation. But our 

 position demands that we should be firm in 

 our opinions, and discriminating in our 

 judgments, when such matters are subjected 

 to us ; and, no doubt, we sometimes offend 

 by condemning where we were expected to 

 praise. And every day increases our re- 

 sponsibility in this respect, and renders it 

 necessary that we should be more watchful. 

 For our own part, we believe that matters 

 have been already carried too far. 



" There are too many kinds of peas, of 

 brocoli, of cabbages, and so on, of all other 

 culinary plants, with few exceptions. And 

 in florists' flowers a like evil is apparent. In 

 fuchsias, in geraniums, in pansies, in holly- 

 hocks, in verbenas, in chrysanthemums, we 

 have lists of worthless or but duplicate 

 kinds thrust upon our notice as novelties 

 worthy of cultivation. We would have 

 those lists submitted to a severe jury, who 

 should thin overcrowded ranks without pity, 

 and consign them in hundreds to the tomb 



of all the Capulets. The difficulty is to 

 know where to begin. 



" We are assured that all the influential 

 and respectable members of both the nursery 

 and seed trade, are desirous of a curtailment 

 being made in the numberless kinds of the 

 flower and vegetable seeds required to be kept 

 in stock ; entailing, as it does, an enormous 

 expense, without any proportionate return to 

 themselves, or to their purchasers. There 

 can be no possible good in retaining so many 

 kinds. Why do we require peas and cab- 

 bages by the hundred sorts ? Surely the 

 most fertile imagination cannot conceive cir- 

 cumstances that should require a tenth of the 

 number to meet every demand. 



" The fault is evidently with private pur- 

 chasers. While they exhibit a morbid de- 

 mand — and it is a morbid demand — for nov- 

 elties, there will always be found those who 

 are ready to meet it, no matter how, or by 

 what means. Look at the advertising co- 

 lumns of all our agricultural and horticultural 

 periodicals, and it is at once evident that 

 the raising, or at least announcing, novelties, 

 is a ' winning game ;' or the poor superla- 

 tives of our mother tongue would not be so 

 tortured and heaped one upon the other as 

 they are, to palm off some unknown upstart 

 of a kidney bean or a dwarf cabbage on the 

 public. 



" We have heard that a distinction may 

 exist without a difference. We believe it, 

 and undertake to demonstrate it to the satis- 

 faction of everybody. Take up any one of 

 the seed lists now lying upon our table, and 

 you shall find ten distinctions in name with 

 no difference in the quality of the things repre- 

 sented. Now we must confess to a decided 

 objection to this kind of trickery. The poet 

 has said — 



" 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet ;' 

 and so a quart of ordinary peas, or an ounce 

 of common brocoli seeds, would doubtless 

 be the same thing if called by any other 

 name. To this change, if it were necessary 

 and advisable, we should have no objection ; 

 but when under this new name we are called 

 upon to pay four times the amount for either, 

 that we should if it had only its own proper 

 appellation attached to it, we become in- 

 dignant. 



" We can sit under Houdin, or Anderson, or 

 Robin, or any other ' Wizard ' of like cele- 

 brity in the Cabalistic art, and be ' fooled to 

 the top of our bent,' and even feel a degree 

 of pleasure in the process. We go to be 

 cheated ; and we should be disappointed if 

 we were allowed to depart otherwise. But, 

 when we are sold some cucumber seeds, for 

 instance, at a shilling each, the plant from 

 which we are assured will produce ' splendid 

 and magnificent ' fruit ; or a dozen straw- 

 berry plants for a guinea, which we are in. 



