PLANNING AND THE CATALOGUES 23 



served to give me doubt of their good faith. Con- 

 sider, for instance, this new celery that one seeds- 

 man is exploiting as better than "the best ever.'* 

 It happens that I am acquainted with the acute 

 and successful market-gardener who selected this 

 "sport" in a field of good celery, watched it, grew 

 it to seedage, planted it again and again, with 

 renewed selections toward a high ideal, evolving 

 at last a "type," or "strain," of celery quite 

 definitely better than anything that had preceded 

 it in his experience. Why should I doubt the 

 truth of the claims made in the catalogue of the 

 seedsman who is eager to pass on a better celery 

 to his customers.^ 



Then I call to mind the keen discrimination of 

 that fine old Scotch gardener who had been select- 

 ing for years the softest and clearest colors, and the 

 longest spurs, on the columbines he was growing 

 in a mighty expensive garden near Boston. Why 

 shouldn't that strain of columbine be better, as 

 offered on the catalogue-pages of the seedsman 

 who gave him a market for the results of his skill, 

 and whose own prosperity depends on continued 

 confidence? 



There comes to mind another of these bits of 

 inside knowledge concerning the ways of the seeds- 

 man This particular man does not love novelties 



