112 



THE EDITOR'S OUTLOOK. 



understand what reasons there may be for such 

 limitation. The author of the classification cannot 

 have been aliteralist, for horticulture etymologically 

 means the cultivation of gardens, and if one class 

 of plants more than another has been inseparably 

 associated with gardens, it is the ornamentals, the 

 flowers. And in Europe, where the term was first 

 used, fruits are as much a part of gardens as are 

 flowers or vegetables. But the meaning of the term 

 has long since outgrown its etymology, and even 

 the most casual reader of the literature of the day 

 must have observed that horticulture comprises 

 more than the circumscribed interests pertaining to 

 that formal bit of ground which is commonly known 

 as a garden. 



The author of the classification has evidently 

 framed a definition of his own in a field of which he 

 is ignorant. It has served a purpose, however, for 

 it has awakened wide discussion, and the outcome 

 must be a general enlightenment upon the subject. 

 The Michigan Hotticultufal Society has led in the 

 agitation and in the endeavor to pursuade the 

 World's Fair authorities to adopt a good classifica- 

 tion. The arrangement adopted by the Michigan 

 Society is this : 



DEPARTMENT B HORTICULTURE. 



Group 21 — Pomology. 



Group 22 — Floriculture. 



Group 23 — Truck and kitchen gardening. 



Group 24 — Arboriculture. 



Group 25 — Horticultural appliances. 



Group 26 — Miscellaneous. 



This must accord with the views of all those who 

 have given the subject adequate attention, and it is 

 the constitution of horticulture which is practically 

 understood by every agricultural college and ex- 

 pei-iment station in the land. This schedule is a 

 sufficient definition of horticulture for purposes (jf 

 exhibition. It is, of course, impossible to define 

 horticulture precisely, as it is impossible to define 

 agriculture or electrical engineering or physics. 

 But the definition is not simplified by arbitrarily 

 restricting it. We do not know how one can define 

 vegetable gardening precisely. 



The definition of horticulture, as of everything 

 else, is determined entirely by usage, and no one, 

 until the present remarkable instance, has restricted 

 it to the vegetable garden. Viticulture is legiti- 

 mately a part of pomology or fruit-culture, which is 

 itself one of the coordinate divisions of horticulture. 

 Arboriculture is an unfortunate term, as it is often 

 used, and properly enough, to designate some legit- 

 imate branches of forestry; and it does not deal, as 

 used in the present schedule, with trees alone, but 



with shrubs and even smaller plants. By arbori- 

 culture, the Michigan society evidently means to 

 refer to the general labor of growing ornamental 

 trees and shrubs and of caring for them and other 

 plants in reference to landscape effects. It is dif- 

 ficult to find a term which shall cover this province, 

 although other, and to our mind, better ones have 

 been proposed. 



But the schedule originally proposed has other 

 faults. Under viticulture it classes the manufac- 

 ture of wines, brandies and the like. It confounds 

 horticulture and manufacture. Horticulture ends 

 at the factory door. The manufacture of cham- 

 pagne is no more a part of horticulture — simply 

 because it uses grapes — than the manufacture of 

 glue is a part of agriculture, because it uses animal 

 tissues. The schedule is further at fault in its 

 unequal and untrue distribution of " classes." We 

 fear that it would be difficult to show that grape 

 interests rank in importance to all other fruit inter- 

 ests of the country as fourteen to four ! Apples 

 probably out-rank grapes. Or if the extra classes 

 under viticulture are constructed for the purpose of 

 including brandies and champagnes, then we appeal 

 for one or two for apple-jack and peach brandy ! 



But horticulture is more than all this. A great 

 science, having to do with the behavior of plants 

 under culture, is awaiting exploration. These 

 plants, and the methods by which they are modified, 

 come very largely under the care of the horticultu- 

 rist. This region of hybridization, influences upon 

 plants of climate, soils and culture, the possibilities 

 of selection, and kindred subjects, come logically 

 under the province of botany. But botany does not 

 claim it. Botanists, as a rule, are behind the spirit 

 of the times. Few of them are working in the line 

 of the modern generalizations, but are still chiefly 

 concerned with characters and limits of species. 

 The science still has too much of the old-time stiff- 

 ness. Horticulture must enter this new and re- 

 freshing field, first opened by Knight and Darwin, 

 and claim it for its own. 



*.,* 



AT A recent meeting of fruit 

 ^ growers in Delaware, it was 



PLANT DISEASES. " 



urged that the destruction of yel- 

 lows peach trees should not be made obligatory, 

 because every man has a right to manage and con- 

 trol his own orchards. " If my neighbor is so un- 

 wise as to retain yellows trees, it is none of my 

 business. I have no right to interfere." It would 

 seem that the fallacy in this argument is so obvious 

 that we need not point it out ; and yet this attitude 



