THE EDITOR'S OUTLOOK. 



563 



transformations from dull brown and gray monot- 

 ony to an exquisite blending of all the countless 

 greens in nature's laboratory, interspersed with 

 points and splashes of color, as the spring flowers 

 appear. As summer advances, the greens deepen 

 with the growth of vast areas of sedges and tall rush- 

 es, which undulate and wave and billow in the wind 

 like the ocean in a brisk gale ; and again the wide 

 expanse is as still as a lake among the hills on a 

 July day. Now, in August, the color points have 

 multiplied a thousand-fold. On the drier land, 

 among the low grasses, sedges and shrubs, there 

 are great orange-colored masses of day lily, than 

 which nothing is more effective in a partially 

 shaded wild garden where there is plenty of mois- 

 ture. Scattered, it is pretty ; in masses, magnifi- 

 cent. The tall meadow rue is everywhere, and 

 beautiful both in flower and foliage. The way in 

 which this groups itself, sometimes in the sem- 

 blance of solid bushes six feet across, is a lesson 

 for landscape artists. Flaming wands of cardinal 

 flower stand guard by brookside and rivulet (the 

 children say as beacons for fairy fleets) ; and in 

 every break, oasis or island in the sea of giant 

 rushes, the splendid Hibiscus moscheutos^ of stout 

 stem and thrifty foliage, flaunts its pink banner-like 

 blooms in safe defiance of envious garden beauties 

 that may seek to vie with it in effective coloring. 

 Only recently has this fine plant appeared in gar- 

 dens, but it flourishes even in dry soil. Of the 

 convolvulus, milk weeds, asters and golden rods, 

 countless in numbers, gorgeous in color, effective 

 and beautiful always, we have no room to speak, 

 but among them, and close beside, are scores that 

 fill these mighty wild gardens with interest and de- 

 serve attention of the cultivator who seeks beauty, 

 hardiness and vigor. 



Pacific coast, and in the extreme south-western 

 portion of the United States, the almond blossoms 

 are caught by untimely frosts, and its culture has 

 been a failure. 



Or take such an item as this, which has ap- 

 peared in more than one paper : "A good average 

 for a Spanish chestnut throughout its prime is 

 $25 yearly." Well, we would say it was a good 

 average for an orchard of any fruit ! While 

 the author ot the item doesn't say that each tree 

 will give such annual yield, yet such statements 

 in journals usually careful ot their expressions 

 arouse hopes in the planter that can never be 

 realized. Or take this expression. "One grower 

 in Florida has now a grove of 4,000 pecan trees 

 six years old. When they begin to bear, their 

 product will be worth ^100,000 yearly at wholesale 

 — a figure which certainly makes tobacco raising 

 and orange growing seem far less tempting." 

 Well, well, well! If this expression has any sav- 

 ing grace, it is in the enormity of its size. Being 

 so beyond the ordinary, it would seem that no 

 reader would attempt to swallow it. If nature has 

 such sums in hiding for each planter of pecans, 

 surely capital has more cause for complaint against 

 Alliance men than Alliance men have against capi- 

 tal, because they haven't gone to work getting such 

 amounts out of nature and thus add to the sum of 

 human happiness ! 



Perhaps the author of the item is like an edi- 

 tor, who, some years since, maintained that his 

 paper never made a misstatement. Being caught 

 in an editorial where he had made the county ex- 

 penses to read ^100,000 when the item should have 

 been $10,000, he facetiously retorted the next 

 week : "We take naught from the statement and 

 insist it is correct ! " 



UNREASONABLE THE worst thing that can hap- 

 PROFITS FOR pen to the industry of nut cul- 



NUTS. ture, aside from no culture, is the 



inconsiderate claim of unreasonable profits. A writer 

 in a popular periodical says of the almond : " Bear- 

 ing trees average about 20 pounds each, which, at 

 30 cents a pound, would amount to at least Si, 000 

 an acre. The trees grow readily from nuts, it 

 planted when fresh." This item is copied freely 

 into the country press, and the possibilities are that 

 great mischief may ensue ; for the truth is, that 

 the area of territory where the soft-shell almond 

 will do well in the United States is very limited, 

 (and the hard-shell almond is no better than a 

 peach-stone, and will be found altogether unprofit- 

 able to the American fruit grower.) Except on the 



FOR some years The American 

 SUBSTITUTION GARDEN and The Rural New- 



Yorker., with several other jour- 

 nals which have the courage of their convictions, 

 have fought against the evil of substitution with 

 varying success. The many years work led by 

 the American Pomological Society has resulted in 

 the gradual dying out and almost extinction of sub- 

 stitution among the nurserymen. Unfortunately, 

 some among the florists and seedsmen are not 

 educated up to a realization of the enormity of 

 giving the purchaser something different from what 

 he pays for. During the past few weeks these 

 gentry must have been highly entertained by the 

 discussion in the daily press concerning substitution 

 by druggists. In this case the evil consists simply 



