376 



THEY SAY. 



fruits, flowers, and plants, the exclusive rights of pro- 

 pagation and sale, for a limited time." Practically, as 

 most of those present thought, the main thing was to 

 have a register of plants that would put an end to the 

 " confusion worse confounded " of the catalogues, and 

 if a "copyright plan" could be adopted, the larger 

 benefits of advertising and disseminating a new variety 

 would be secured. 



One speaker said in effect that "the proposed law 

 must be as simple and practical as possible, or it could 

 not succeed. It must win the support of the better 

 class of agricultural journals, and the leading Ameri- 

 can newspapers. It must be for the " greatest good to 

 the greatest number," and free from all class-legisla" 

 tion. It must not try to do too much. If the cultivated 

 fruits, vegetables, and flowering plants now known in 

 America were registered under their present most 

 generally accepted names, in the office of the Agricul- 

 tural Department at Washington, the work of keeping 

 up the register would not be too difficult, because then 

 a fee could be charged for every plant entered. 



An important part of the discussion was upon the 

 "registry of botanical species." It was generally held 

 that only species that were in commercial cultivation 

 need be considered at present. The botanist does not 

 need any "register of plants," for the scientific system 

 and vocabulary that he uses secures him from confusion. 

 It is the farmer, gardener, nurseryman, florist, fruit- 

 grower and general horticulturist who finds that the 

 existing confusion of nomenclature is unendurable. 



The "California Idea" which Mr. A. L. Bancroft 

 and several other gentlemen have been working on for 

 a year or two, is that all varieties of cultivated plants 

 can be identified sufficiently for practical purposes, in 

 the experimental grounds at Washington, and registered 

 there in such a manner that the fact of registry will be 

 of value to nurserymen, seedsmen and florists, and 

 will do away with a vast amount of fraud and annoy- 

 ance. The details of a plan to accomplish this de- 

 sirable result are now being arranged by the working 

 committees of the organization which I have been de- 

 scribing, and will be presented to the floral and horti- 

 cultural societies, and sent to the leading American pub- 

 lications for comment and criticism. — Charles H. 

 Shinn. 



The American Association of Nurserymen meets 

 at Park Avenue hotel, New York city, June 4 to 7. The 

 best programme which the society has yet had is to be 

 presented. It reads as follows : 



The Question of New Fruits. H. E. Van Deman, 

 National Pomologist. 



Some Remarks on Root-Grafting. L. H. Bailey, 

 Professor of Horticulture, Cornell University, Ithaca, 

 N. Y. 



Are Hardy Perennials Desirable for our Catalogues ? 

 Jacob W. Manning, Reading, Mass. 



Can Stock be Dug and Shipped too Early in the Fall ? 

 G. E. Meissner, Bushberg, Mo. 



The Cause of Low Prices for Nursery Stock. Hon. 

 S. M. Emery, Lake City, Minn. 



Do We Live and Learn ? Thomas Meehan, German- 

 town, Pa. 



Chestnut Culture. Samuel C. Moon, Morrisville, Pa. 



Does the Future of our Business look as Promising 

 as the Past ? H. S. Wiley, Cayuga, N. Y. 



Elevation of our Business. C. L. Watrous, Des 

 Moines, Iowa. 



Hardy Fruits for the West and North. Professor J. 

 L. Budd, of Iowa Agriculture College, Ames, Iowa. 



Nurserymen, Agents, Tree Peddlers and Bugs. Geo. 

 J. Kellogg, Janesville, Wis. 



Advertising — How Can it Best be Done? G. J. Car- 

 penter, Fairbury, Neb. 



Peach Orchards of the West and South. N. H. Al- 

 baugh, Tadmor, Ohio. 



The Relation of Nurserymen to the Forestry Problem. 

 B. E. Fernow, Chief of Forestry Division, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



A Talk on Fruit Growing as a Business. S. D. Wil- 

 lard, Geneva, N. Y. 



The Future of Nut Culture. A. S. Fuller, Ridge- 

 wood, N. J. 



Transplanting Evergreens. Fred. W. Kelsey, New 

 York City. 



Thoughts on Soil Fertility, Applicable to the Nursery. 

 Professor I. P. Roberts, Director of the Cornell Univer- 

 sity Experiment Station. 



Home Grown vs. Foreign Stocks. E. W. Graves, 

 Sandwich, 111. 



New Small Fruits, F. R. Palmer, Mansfield, Ohio. 



Russian Varieties of Fruits. Leo Weltz, Wilmington, 

 Ohio. 



Leaf Blight on the Pear as Affecting Nursery Growth, 

 and its Remedy. Professor B. T. Galloway, Chief of 

 Section of Vegetable Pathology, Washington, D. C 



Has He Ruined Eastern Farmers by His Success in 

 Peach Culture ? J. H. Hale, So. Glastonbury, Conn. 



The Grape — Its Character, as Affected by Climate and 

 Situation. Geo. W. Campbell, Delaware, Ohio. 



Suggestions for Packing Nursery Stock. By a mem- 

 ber to be named later. 



Callas in California. — In the February issue, adver- 

 tising page 10, you say : "The calla wants water like a 

 mill, heat like a furnace and feed like an army." I 

 think that an extreme opinion. JMy callas in the open 

 ground have bloomed all winter, with only the natural 

 rainfall for water ; the temperature averaged 40 to 50 

 degrees by night and 50 to 65 degrees by day, and the 

 soil has never been manured. I am safe in saying that 

 a bed of 100 bulbs planted less than a year gave us over 

 1,000 blooms, and now in its second year, I think there 

 are nearly 2,000 large and fine flowers. Some I meas- 

 ured were 10)^ by inches. — E. Leedham, San Luis 

 Co. , Cal. 



Catalogues that Instruct. — Your correspondent on 

 page 305, May Garden, hits the nail on the head in 



