The Editor's Outlook. 



TT IS a singular fact that the gardens 

 TANGLED \_ ^t^jt-^ the poets oftenest praise are 



GARDENS. ^ ^ 



those in which no rule of landscape 

 gardening and no method have been consciously 

 employed. A rhapsody of one of our great parks 

 would be an anomaly in literature, but a lyric of an 

 old and tangled garden is the most natural and com- 

 mon of emotions ; nor does it matter if the garden 

 is small and cramped and poor, if only 



" * * here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, 

 Of nightshade or valerian, grace the wall," 



SO long as the plants grow carelessly and naturally, 

 it possesses charm. If this experience were ana- 

 lyzed we should find that the charm of these old gar- 

 dens comes from the plants themselves rather than 

 from mere arrangement, from the love of green 

 things growing, so long as they grow as nature in- 

 tended that they should. The moment we begin to 

 shear and trim and "design," we turn the attention 

 from plants to artifice : the garden from thence loses 

 its charm as a bit of nature. In the old gardens 

 which we knew as children, there was a satisfying 

 influence of which even the memory brings peace 

 and contentment ; but in the parks there is only the 

 unsatisfied desire to see something more, the curi- 

 osity to seek for new wonders, and then the fatigue 

 which comes from sight-seeing. We long to escape 

 the park and boulevard for some old granny's gar- 

 den, where hollyhocks and pinks and jasmine grow 

 and tangle as they will. Here it does not matter 

 if the family cat sleeps under the honeysuckles or 

 if the spiders build their webs in the corners. The 

 turf is free to walk upon and the flowers can be 

 touched and picked. Birds build their nests in the 

 lilac bushes. The dew waits long in the morning, 

 a setting of pearls everywhere. All this is peace 

 and purity. How the memory haunts us in these 

 older days ! How we long for that old garden which 

 was " a mere growth of the years "! 



*v"" 



pERHAPS there has never been a 

 FAILURES i more complete failure of orchard 



OF FRUITS. ^^^^ ^j^jg ^jj ^j^g 



eastern states the production is very small and 

 mostly of inferior quality. Pears have, perhaps, 

 been the most satisfactory crop in New York and 

 eastward. Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and a 

 few other states have a partial crop of apples, but 



there are few places in which there is a sufficient 

 crop to make heavy shipment to eastern markets. 

 There is almost a complete failure of fruits through- 

 out the south. A few of the citrus fruits will give 

 fair crops. California and Oregon alone appear to 

 have escaped the general destruction. Along with 

 this failure in fruits has gone a more or less unsatis- 

 factory condition of general farm crops. As a whole, 

 this is one of those " hard years " which leave an 

 indelible impression upon our rural industries. 



We should know the causes of all this. It is 

 strange that while we are constantly inquiring into 

 petty details we have overlooked these broader is- 

 sues. Perhaps the very fact that we have applied 

 ourselves so diligently to details and incidentals is 

 reason enough for the neglect of larger questions., 

 Nevertheless, the neglect is deplorable, and it must 

 be remedied. Experiment stations must adopt a 

 broader policy and allow their men to travel in search 

 of information. There is danger of narrow work 

 under narrow management. A tour of a state or 

 region is often more useful to farmers and the ex- 

 perimenters than the cutting of seed potatoes or the 

 sampling of strawberries. 



The causes which are held to account for these 

 failures are almost innumerable. Some of them are 

 founded in ignorance and misconception, but have 

 attained standing because of their age. It is strange 

 how many things we accept simply because someone 

 has said so ! There are probably no more than 

 five hypotheses advanced which can be held to ac- 

 count for general failure of fruit crops. 



1. Cold, either during the winter or frosts in late 

 spring. The greater part of the failures of the ten- 

 der fruits in the north the present year, and the en- 

 tire failure in the southern states, is unquestionably 

 due to hard frosts following a February and early 

 March of unusual mildness. Yet there are excep- 

 tions to this statement, even in the case of peaches, 

 for in some of the lake regions of New York the 

 peaches set, and attained to a considerable size be- 

 fore they fell. And the apple crop has failed in 

 regions where there were no late frosts. 



2. I^ack of pollination. It is a venerable notion 

 that a heavy rain at blooming time prevents polli- 

 nation, even though it is well known that heavy 

 crops often follow just such storms. There are no 

 definite proofs that rains interfere with pollination 



