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ized that northeastern North America is not a good Rhododendron 
country in any broad sense the better it will be for the gardens in this 
part of the United States. For the last seventy years a large amount 
of thought, labor and money have been expended in attempts to culti¬ 
vate these plants in the New England and Middle States; during this 
time many hundreds of thousands of these plants, principally hybrids 
of the American R. catawbiense , have been imported from Europe but 
the collections of Rhododendrons in the eastern states at all satisfactory 
or comprehensive can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In this 
climate unfortunately only a few of the Catawbiense hybrids, which 
are the popular Rhododendrons here, can be grown. The American 
parent of these hybrids is perfectly hardy, but the influence of the 
tender Himalayan species with which it has been crossed has made 
most of the varieties of this hybrid unsuited to this climate. The in¬ 
fluence of the tender R. ponticum, the stock on which these plants 
have been almost universally grafted in European nurseries may account 
in part for the fact that plants of these hybrids which have lived here 
for thirty or forty years have then died without any other apparent 
cause. If evergreen Rhododendrons are ever to become hardy and per¬ 
manent features of eastern gardens we must give up trying to make 
European-grown plants successful here, and confine our efforts to the 
few species which are hardy here and to crossing these among them¬ 
selves in the hope of obtaining hybrids which will be able to grow here 
permanently. Something can perhaps be accomplished by the selection 
of seedlings. For example the flowers of R. catawbiense are of a 
peculiar shade of magenta which does not harmonize with any other 
color but white. Comparatively few seedlings, however, of R. cataw¬ 
biense have ever been raised and probably not much attention has ever 
been paid to selecting from among the plants growing on the high 
Appalachian peaks individuals with flowers of unusual colors. R. cataw¬ 
biense is perhaps the hardiest here of all Rhododendrons; the habit is 
excellent and the leaves are handsomer than those of the other hardy 
species. Improvement in the color of the flower is all that is needed 
to make it a first-rate plant for this climate. It is doubtful if this can 
be accomplished by crossing it with other species, but through patient 
selection it may be improved and possibly a white-flowered form dis¬ 
covered. Hybrid Rhododendrons are hardier or less hardy than their 
parents. The few hybrids which have been made between R. cataw¬ 
biense and R. maximum , the hardiest of all Rhododendrons here, are 
less hardy than their parents; and only a few of the hybrids of R. 
catawbiense with R. arboreum and other Himalayan species are hardy. 
On the other hand by crossing some of the Catawbiense hybrids with 
R. Metternichii, a delicate Japanese shrub, a race of hybrids has been 
produced in England which is quite hardy in the Arboretum; and the 
hybrids of the two species of the European Alps crossed with one of 
the forms of the American R. minus are excellent dwarf garden plants 
here. In this country the breeding of Rhododendrons for American 
gardens has never been systematically undertaken with full knowledge 
of the species available for the purpose. The field is an inviting one, 
for these plants and other hardy broad-leaved evergreens are greatly 
needed in American gardens. 
Chinese Lilacs. Most of the Chinese Lilacs have the advantage of 
flowering later than the common Lilac ( Syringa vulgaris). Several of 
