Vol. LVI. No. 2495 
NEW YORK. NOVEMBER 20 1897. 
*1.00 PER YEAR. 
HORTICULTURE IN GERMANY. 
A 'CO’m'p ARISON WITH AMERICAN METHODS. 
T An Interview with Prof. L. H. Bailey, of Cornell. 
“When you were in Germany the past summer, 
what impressed you most, horticulturaliy ? ” 
“The thing that always impresses me most over 
there is the greater appreciation of plants as objects 
of beauty—their more vital relation to the man, to 
the owner, to the grower. They receive more in¬ 
dividual attention. This has so long been the case 
that the love for, and interest in them, have become 
inherent. With us, it is more of an acquirement, and 
our plants have less, I might say, of individual ex¬ 
pression. We have developed more skill of science in 
tilling and pruning than have they. One reason for 
this is that they are more bound by tradition. They 
arrive at and adopt new methods more slowly, the 
new horticulture—and by that I mean the scientific 
way—new methods of greenhouse construction, new 
tools,the 
quickening 
of scientific 
ideas, must 
be born in 
America 
and not in 
Europe. In 
Europe, the 
gardener 
goes more 
by authority 
Often he is 
born and 
reared on 
the estate 
where he is 
employed, 
and is, in a 
way, a part 
of it. Like 
every one 
there, he is 
more bound 
in his habits 
of thought, 
in his relig¬ 
ion, in his 
method o f 
living. The 
Germans 
pride them¬ 
selves on 
their scien¬ 
tific meth¬ 
ods, as you 
know, and 
they do ap¬ 
ply science horticulturaliy, but not so energetically 
as here. They are fax behind us in combating insects 
and plant pests of every description. They are be¬ 
hind us in two ways—they haven’t worked out the life 
history of fungous diseases of plants. Then again, 
the horticulturist does not so quickly apply the 
knowledge that he obtains. In North America, the 
tiller of the land is not so far removed from the in¬ 
vestigator. 
“ But, withal, we can learn much from the Ger¬ 
mans, from their personal care and skillful handicraft. 
Ordinarily, people seem to think that these things 
come from the fact that labor is cheaper there, and 
time of less value than here. But it comes, I feel 
sure, from more personal love—they get more pleasure 
out of it—it is less possible for them to neglect plants, 
or to treat them with indifference. The German 
method is more amateurish and personal, while the 
(American is more commercial. We* have most, per¬ 
haps, to learn of them in greenhouse work and flower 
gardening. Their greenhouses are not better, all 
around, than ours ; they are more strongly built, but 
they get less sunlight. They grow a larger repertoire, 
so to speak, of plants. One sees more kinds there in 
small houses. That comes from their personal con¬ 
tact with the plants ; people don’t cast aside what 
they love.” 
“ How does their landscape gardening differ from 
ours ? ” 
“In landscape gardening, the Germans show more 
tendency to incidental effects, toward the growing 
of individual plants. Here, the tendency is more for 
effect in mass, as a whole ; there, grounds have more 
of a flower-garden effect. They grow out of doors a 
greater abundance of roses and pinks, real carna¬ 
tions. The Dahlia and Gladiolus are very prominent. 
The sweet pea is practically unknown. The Indian 
corn is sometimes seen as a curiosity. In the fields, 
the Corn poppy—large, red, brilliant, 2% inches across, 
is very conspicuous. The Cornflower, our Bachelor’s 
button, which used to be called the Emperor’s flower, 
I rarely saw. They lack our splendid autumn effects, 
our golden-rods and Asters. Flowers sell for, per¬ 
haps, one-half or one-third less than they do here. 
One sees much the same weeds growing along the 
roadsides as here.” 
“But the roadsides, I hope, are better taken care 
of?” 
“Yes, they are; they are mowed or pastured, and 
the roadway spaces there are much narrower, and it 
costs much less work to keep them in order. Amer¬ 
ican roads are much too wide, the road space much 
too wide.” 
“ How about their fruits ? ” 
“ The most marked difference is the immensely 
greater development in fruit growing over here. Our 
high-water mark is in our fruit. Apples in Germany 
are not at all the same as ours. They have more 
greens and yellows. They have a different ideal in 
breeding. Their apples, in shape, tend to be longer, 
with more ridges on the top ends. Their tomatoes, 
even, are more angular and conical, such as we had a 
generation ago. We prefer a round tomato for com¬ 
mercial purposes. The first prize given at the Gar- 
tenbau Stellung at Hamburg, which, by the way, was 
the largest horticultural exhibition ever held in the 
world—for the tomato, was for an angular tomato; 
with us, it would have been for a round one. The 
exhibition lasted from May until October, and the. 
Herbst-Austellung—the autumn show, lasting for a 
week—was, unquestionably, the greatest plant and 
flower display ever made. What did they show ? Oh, 
China Asters, Gladioli, Tuberous Begonias, mari¬ 
golds, Petunias, pansies, Celosias, Zinnias, Verbenas, 
Phloxes and even Immortelles. Of the Dahlias, the 
singles and the cactus varieties seemed to hold the 
first place. And were American fruits well repre¬ 
sented ? By no means. California sent evaporated 
fruits, but a 
shipload o f 
American 
apples and 
cranberries 
placed there 
would have 
capturedthe 
town — at 
least, a big 
lot of trade. 
The Ger¬ 
mans grow 
their fruits 
in small, in- 
terplanted 
areas. They 
hardly have 
an idea of 
what some 
of our or¬ 
chards are ; 
indeed, the 
German lan¬ 
guage has 
no exact 
equivalent 
for our word 
orchard. Our 
orchards 
which are 
not inter- 
planted, are 
more easily 
sprayed,and 
got at in 
every way. 
They don’t 
eat as much fruit as we do. If they raised less beer 
and wine, they wouldn’t have to import so much 
wheat; which is also true of all Europe. Their gar¬ 
dens are often walled around, much more so than 
here, but less so than in England, it seemed to me. 
Their unskilled labor there is superior to ours, because 
it gives more consecutive attention to the work in 
hand. A man trained to gardening there, means a 
gardener for life, while here, a man is a gardener one 
week, a car conductor the next, then a farm hand, 
and at the end of a month, he is off with a thrashing 
machine.” 
“ Did you observe that women were professional 
gardeners ? ” 
“ No, ab such they did not come under my observa¬ 
tion. But they worked in the fields everywhere. It 
seemed to me that fully one-third of what we call 
men’s work, was done by the women. They do street 
paving, tend mason, clean streets, tear down build- 
T Y PIC AL SCENE IN THE YARD OF AN OLDTIME NEW JERSEY FARM. Fig. 315. 
