78 
THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
doubtful if 300 years of culture would have changed them 
in the slightest degree if propagation had been solely from 
the tubers and not from seed proper. 
“ I base this opinion on a very extended experience in the 
cultivation of plants from cuttings. Strawberry plants 
taken from any well-known kind, such as Sharpless, for 
example, from strong, vigorous-growing plants, will cer¬ 
tainly give better results than from weak plants of the 
same kind, planted in the same soil. But if the progeny 
of the strong and the weak plants are again taken and 
replanted, the difference between the two would hardly be 
perceptible after they had been growing together under 
the same conditions. Every now and then w r e hear of 
varieties of fruits or flowers, said to be degenerating, that 
are propagated from cuttings, grafts or roots. I believe 
there is no such thing as permanent degeneration of any 
fruit, flower or vegetable that is raised from cuttings, grafts 
or roots. The Jargonelle Pear, the Ribston Pippin Apple, 
the Hamburg Grape, or the Kean’s Seedling Strawberry 
of the English gardens are found to look just as good, 
and as bad, under different conditions of culture, as they 
were fifty or one hundred years ago, and that any change, 
either better or worse, is only an accident of circumstances 
and temporary. For be it remembered, that when a plant 
is raised from cuttings as in the Grape-vine, grafts as in a 
Pear, or layers as in a Strawberry, or pieces of the root, 
as in a Potato, such parts are not seed proper, but are 
merely parts of the same individual first called into exist¬ 
ence. The Early Rose potato, introduced nearly a quar¬ 
ter of a century ago, is just as good to-day, under proper 
cultivation, as when first introduced, but it is certainly no 
better. It is often to be found, of course, under unfavor¬ 
able circumstances, and then may be supposed to have 
degenerated; but when it is shown under other circum¬ 
stances to be as fine as when first introduced, how can the 
assertion of permanent degeneracy be admitted ? 
“ Permanent improvement in my opinion, in varieties, 
can only be made by the selection of the fittest speci¬ 
mens that have been raised from seed proper. Here we 
have, as in the Early Rose potato, the Sharpless straw¬ 
berry and the Concord grape, varieties that have shot 
away ahead of their fellows, having merits that the 
general public recognize; but all the art of man cannot 
further improve these so that their “ progeny ” (to use a 
convenient, though, perhaps, not a strictly correct term) 
will be permanently better or worse than when first 
called into existence. It is a very'common error, when 
a luxuriant crop of anything is seen growing under 
specially good culture, to imagine that cuttings, roots 
or seeds from such plants must necessarily give similar 
results, when the same conditions to grow such crops 
well are not present. Not long ago Boston was famed 
for its rosebuds, and even experienced florists paid double 
price for stock from such plants, only to find that in their 
hands these plants would not produce Bpston rosebuds. 
Now the case is changed. Madison, N. J., as a whole, 
beats Boston in rose culture, and the demand has 
changed from Boston to Madison, and, of course, with 
the same results, for, if the purchasers of Madison 
roses cannot give Madison culture, there will be no 
Madison rosebuds. While we admit the advantage of 
a healthy stock, and even, perhaps, the value of a change 
of stock, what I claim is that no culture will permanent¬ 
ly change the variety from the normal condition, and 
that the only advance that can be made is by selecting 
the best specimens, hybridizing these from their seed, 
again selecting, and so on forward. 
“To be sure, we have in rare instances what are 
known as ‘ sports ’ by gardeners, or what Darwin has 
called ‘ bud variation,’ which may be improvements 
on the original variety or the reverse; but culture 
good or bad has nothing to do with such anomalous 
cases. 
“ Again and again we see it asserted as a matter for 
wonder that the wild celery of English marshes, or the 
wild carrot of the hedgerows, have attained their present 
high condition by ‘ cultivation.’ If cultivation means 
that man has through generations ‘ selected the fittest ’ 
of these again and again, taking always the flower of the 
flock, so as to have attained the present perfection, then 
that is true; but, if by ‘ cultivation ’ is meant that ‘ do¬ 
mestication ’ by high culture, manuring, &c., in a garden 
or field has caused such results, then, in my humble opin¬ 
ion, it is not true.” 
A BOY WHO PAID HIS DEBTS, 
G REEN’S grocery’store was near Mr. Utley’s house, 
and Ned had lately grown quite old and wfise enough 
to go there alone upon errands. 
The great charm of Green’s grocery for Ned was its 
windows; for Mr. Green was really an artist in window 
decoration. No grocery windows in the whole town were 
so attractively arranged as his, or so often changed in 
decoration. Sometimes the central decoration would be 
a delicate display of foreign fruits, [oranges, lemons, figs, 
dates, &c„ around which circled a sort of halo of raisins, 
dried currants, colossal prunes, and sugared citron and 
ginger. Sometimes^ tempting jars of jelly and jam, of 
every name and color, would be the heart of the great 
flower, and every sort of sweet, fancy biscuits the petals. 
Sometimes sugars would be the main feature, and Ned, 
pressing his pug-nose flat against the large pane, would 
wonder to himself into which box, the central one full of 
maple sugar, or one of the circling ones of Demerara or 
“ double-refined,” he would plunge his fist, should fire 
break out on the premises and destruction be let loose 
upon those windows. 
It was Monday morning. Clean and bright as a new 
silver dollar, Ned was on his w r ay to school. He was five 
minutes earlier than usual, therefore had t quite time enough 
