108 
The Garden Magazine, October, 1923 
claimcr of nurserymen puts the loss on the buyer. If 75 cents is paid 
for a rare Campanula and it turns out to be C. rapunculoides, which I 
have already all over my garden, the one purchased plant was enough— 
three would be too many. Until I am quite certain to get a trout and 
not a sucker when I am trout fishing, the joy in fishing is tempered by 
chance. There should be no chance when I am catching plants, 
especially rare ones, if offered and I am willing to pay the price. In 
checking several dealers this year the average of plants untrue is about 
the same for all. Apparently it is not so much carelessness in packing 
as poor determination of the plants in the field, or lack of care in label¬ 
ing them there. The present catch of rare plants is too poor for the 
good of the sport; with common sorts the proportion of mistakes is 
less. Two Latin names are possible for many plants, and 1 check out 
the synonyms in Bailey and forgive the use of the unfamiliar name. 
New species very like standard sorts should not be offered as rare and 
distinct, when scarcely distinguishable in effect, though separated by 
minor botanical characters. The “sucker” list below gives some of 
the disappointments of the year, though in many cases I improved my 
luck bv ordering the same name from two dealers, and one of the 
plants came as ordered. I am giving you (in confidence) the name 
of the dealer in each case specified. 
For Adenophora communis . 
Aconitum Fischeri 
Aconitum Storkianum 
Campanula Burghalti 
Campanula Van Houttei 
Campanula nobilis . 
Campanula rhomboidalis 
Chrysanthemum vomerense 
Chrysanthemum nipponicum 
Cimicifuga simplex . 
Delphinium nudicaule 
Dicentra canadensis . 
Erigeron glaucus 
Erigeron aurantiacus 
Gypsophila Maunginii 
Hemerocallis minor . 
Lilium elegans umbellatum 
Lilium canadense rubrum 
Lilium Grayi. 
Papaver pilosum 
Pentstemon pubescens . 
Pentstemon Smallii . 
Pentstemon speciosus 
Silene orientals .... 
Senecio Veitchianus . 
Tiarella purpurea major 
Tulipa Greigii . 
Veronica loneifolia alba 
Veronica orchidea 
I received —Campanula rapunculoides 
A. autumnale 
A. uncinatum 
C. rapunculoides 
C. persicifolia 
C. persicifolia 
C. rotundifolia 
C. leucanthemum 
C. Shasta Daisy 
Actaea rubra 
D. consolida—pink 
D. Cucullaria 
E. speciosus 
E. speciosus 
G. acutifolia 
H. Dumortieri 
L. Wilmottiae 
L. canadense—yellow 
L. canadense rubrum 
P. atlanticum 
P. tubiflorus 
P. tubiflorus 
P. secundiflorus 
S. compacta 
S. Clivorum 
Heuchera pubescens 
T. Gesneriana 
V. spicata alba 
V. longifolia 
There are other suspects that I shall look on with charity and pity 
until another blooming season enables me to compare them again.—H. 
A Nurseryman’s Difficulties with Naming 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
I N THE September issue (page 11), in an article concerning Thalic- 
trums, reference is made to some confusion of varieties sent out from 
one nursery, and we feel that you might be glad to print just a word 
from the nurseryman for the benefit of those who buy from him, re¬ 
garding his occasional failures to supply plants true to name, and of his 
troubles in general. This in our defence and attempt to dispel the 
feeling that sometimes prevails that money is our only goal. 
First let me say that we, in common with most of our profession, wel¬ 
come the intelligent and reasonable protests of our customers who have 
been disappointed. We wish to satisfy them to the best of our ability, 
and besides, such communication is often our first knowledge of mis¬ 
naming or other trouble. No one needs to be told of the conditions 
following the war and Quarantine 37. Lack of labor here and abroad 
had cut down the quality of the stock to be had in every way, weeds 
had flourished, many items simply could not be had. All this is an 
old story. 
But the real story of interest is of the work being done in American 
nurseries to make up for the ravages of the war years, to supply an 
established trade with the plants they once had, especially rarer forms, 
and to keep up at the same time with an astonishing growing demand 
for the older favorites. In many lines, the American nurseryman 
changed from being a storekeeper to being a manufacturer. Often¬ 
times he had not the needed experience, the skilled labor did not exist. 
Especially was this true in the hardy plants nurseries. But if any 
one who reads the various catalogues of perennial plants that come to 
hand will think over the quantities of kinds listed in them, he will 
readily see the chance for error that exists. And if one is at all inter¬ 
ested in botany and correct classification, the amount of dissension aris¬ 
ing over the naming of a new and sometimes an old variety gives 
another fertile field. Add to all this the need of stock of any kind to 
fill the orders, the fact that in many cases but one man in a nursery 
knew at all what that nursery contained, and he away in new fields 
provided by better paid industries—is it any wonder that just ordinary 
mixtures in the packing shed, or slips in the office, seem minor affairs? 
Just how true it may be of the bulb and the greenhouse plant men, 
and of others, we cannot say. But the fact remains that the hardy 
plantsman is producing the needed things for his trade. Not putting 
forth the many novelties each year, but consistently supplying the 
plants that people want for their gardens, well grown, better possibly 
than those from the “other side” and different climate, and we believe 
more true to name than ever before. Any one that ever flowered 
imported Peonies just as received will answer for that, and it is equally 
true of other lines. Stocks have increased, some new things found 
their way into the lists, and now most of us are ready to try for new 
things of our own, better adapted to our conditions,, products of our 
own skill. 
For the rare botanical forms, however, we shall have to wait for two 
things—first, a more active demand occasioned by a love for the 
plant itself, not simply its bloom; the second will follow the first, men 
trained in botany with a love for the gems of the plant world, such as 
is found in the products of the great European botanical gardens, and 
to a certain degree in the botanists of our earlier nursery development. 
With these two needs fulfilled will come ways to produce and grow 
anything. 
When a plant flowers or grows disappointingly, the thing to do is to 
take the matter up at once with the nurseryman, not in a way that 
suggests unfair treatment, for he is human and may resent it. He 
should, and will if he is a true plantsman, do all in his power to make 
the matter right at once. If he does not, it is but common sense and 
self-protection to drop him from your list. But give him his chance. 
Regardless of what might be said, the customer is not always right. 
We believe a truly interested customer wants to be right, not just al¬ 
lowed to think himself or herself so. 
The nursery business of this country is building well for its future. 
Visit your nearest nursery, see it not just as a source of plants for your 
gardens, but as a place where work is done, a manufacturing plant. 
If you recall the pre-war days in the nursery, it may happen that you 
will be surprised.— E. H. Horsford, by Fred M. Abbey, Charlotte, Vt. 
—We are more than ordinarily glad to have this opportunity of pre¬ 
senting the dealers’ own attitude on a point of such vital interest 
to all parties. To any one who has had practical acquaintance with 
the operations of a nursery, the marvel is not that errors do sometimes 
occur in the naming or shipping of stock, but that business of such 
minute detail, with labor conditions as they are, is carried on with such 
general precision. Bear in mind, too, that many subjects when dor¬ 
mant, or in certain stages of growth, may be practically indistinguish¬ 
able, sometimes positively so, indeed. Many an amateur is altogether 
too familiar with the difficulty of keeping stocks distinct even in his own 
little garden—labels get mixed mysteriously, an odd bulb or seed gets 
into the wrong place, etc., etc. Our sympathies extend to both parties 
indeed, but we have yet to learn of a reputable dealer who is not 
earnestly concerned when things go wrong and who will not meet his 
customer in a sympathising manner.— Ed. 
“High Snowdrop” or Snowflake 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
T HE “starlike white green-tipped snowdrop-like flower” G. G. 
Melhart inquires about in August Garden Magazine is undoubt¬ 
edly the Leucojum, a cousin of the Snowdrop called by New England 
country folk “High Snowdrop”. In Mrs. Alice Morse Earle’s “Old 
Time Gardens” 1 find she quotes 
‘ The nice-leaved lesser Lilies 
Shading like detected light 
Their little green-tipt lamps of white.” 
from Leigh Hunt’s verse about it.— Albert Hill Smith, N. Y. 
Hare- Hair- or Blue-Bell—Campanula or Scilla? 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
O N READING my article in the September Garden Magazine 
I find the words “Scilla nutans, the wild English Harebell.” This 
should be “Bluebell” and 1 do not see how 1 ever came to write 
Harebell as I was brought up in a Yorkshire “dale” where the woods in 
springtime were blue with a sea of Bluebells (Scilla nutans) and on 
dry grassy banks and on grassy slopes edging the Heather on the moors 
nodded ranks upon ranks of “Hairbells,” this latter plant being Cam¬ 
panula rotundifolia, so named because of the lower root-leaves which 
are round whereas those along the stems are long and pointed. 1 always 
feel that the name should be spelled “Hairbell” because the stems are 
