‘4 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
peaches, apples and small fruits. I wish to call attention 
to the fact that we as Iowa horticulturalists have been so 
engrossed in the crossing fad as to neglect entirely the 
richest field for valuable work. But $4 in premiums was 
offered at the last state fair for awards for seedling apples. 
When farmers were offering dozens to hundreds of 
seedlings for examination no members of the experi¬ 
mental committee was on hand to report on them, to 
offer encouragement to growers, or to make a painstaking 
report of them, or sift them out. The fact must also be 
noted that there was $1,000 at their disposal for general 
experimental work. We do not think this was intentional 
neglect, but that the tendency to make seedling pro¬ 
duction, by crossing, a fad, a sort of horticultural cure-all 
was a cause. 
If the Ben Davis, Jonathan, Grimes, Janet, Wine Sap, 
in apples, as well as our entire list of cultivated fruits 
were once found somewhere as seedlings is it not pos¬ 
sible that such are still to be found ? The amount of 
seedlings brought to notice in our western states this sea¬ 
son is remarkable. Nearly five hundred have been 
reported to the writer in his county alone and if the facts 
were carefully gathered and made known it is altogether 
possible that really the most valuable experimental work 
in the origin of varieties is going on at the farms. This 
is materially aided by the fact that in our western states 
we have large foreign populations from European coun¬ 
tries that have brought seed-planting habits with them. 
Being without fruit, and coming from places where there 
was an abundance, they plant all seeds carefully, trusting 
little to obtainable nursery stock. 
Plant breeding will give valuable results, but I think 
only along the line of breeding that verges closely upon 
inbreeding as we do with live stock, instead of crossing. 
But it must be within proper limitations. In regarding 
these the work should be carried along such lines as will 
improve the best in variety and species and revitalize 
them with fuller life and greater vigor. 
Our principal discouragement in the work is that as 
operators we must work with unknown quantities. In live¬ 
stock breeding it is possible to select individuals with cer¬ 
tain lines of ancestry and improve with a knowledge of 
their entire history. But in fruits, while it is possible to 
select good vigorous trees, each fruit represents new crea¬ 
tions and in the mass of bloom it is just as probable that 
the operator will work on what may turn out to be an 
inferior fruit growth, and most likely so because of the 
great mass of bloom, most of which nature designs to be 
worthless for fruit. It is a common saying that but one 
seedling in ten thousand is of probable value. If it were 
possible to know the fruit that produces that seed we 
would have much simplified a valuable and effective work 
in plant breeding. 
Harlan, Iowa. W. M. BOMBERGER. 
Missouri is said to have produced 3,684,000 barrels of 
apples last year. This puts Missouri fourth in the list of 
great apple-producing states. 
WOULD TEACH IT IN SCHOOLS. 
Editor of The National Nurseryman: 
We have heard the complaints of low prices of nursery 
stock from every direction for the last year. In this, as 
in all other things, there is never a cause without an 
effect. 
What is the cause in this case? We might point out 
several causes, viz : The financial contraction, the tariff 
reduction, high freight and express rates. But the chief 
cause is with the nurserymen, through jobbers, salesmen 
and circulars flooding the mail. There is an opinion with 
some people that to be a man is to be a millionaire, and 
to be a nurseryman is to be a thousand acre nurseryman, 
and any grower with less than one thousand acres is irre¬ 
sponsible and not worthy the title of nurseryman. There 
is not an intelligent nurseryman who is not conscious of 
many frauds and humbugs practiced in the retail trade. 
The purchaser soon learns of the frauds, and his love for 
fruit growing turns to hate, and he scorns every person 
that calls himself a representative of the nursery business. 
This is one cause. To induce this man to buy trees again 
will require great convincing powers. 
The nursery contracts with the salesman to go forward 
and solicit orders, paying the salesman an advance of 15 
to 20 per cent, on each order as fast as the orders are 
sent in. Here is a temptation to the salesman to make bad 
orders, or in some instances to forge orders to get the 
advance and keep up expenses ; and in most cases of this 
kind, the nurseryman knows no way of finding out these 
tricks until the delivery of the stock. Then comes the 
loss to the nurseryman. This is another cause. 
Here in our town I have heard of some fifteen persons 
who made orders with a representative of a certain 
nursery in New York or some other place, and a short 
time after the orders were taken the nursery sent state¬ 
ments to the customers giving the amount of the order. 
When compared with the duplicate it was found the 
orders sent in were doubled. This is only a drop in the 
bucket, and is one “cause.” What would an intelligent 
nurseryman or fruit grower think of me if l were to intro¬ 
duce myself to him as a representative of the only per¬ 
fect nursery in the United States, and state that we were 
growing “ borer-proof apple trees,” “blight-proof pear 
trees,” “ frost-proof peach trees,” “ curculio-proof plum 
trees?” 
The only way out of the “causes” and fallacious 
practices that nurserymen have to contend with, is to 
teach the science of the nursery business in the public 
schools. Let every child, male and female, have a 
thorough training, not only in the nursery, but also in 
horticultural science. The greatest number of scholars 
in our schools come from the farm. Why not educate 
these scholars in their direct interests ? And a good 
knowledge of horticulture would serve to make the 
preacher, doctor, lawyer, merchant and mechanic better, 
rather than taking any good qualities from them. 
Marceline, Mo. S. H. LlNTON. 
