86 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA LAWS 
Nurserymen Doing Business Must Day $20 Per Year For u 
Certificate—In West Virginia They Must Pay $10 
For License in Each County in Which 
the Agent Operates . 
The new Virginia law provides that on and after September 
i, 1903, nursery agents or corporations doing business in that 
state must procure from the auditor of public accounts a 
certificate of registration at a cost of $20, such certificate to 
be good for one year from date. The selling of nursery stock 
in Virginia without such certificate will subject the seller to a 
fine of $20 to $100, it being deemed a misdemeanor. 
The law provides specially for the inspection of nursery 
stock. 
Chapter 48 of the Acts of 1903 of the State of West 
Virginia is in part as follows : 
Section 1. That every dealer or grower of fruit trees, vines or 
shrubbery, either in or out of the state, who employs travelling agents 
for the sale of such fruit trees, vines or shrubbery in any county in 
this state, shall, before he is authorized to do business in any county, 
through such agents, take out a license in such county, to be issued 
by the assessor in like manner as other license, and shall pay to the 
sheriff of said county the license fee, which shall be fixed at the sum 
of ten dollars. And every such dealer, as hereinbefore mentioned, 
whether such dealer be a firm, person or corporation, shall file with 
the clerk of the county court of each county, in which he may have a 
travelling salesman, a list of his agents in said county, which said list 
of agents, when so filed by the clerk of the county court, shall be at 
all times open to the inspection of the public. And any such person, 
firm or corporation, who shall knowingly and wilfully brand or label 
any tree or vine a false name or variety, or who shall fail to pay the 
license fee herein provided, shall be gui'ty of a misdemeanor, and, 
upon conviction thereof, fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than 
five hundred dollars. 
Section 2. Every agent of any firm, person or corporation, as 
described in the first section of this chapter, shall be required to take 
from his employer a certificate showing his authority to do business 
as agent for such firm, person or corporation, and shall present the 
same for inspection to any person who shall demand to see tne same. 
And any agent of auy such firm, person or corporation, engaged in the 
sale of any fruit trees, vines or shubbe' - y, who shall sell to any person 
trees, vines or shrubbery upon such certificate of agency, or upon the 
representation that they are to be supplied by any such person, firm 
or corporation, shall procure the goods so sold elsewhere, or from any 
other person, firm or corporation, and supply them in the place 
thereof, without the written consent of the purchaser, shall be guilty 
of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not 
less than fifty dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or confined 
in the county jail not more than one year, or both at the discretion 
of the court. 
It is provided also that stock going into the State of West 
Virginia shall bear a certificate of inspection. 
NEW POSTAL REGULATION. 
Paragraph 4, section 474 of the postal laws and regulations, 
is amended to read as follows : 
4. There may be enclosed with third class matter without changing 
the classification thereof, a single visiting or business card ; a single 
priuted order blank, or a single printed combination order blank and 
coin-card with envelope bearing return address ; or a single postal card 
bearing return address. 
1 he postmasters throughout the country have been asked to 
give notice to the fact that beginning July 1st no package 
weighing more than four pounds six ounce? will be mailable to 
Germany by parcels post, 
THE NEW PLANT BREEDING. 
In the course of his addess on “Varieties” at the Detroit 
convention Prof. L. H. Bailey, discussing the new plant 
breeding, said : 
With most tree-plants, however, the difficulty is great, since the 
generation from seed to seed is so long that little can be accomplished 
in one man’s life time. (What an opportunity Methuselah missed!) 
Of course, the same general methods must be applied to these plants as 
to others, but it is work that must be largely delegated to the profes¬ 
sional experimenters. The general nurseryman can scarcely hope to 
take it up to any large extent. Definite plant-breeding work is now 
coming to be a business by itself The old days and the old ways are 
passing. 
More Efficient Varieties. 
Yet I believe that there are some things that every nurseryman can 
do with effiiciency and with profit to hasten the time of more efficient 
varieties. The first thing that I would urge is that attention be given 
as much as practicable to the particular plant from which cuttings or 
buds or cions are taken. I have already had this question up with 
several horticultural societies, but it always needs new emphasis and 
the evidence of new experience. By this remark, I do not mean to 
say that I was the first to present the idea, for I can trace this advice 
back certainly more thau 200 years,—thereby adding testimony to its im¬ 
portance. There are those who deny that the individual characteristics 
of a plant are in any way impressed on its bud-propagated offspring, 
but these persons are fewer each year and the evidence to combat them 
is constantly stronger. The whole tendency of modern plant-breeding, 
as we have seen, is to begin with a plant because it has individual 
merit rather than because it represents a particularly variety. That is, 
we are constantly giving greater attention to individuality in plants. 
This the animal-breeder has always done. If no two Cuthbert rasp- 
bery bushes and no two Early Crawford peach trees are alike, why not 
propagate from those that are best V I have an orchard of Crawford 
peaches, all purchased from one of the best and most reliable members 
of this Association, but I have at least twenty kinds of Crawfords, some 
of them practically worthless. If I were to plant another Crawford 
orchard, I should want to know what trees the buds were taken from. 
If I were to propagate indiscriminately from my own orchard, persons 
to whom I should sell the trees would probably say either that the 
stock was “mixed” or that the Crawford had run out. Now, I admit 
that the stock would have been “mixed” and yet every tree be a Craw¬ 
ford. Suppose now, that I should propagate only from the very best 
trees, what then would likely be the result ? I believe the time has 
come when the nurseryman must cease to propagate indiscriminately 
from stock merely because it belongs to a given variety. He should 
propagate only from stock or trees that he knows to have direct merit 
for efficiency. 
Goats of the Pomological Sphere. 
Another way of increasing the efficiency of varieties is by giving the 
variety the particular care that it needs. There are some varieties, as 
Ben Davis aud Baldwin, that thrive almost anywhere and come to ap¬ 
proximately their full value under all ordinary methods of treatment. 
These are the goats of the pomological sphere. There are others that 
are practically worthless unless some special attention is given them. 
The Spitzenburg apple is one of these, an apple that is not “run out,’ 
as popularly supposed, but forced out because it does not have soil of 
sufficient heart, and does not receive sufficient care in tilling and prun¬ 
ing aud spraying. Many of our really good varieties are going out be¬ 
cause of this lack of special care. I am aware that the special care 
is expensive, but nevertheless there are many people who would like 
to grow these varieties if only they knew how. In many cases the 
extra care would be well rapaid in an extra price for the product. 
Are we not likely to have a reaction from the Kieffer pear propaganda, 
when some, at least, of the varieties that it has driven out shall reap¬ 
pear '? If not, then the ideals of pear growing are lowering rather 
than rising. But the larger side to this whole question is that we real¬ 
ly cannot expect to make great permanent progress in varieties until 
we make corresponding progress in the care we give them. AVe will 
continue to have razor-back varieties as long as we continue to give 
razor-back care Merely to get a variety is only half the battle. You 
cannot raise good sheep on the provender that you give a Billy goat. 
