THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
138 
good judgment would suggest small profits, but be sure 
th ey are profits, would be the best policy to follow to help 
bring things back to a normal condition. 
We must not forget that the nursery business is com¬ 
petitive if one man can grow stock more economically and 
better than another, it is foolish to expect that prices can 
he held at an arbitrary height to make up for his lack of 
efficiency. 
There are three factors that w ill keep the price of nur¬ 
sery stock at a profitable height. 
First, the publishing of statistics of the quantities of 
tbe different items that are being grown in different parts 
of the country, this will have a tendency to prevent Over- 
Production and a glutted market. (2nd) Large consump¬ 
tion brought about by proper advertising to create de¬ 
mand. (3rd) Closer attention to cost of production so 
that one thing will not be sold at the expense of another. 
HOW TO POPULARIZE THE TASTE FOR PLANTING 
Reprinted from Downing's '‘Landscape Gardening” Re- 
cently revised by Prof. Frank A. JVaugh, with the 
kind permission of the author and publisher 
—See Page 144 
OW to popularize that taste for rural beauty 
If J which gives to every beloved home in the coun- 
g reatest outward charm and to the coun- 
ti} itself its highest attractions is a question which must 
often occur to many of our readers. A traveler never 
journeys through 
England 
without lavishing all the 
epithets of admiration on the rural beauty of that gar- 
denesque country; and Iris praises are as justly due to 
I lx wayside cottages ol the humble laborers (whose pe¬ 
cuniary condition of life is so far below that of our num¬ 
erous small householders) as to the great palaces and 
villas. Perhaps the loveliest and most fascinating of 
cottage homes, of which Mrs. Hemans has so touchingly 
sung, are the clergyman’s dwellings in that country; 
dwellings, for the most part, of very moderate size, and 
no greater cost than are common in all the most thriving 
and populous parts of the Union, but which, owing to the 
love of horticulture and the taste for something above 
the merely useful which characterizes their owners as a 
class, are for the most part radiant with bloom and em¬ 
bellishment of the loveliest flowers and shrubs. 
The contrast with the comparatively naked and ne<>- 
b (ted country dwellings that are the average rural tene¬ 
ments of our country dwellings is very striking. Un¬ 
doubtedly this is in part owing to the fact that it takes 
a longer time, as Lord Racon said a century ago, “to 
garden finely than to build stately.” Rut the newness of 
our civilization is not sufficient apology. If so we should 
Je spared the exhibition of gay carpets, fine mirrors and 
furniture in the “front parlor,” of many a mechanic’s 
working-man’s, and farmer’s comfortable dwelling, 
where the “bare and bald” have pretty nearly supreme 
control in the “front yard.” 
What we lack perhaps more than all is not the capacity 
to perceive and enjoy the beauty of ornamental trees and 
shrubs the rural embellishment alike of the cottage and 
the villa—hut we are deficient in the knowledge and the 
opportunity of knowing how beautiful human habita¬ 
tions are made by a little taste, time, and means, ex¬ 
pended in this way. 
Abroad it is clearly seen that the taste has descended 
from the palace of the noble and the public parks and 
gardens of the nation to the hut of the simplest peasant; 
but here, while our institutions have wisely prevented the 
perpetuation of accumulated estates that would speedily 
find their expression in all luxury of rural taste, we have 
not yet risen to that general diffusion of culture and com¬ 
petence which may one day give to the many what in the 
old world belongs mainly to the favored few. In some 
localities, where that point has in some measure been ar¬ 
rived at already the result that we anticipated has, in 
a good degree, already been attained. And there would 
probably be more pretty rural homes within ten miles of 
Boston owned by those who live in them and have made 
them, than ever sprang up in so short a space of time in 
any part of the world. The taste once formed there, it 
has become contagious, and is diffusing itself among all 
conditions of men and gradually elevating and making 
beautiful the whole neighborhood of that populous city. 
In the country at large, however, even now, there can¬ 
not be said to be anything like a general taste for gar¬ 
dening or for embellishing the houses of the people. We 
are too much occupied with making a great deal to have 
reached that point when a man or a people thinks it 
wiser to understand how to enjoy a little well, than to 
exhaust both mind and body in getting an indefinite more. 
And there are also many who would gladly do something 
to give a sentiment to their houses, but are ignorant both 
of the materials and the way to set about it. 
Accordingly they plant odorous ailanthuses and filthy 
poplars to the neglect of graceful and salubrious maples. 
The influence of commercial gardens on the neighbor¬ 
hood where they are situated is one of the best proofs of 
tbe growth of taste. They show that our people have no 
obtuseness of faculty as to what is beautiful, but only 
lack information and example to embellish with the 
heartiest good will, take Rochester, N. Y., for instance, 
which, at the present moment, has perhaps the largest 
and most active nurseries in the Union. We are confi¬ 
dent that the aggregate planting of fruits and ornamental 
trees within fifty miles of Rochester during the last ten 
years has been twice as much as has taken place in the 
same time in any three of the southern states. Philadel¬ 
phia has long been famous for her exotic gardens, and 
now even the little yard plats of the city dwellings, are 
filled with roses, jasmines, lagestroemias and the like. 
Such facts as these plainly prove to us that only give our 
people a knowledge of the beauty of fine trees and plants 
and the method of cultivating them, and there is no slug¬ 
gishness or inaptitude on the subject in the public mind. 
In looking about for the readiest method of diffusing 
a knowledge of beautiful trees and plants, and thereby 
bettering our homes and our country several means sug¬ 
gested themselves which are worthy of attention. 
The first of these is, by what private individuals may 
do. 
There is scarcely a single fine private garden in the 
country which does not possess plants that are perhaps 
more or less coveted, or would at least be greatly prized 
by neighbors who do not possess, and perhaps cannot 
easily procure them. Many owners of such places 
