Gbe IRational nurseryman 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
Copyrighted 1909 by the National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated. 
Vol. XVII. ROCHESTER, N. Y„ NOVEMBER, 1909 No. ir 
EDITORIAL WANDERINGS 
THE QUAINT ISLAND OF NANTUCKET 
In the face of the popular movement to the stirring 
regions of the west coast it follows that he who wants rest 
and retirement should set his face eastward. Of course, 
there is still some 
possibility of 
securing a rea¬ 
sonable amount 
of enlivening re¬ 
creation by drop¬ 
ping in at Atlantic 
City or Asbury 
Park, if he does 
not feel equal to 
the Coney Island 
pace. The writer, 
however, likes to 
shake off as com¬ 
pletely as possible 
the conventional¬ 
ities of summer 
resorts without 
encountering all 
the crudities of 
illy provided 
camp life when 
he is out for a “change.” It is somewhat paradoxical 
to expect the most primitive in the older settled parts of the 
country. This, however, is to some extent the case in 
Nantucket. For one thing you are away from the sound 
and the smell of that ubiquitous evidence of effected civiliza¬ 
tion, the motor car. The lords of this ancient piece of 
civilization have decreed that the air and the roads shall not 
be contaminated and, in consequence, practically every 
tourist thanks them openly or in secret. 
Nantucket, Cape Cod and Plymouth contain the scenes 
of the earliest struggles of the New England colonists. At 
that time it is probable that the island as well as the main¬ 
land was covered with forest growth. At the present time 
there is hardly a scrap of evidence that such was the case. 
The surface is a stretch of undulating wind-swept moors 
interspersed w r ith cranberry and blueberry covered bog land. 
The moors are carpeted with a wonderful profusion of plant 
growth. Wild roses, the sweet fern, Kalmia, meadow 
sweet and terrestrial orchids contribute beauty to the land¬ 
scape and incomparable sweetness to the atmosphere. 
Here and there a scrub growth of pine and oak struggles 
against the suppressing influence of sandy soil and sweeping 
wind. The air of 
Nantucket has a 
quality of its own. 
It exhilarates 
most people but 
occasionally it in- 
duces delicious 
sleepiness. Let 
the business man 
get away from his 
office, from his 
club, (and perhaps 
his cocktails) and 
forget himself on 
the moors of this 
old island and his 
physical demoral¬ 
ization must be 
very complete if 
nature does not 
respond promptly 
and effectively. 
But we did not start out to write a prospectus of the 
Island as a summer resort,for its remoteness and comparative 
inaccessibility will always act as a sufficient deterrant in 
preventing it from being generally popular. Then it is un¬ 
conventional from the society standpoint and long may it 
remain so. The cottagers at the various small resorts are 
supplied with vegetables, fish and meat by farmers of the 
island, who by the way are among the veritable aristocrats 
of New England. It is true that they fail to qualify when 
measured by the money standard but they stand high up 
when grouped by pedigree and lineage. When compared 
with the Dutch of New York the latter are mere upstarts. 
The farmers are conservative. I hey instruct the sum¬ 
mer resorter as to his needs and do not attempt any excur¬ 
sions into new methods of culture, or with new varieties of 
produce merely because the new comer suggests them. 
The mid-summer season is the harvest, the winter season 
his period of quiescence. He reaps while he can and rests 
when duties do not press. 
Weeding the smaller ditches in a cranberry bog. 
