302 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Tlie crossing about thirty years ago in France by Lemoine 
of P. coronarUis with P. microphyllus lias produced an 
entirely new race of Syringas whieli has proved to be 
one of the best additions to garden shrubs that has ever 
been made. The first plant obtained by this cross is call¬ 
ed Philadelphus Lemoinei; it is a perfectly hardy shrub 
four or live feet high and hroad, with slender stems 
which bend from the weight of countless flowers; these 
are intermediate in size between those of the two parents 
and retain the fragrance of P. microphyllus. There are 
at least a dozen distinct forms of this hybrid made by 
Lemoine, varying considerably in the size of the plants 
and of the flowers, and in the time of flowering. One of 
the handsomest, perhaps, is called Gandelabre; this is a 
very dwarf plant with flowers larger than those of either 
of its parents and an inch and a half wide, with petals 
notched on the margins, and without the perfume of its 
parents. Other distinct forms equally hardy and beauti¬ 
ful are Avalanche, Boule d’Argent, Bouquet Blanc, Eree- 
tus, Fantasie, Gerbe de Neige and Mont Blanc. 
HOME GARDEN FRUITS 
By M. G. Kevins, Columbia University, New York, 
Delivered before the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society. 
While the past five, and especially the last three, de¬ 
cades have seen more remarkable improvements in horti¬ 
cultural practices than did the previous five, for instance, 
the development of modern tillage, fertilizing, cover crop¬ 
ping, spraying, and rational pruning, which have made 
the fruit growing industries of to-day highly specialized 
arts, perhaps the most significant development of all is the 
increased and steadily increasing public demand for fruit 
varieties of high quality. 
For this growth, particularly so far as apples are con¬ 
cerned, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and other Western 
orchardists doubtless deserve considerable credit; first, 
because they boldly nailed their colors to high standards 
of excellence, both as to variety and to character of speci¬ 
men, and second, because they deliberately set about the 
education of the public with respect to such standards. 
In these two directions they have not only themselves 
benefited, but they have performed a service alike to the 
consuming public and to fruit growers in general. Fruit 
growers in other sections have been steadily falling into 
line and the markets of our larger cities are annually be¬ 
ing more liberally supplied with high quality fruits. 
Where did these Western and other growers of choice 
fruits get their standards? Did they adopt the caveat 
emptor (let the buyer beware) policy which so often 
tends to arouse the righteous ire of the long-suffering and 
hoodwinked public? Not at all. Did they go to the 
growers of Ben Davis apple, Kieffer pear, Elberta peach, 
Lombard plum. Lady Thompson strawberry, and other 
low quality varieties for their standards of flavor? No 
indeed! Doubtless they are no more entitled to halos than 
are our Eastern growers for the honesty of their pack, 
because the cost of transportation prohibits their adoption 
of dishonest packing methods; they have been forced to 
pack honestly or go to the wall. But where did they get 
their standards of flavor? Certainly not in the big com¬ 
mercial orchards of the middle West and the East, or¬ 
chards of Gano, York Imperial, Baldwin, Rhode Island 
and other at best culinary varieties. No; they ignored 
these plantations and went to sources which for them 
held vivid and desirable ideals, the fruit plantations of 
their boyhood. 
Those plantations were neither set out by specialists 
nor primarily for profit. Their main reasons for existence 
were that the family enjoyed good fruit and wanted a 
continuous succession and an abundant supply through¬ 
out the year. Though doubtless many of these plantations 
were larger than necessary to supply even the largest 
families of those days, the surplus was just so much to 
give away to less fortunate relatives and to neighbors or 
to sell in the local market. 
One of the most pleasing customs of those good old 
days, one that deserves to be revived today, owed its 
charm to the choice fruit grown in the family plantation. 
When visitors dropped in for the afternoon or the even¬ 
ing the au fait thing was to have the company enjoy some 
home grown fruit before departing. This was not served 
in the modern sense, now too frequently employed, to in¬ 
dicate that the social session is at an end, but in the 
whole-souled spirit of hospitality in the extending of 
which both host and hostess could take a keener pleasure 
in serving a home grown product and feeling that the 
favorable comments upon it were more genuine than is 
possible when purchased provender is provided. What 
would have happened if Ben Davis apple, Kieffer pear, El¬ 
berta peach, or Lombard plum had been used instead of 
the choice varieties? Might not the guests have felt that 
as direct a hint was being given them as when in baronial 
times the cold shoulder of mutton was trotted out to ap¬ 
prise the guests that they had outlasted their welcome? 
But who would have planted or grown such inferior 
fruits with bore-bouncing intent? Would it not have 
wasted valuable land and time and also indicated a lack 
of resourcefulness on the part of host and hostess? 
Upon no members of the family or of the district in 
those days was the inlluence of choice fruit so profound as 
upon the boys. Setting aside mothers’ testimonies as 
biased we may perhaps accept the popular view that boys 
are voracious animals, but it is slanderous to accuse them 
of having undiscriminating tastes, accepting all as grist 
that comes to their mills. If the confession of one of 
them, now grown up, be insisted upon he would be forced 
to admit that he could always find the choicest specimens 
of the choicest varieties not merely in his father’s and his 
near, and more or less dear relatives’ plantations, where 
he normally would be expected to be w^elcome by day, but 
in a very considerable range of territory and at hours 
when his elders had relegated their vigilance to less som¬ 
nolent watchers, dogs, to be explicit, with wdiich, how¬ 
ever, he made it a point for obvious business reasons to be 
on terms of intimate friendliness. 
The Ontario village in which my boyhood was spent is 
typical of hundreds of that day from New England to 
Michigan and as far south as Maryland, if not of a much 
wider area. Practically every home had its garden and 
fruit plantation, wdiich often consisted of an acre or more. 
Here I had unlimited range in five fruit plantations, my 
father’s, my grandfather’s and those of three uncles, and 
a more restricted range in many neighbors’ gardens. Each 
of these had been planted to meet the personal taste of the 
