VOL. LVI.—No. 3,136. 
S.VTURD.VY, DKC'KMRER 6, 1913. 
NOTE OF THE WEEK. 
Protection for Horticultural 
Novelties. 
Very many suggestions have been put 
forward from time to time for the pur¬ 
pose of arriving at a solution of the diffi¬ 
culties which ahvays beset the 
raisers or iiiti'oducers of horti¬ 
cultural novelties, but, so far, 
without sucoess. It is inter- 
e.sting, therefore, to notice > 
that a very powerful organi¬ 
sation is being formed on the 
Continent to take measures to 
secure to the raisers of such 
novelties the excdusive right of 
profiting by their new intro¬ 
ductions for a definite period, 
much in the same way that 
authors of books and pro¬ 
ducers of wior^s of art are 
protected under the Copyright 
Acts, national or intei- ^ 
national. This matter has 
more than once been raised 
at meetings of the Royal Hor¬ 
ticultural Society, but, how¬ 
ever much the desirability of 
such protection has been re¬ 
cognised, the fundamental 
differences between plants 
and books were too clear to 
admit of any probable solu¬ 
tion of them, or of bringing 
the law to bear on anything 
like parallel lines. The first 
difficulty is that a novelty in 
the horticultural sense is not 
altogether the outcome o-f a 
human inspiration but a gift 
of Nature, no matter how far 
the cultivator may have 
formed an ideal beforehand^ 
and by careful hybridisation, 
cross-fertilisation, or selec¬ 
tion, attained it^ or an approach to it 
which he deems worthy of note. Many 
other specialists may be simultaneously 
working on similar lines, and, as has often 
appened, reaped- similar successes. Even 
With natural sports, as with Cytisus Andrea- 
the red-flowered Broom, and some 
chrysanthemums, they may crop up at 
' ^^ious places and be found introduo^ by 
^veral people at or about the same time, 
he organisation referred to aims at estab- 
ishing priority in such cases, and, this 
established, would, w^e presume, prevent 
® or raisers or finders from putting their 
prizes on the market. Would this be just ? 
c secure such protection the distributor 
w-ould have to exhibit his plante 
^ h as little delay as possible, and obtain 
^ certificate long before he liad any stock 
o dispose of, or, maybe, before its actual 
riral value was established. Having 
obtained it, he might fail to raist' any sto<‘k 
at all, but still tlie priority cmtificate 
would debar others from profiting hy their 
labours, as their plants woiild be useless 
eonimereially, exwpt by agreement witJi 
the holder of the oertiffi^ate, to whom, in 
fact, they were not indebted at all. If, on 
the other hand, he, like a business man, 
and as is now done, refrained from putting 
his novelty forward until he had a stock to 
dispose of, he would then, of course, run 
the risk of a subsequent discoverer, or 
raiser, forestalling him. AVith the copy¬ 
right of a book, or a work of art, the posi¬ 
tion is entirely different; a copy of the 
book is deposited, and is easily distin¬ 
guished from every other book by the pecu¬ 
liarly individual features of the w^ork itself, 
the authors name on the title-page, and, 
presumably, by the pnnter’s name some¬ 
where else, to say nothing of the publisher. 
With a plant the only thing that could be 
secure<l would be the name; but how could 
an authentic specimen associated therewith 
be registered also ? Much, therefore, as 
we admire the object of the new organisa¬ 
tion in question, we greatly fear that its 
main object can never be attained, and 
that it will find immense practical difficulty 
in getting the TtyjuiMte n^ulations a<‘- 
<>epU'<l hy the trade, whose object it is to 
effect the fr<'<’>t possible circulation of the 
plants they <UniI in without ciUMiting an 
atmosphero of <louht am! distrust, which 
strict k'gaJ regulatjtms, aff<x*ting not only 
the seller hut also net^vsarily the buyer, 
woiiUI create. We fort'see. too, en<ll<vw 
complications. Take the case 
of a protected chr>’.sajithe- 
mum, which U distribut<<x] far 
and wide. Presently, if, as is 
the habit of the plant, it 
sports again in fresh hands, 
what woukl Ire the priority 
man 8 rights over the now pro. 
geny ? And sup{>otiing th«?e 
lap.M' M) far as that is <'on. 
eerno<l, what will happiui if 
Nome of the .s|>ori8 revert to 
his protec*te<l form, ami are 
fouml out hy him P Will the 
then owner lx* liable to prose, 
cution ? Truly, theso be hard 
questions to answer. 
Mr. A. Basilo, head gar- 
<k*nor at Woburn Park, Wey- 
bri<lge, is well kno\»n as an 
treinely capable grower of 
fruit and vegetables, and of 
sweet peas, hut it must he 
a('knowIe<lged that, though he 
is best known for his suocee&es 
with these objects, Mr. Hasile 
is one of the lx>st geneitvl prac¬ 
titioners we have. He is a 
Belgian, and his first lessons 
in gardening he had from his 
father, who, for forty years, 
was lK*ad gardener to the Bur¬ 
gomaster of Tirlemont, in the 
province of Brabant. At four 
teen years of age Mr. Basile 
became a pupil of M. H. 
Mellot, one of the most cele¬ 
brated of Belgian horticul¬ 
turists; here he remained five years, 
and during that period took his dip¬ 
loma at the Government School of Hor. 
ticulture at Vilvorde. When twenty years 
of age he took up his first appointment as 
gardener at Rebec, Rognon, and a year 
later was offered, and accepted, the post of 
head gardener at Jette St. Pierre, near 
Brussels, where he stayed for five years. 
Following this came a period of six years 
as chief gardener in the Agricultural 
School belonging to the Josephite Fathers, 
at Grammont, in Flanders. It is thirty 
years since Mr. Basile first came to Eng¬ 
land, to take charge of the gardens and 
grounds at Woburn Park, then recently 
purchased from Lord Petre by the 
Josephite Fathers, and opened as a secon¬ 
dary college for the education of boys. Mr. 
Basile has enlarged the kitchen garden 
until It is now over three and a-half acres 
MR. A. BASILE. 
