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It is encouraging to know that a demand has sprung up for shrubs and plants of American origin a demand so large, already, that many nurserymen advertise collections of native plants, some of them quite extensive. Appreciation of true beauty is putting a value into things which have heretofore had no idea of value connected with them.
Darwin started from the admitted achievements of artificial selection; from the results attained by nurserymen and cattle breeders, who, by selecting the kinds they wished to perpetuate, had been able to vary and improve their stocks.
I have seen gardens which were all experiment, given over to every new thing, and which produced little or nothing to the owners, except the pleasure of expectation. People grow pear-trees at great expense of time and money, which never yield them more than four pears to the tree. The fashions of ladies' bonnets are nothing to the fashions of nurserymen.
The mountain maple the nurserymen call it Acer spicatum is another native of rather dwarf growth. It is bushy, and not remarkable in leaf, its claim for distinction being in its flowers and samaras, which are held saucily up, above the branches on which they grow, rather than drooping modestly, as other maples gracefully bear their bloom and fruit.
With the standardizing of practices in the commercial growing of fruits, the tendency is to reduce the number of varieties to small proportions; it is these varieties that the nurserymen propagate. Here and there over the country are still trees of the extra-quality but uncommercial varieties known to a former generation.
The quantity-production makes for greater perfection of product, but it does not make for variety and human interest, nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still improve it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high character and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, nurserymen and dealers are good augury for the future. But all this is not sufficient.
The Committee, having thoroughly investigated the case and satisfied themselves of the safety of recommending the young man, issued a circular to gardeners and nurserymen, which got him a job within a week.
My present and sole occupation is planting, in which I have made great progress and talked very learnedly with the nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce run to seed overturns all my botany, as I have more than once taken it for a curious West Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation with which trees grow, is extremely inconvenient to my natural impatience.
Other reasons for fall planting are that the weather is more settled, the ground is more manageable, help is more easily secured, and the nurserymen have more time for filling your order. Any time from October 15 until December 10 will answer in our climate, but early November is the best. I had decided to plant the trees in this orchard twenty-five feet apart each way.
Both chestnut and chinquapin are beautiful ornamental trees; and some of the newer chestnut hybrids, of parentage between the American and the European species, are as graceful as the most highly petted lawn trees of the nurserymen.
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