u
roses, asters, tuberous begonias, hollyhocks, dahlias, pelargoniums,
before cultivation and since. Were wild flowers clay, were the gardener
both painter and sculptor, he could not have wrought marvels more
glorious than these. In a few years the brethren of his guild have
brought about a revolution for which, if possible at all to her, nature
in the open fields would ask long centuries. And the gardener's
experiments with these strange children of his have all the charm of
surprise. No passive chooser is he of "sports" of promise, but an active
matchmaker between flowers often brought together from realms as far
apart as France and China. Sometimes his experiment is an instant
success. Mr. William Paul, a famous creator of splendid flowers, tells
us that at a time when climbing roses were either white or yellow, he
thought he would like to produce one of bright dark colour. Accordingly
he mated the Rose Athelin, of vivid crimson, with Russelliana, a hardy
climber, and lo, the flower he had imagined and longed for stood
revealed! But this hitting the mark at the first shot is uncommon good
fortune with the gardener. No experience with primrose or chrysanthemum
is long and varied enough to tell him how the crossing of two different
stocks will issue. A rose which season after season opposes only
indifference to all his pains may be secretly gathering strength for a
bound beyond its ancestral paths which will carry it much farther than
his hopes, or, perhaps, his wishes.

Most flowers are admired for their own sweet sake, but who thinks less
of an apple or cherry blossom because it bears in its beauty the promise
of delicious fruit? Put a red Astrachan beside a sorry crab, a Bartlett
pear next a tough, diminutive wild pear such as it is descended from, an
ear of milky corn in contrast with an ear one-fourth its size, each
grain of which, small and dry, is wrapped in a sheath by itself; and
rejoice that fruits and grains as well as flowers can learn new lessons
and remember them. At Concord, Massachusetts, in an honoured old age,
dwells Mr. Ephraim W. Bull. In his garden he delights to show the mother
vine of the Concord grape which he developed from a native wild grape
planted as long ago as 1843. Another "sport" of great value was the
nectarine, which was seized upon as it made its appearance on a peach
bough. Throughout America are scattered experiment stations, part of
whose business it is to provoke fresh varieties