GARDEN PRUNINGS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8479, 10 May 1893, Page 3

GARDEN PRUNINGS.

High quality in fruits, says Professor L. H. Bailey iuAgrieutturalScience, is supposed to* exist at the expense of some other character. The best fruits are thought to be tender, unproductive and to lack vigour, or to be small and dull in colour. .Professor Bailey discusses the question at some length by the aid of statistics and sums up as follows:—" It is evident . . . . that quality acd other characters of cultivated fruita appear independently of each other—that there is no truecorelation between these characters. There is a general increase in all characters as amelioration progresses, at least in all characters which are particularly sought by agriculturists, and this fact must ever remain the chief inspiration to man in his efforts to ameliorate plants." And yet horticulturists are too well aware of fruits of high quality which are "bad doers." or " bad croppers," and among florists* flowers, the tendency to sterility as the flowers improve is often marked. True, the plants in that case are selected for their flowers maiuly. Still, the grower is not too well pleased if he only a-ets half an ounce of seed from a whole houseful of plants, as happens with. Cyclamens, Calceolarias, &c. The Florets of a Chrysanthemum.—We read in the Jardin of a gambling transaction analogous to the Missing Word Competition lately occupying the attention of our law courts. According to our contemporary, some "Americans" (we trust they were not horticulturists) at a recent flower show at Chicago instituted a lottery, the prize of which was 250,000 francs (!) to be gained by the person who should, at a first glance, specify the number of florets in the " Prince " chrysanthemum. A fine specimen was exposed to view, and no fewer than five thousand gamblers defiled in front of it, to estimate the number of its florets. The estimates, we are told, varied from 120 to 6000, whilst the actual number was 512. We repeat this, as our friends would.say, sows reserve.—-Gardener's Chronicle,