The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25
as soon as new and rare varieties are pro.

as soon as new and rare varieties are pro-
duced the profits would be much greater.
Suggestions of this kind of original work
can easily be gathered from different parts
of California. Mr.. Purdy of Ukiah grows
hundreds of thousands of native bulbs
(which find ready sale) on 50-foot town
lot in that picturesque county seat, half
hid in its madrone forests. Mr.. Burbank
of Santa Rosa, who is widely known as an
originator of new fruits once hybridized a
plum blossom, sowed the pit, grated the
seeding on an older tree to hasten fruit
ing, and finding that his new plum was an
acquisition, finally sold that one tree to an
Eastern nurseryman for $4,000. Mrs. Shep-
herd of Ventura makes her living by rails
Ing plants OH few town lots. She expe-
rimented with Cosmos flowers in her little
garden until she obtained many very beau
tiful variations and she sold fifty or eighty
pounds of this choice Cosmos seed, the best
in America, to some leading American
seedsmen for more money, presume, than
many wheat farmer toiling cease
lessly and often helplessly has obtained
from the entire crop of quarter section
of land. Mr.. Morse OF Santa Clara re-
Gently produced dwarf sweetpea which
has been exhibited at all the fower-shows
of Europe, and is called one of the lead
ing novelties of the season.
None of these and similar successes ever
came by accident. In each case person
of trained horticultural intelligence was
working night and day on parallel lines
with the hidden forces OF nature, not con-
trary to those forces; it was the skill OF the
specialist which wrought these splendid re-
suits. If any one reading this thinks he
has only to initiate MIR. Purdy, or Mr.. Bur
bank. or Mrs. Shepherd by purchasing
little land. some seeds and pamphlet on
chow to garden" and so make an easy liv-
ing and incidentally gain renown, that
person has wholly missed the drift OF
this article. The essence of intensive
horticulture, first and last, is divine
individualism. Every plat of land is
full of problems hard to solve. Every
separate hillside and valley has its own
! difficulties, which no one can fully answer
except the workers there. Long and sore
is the road to horticultural achievement,
but what California we shall have, some
where in the twentieth century, when this
is understood; when the man with ten
acres can live peacefully, happily, intelli-
gently thereon, neither peasant-drudge nor
gentleman -experimenter, but simply a
business man, earning his living by some
one of the multifarious industries of inten-
siye horticulture, and keeping that living
well up to a self-respecting, American
| ideal.
Nothing except horticulture in its more
scientific aspects is capable of uplifting
hot WI 10
lated and really suburban in respect to the
conveniences and retnements OF civilized
life, they still remain countrywide in charm
| and strength From such communities of
the future, let US hope, new blood shall
| flow into the body polite, and our laws
and social system shall be changed for the
better. Therein may we find the true equi-
poise for great overcrowded cities in the
| complex life of the commonwealth. Never
shall the unkept, improbable ranch bring
help to the social order That way lie
landlordism, discontinued peasantry,
and the feudal system of the middle ages,
under subtle DISCUSSES. Along tie Won
derful pathways of horticulture lie the
best and purest hopes of the race-land
used to it's highest capacity, land owned
by those who use it, land as the mother of
new forms OF loveliness and of new and
more glorious civilization.
Intelligent horticulture, however, re-
ouires broad and equitable irrigation laws,
under which the most perfect system of
water distribution that human skill can de-
wise may transform wildernesses into para
discs and so maintain them while the
social contract endures between man and
man. Also, it requires, in order to fur
nish perpetual water supplies to the hills
| and valleys, the safety of those forests
which shelter the sources of innumerable
springs and streams high above all the
regions which horticulture can make. its
own. California must keep invioAte
the alps of Coast Range and Ser
ras, or slow decay and irrevocable
ruin Will come upon her wide valleys.
Every thoughtful and intelligent citizen
should therefore urge upon our repre-
sentatves the passage of the Paddock bill,
and other wise forestry measures which
| will come before Congress this session. In
this respect no other State in the Union has
more at stake than California. The State
| itself has also duties toward forestry in
terests which support so many industries.
If California wisely continues its present
aid to experiments at the forestry stations
already established, great good can be ac-
complished at small expense, and the gen.
! eral development of horticulture swill be
proftably advanced.
| Four groups OF problems are thus closely