The Florida agriculturist., 1906-04-18
Possibilities of Horticulture.


following article, crediting it to Mr..
C. S. Harrison, a prominent florist of
Nebraska 1t seems to be part of an
address. though no mention is made
of the fact
'Young Ladies': 1 am not going to
talk about something above and be-
yond you, but of something within
your reach. l wish to open before
you the gates of a new and beautiful
world where you can enter into the
holy of holies of good old Mother Ma
ture and help her work miracles. Do
you want to be an artist?
'Let me show you how, without
pencil or brush. Take a piece of
brown earth for your canvas, plant
it with bulbs, plants and seeds, be
generous with it, and you will soon
have a picture no artist can copy.
Your flowers will be alive; their fra
GRANGE will fill all the air. Like brides
preparing for their nuptials they will
make their toilet before you. 1t will
be a scene of beauty to see those
radiant hosts dissOlving the rainbow
to weave it's tints into their garments.
Your picture will be such that no artist
can copy it. He will give you only
flowers in effigy. They will be but
the corpses of your creation. Those
delicate tints of shadings will fill him
with despair.
eff he could reproduce your picture
with blossoms that live and breathe,
he would be immortal. He cannot, and
so you stand far ahead of him as an
artist
''Think of the possibilities before
you. Take my own case. My hands
know how to toll. My fingers are
knotted with rheumatism, and yet
these hands are brothers of the BRAIN
We work together, and as the result
hundreds of thousands of flowers come
up at our beck. The hoe is wand
in the hand of king and beauty fol
lows in it's path.
again. You can adOrn a piece of
land with known varieties of flowers,
but right in the edge of the unknown
there are those that mortal eyes have
never seen waiting for your skill to
call them into light. 1 keep the State
Experiment at York. 1 have planted
fifty pounds of peony seed, and the
thousands which will spring from
them will be different one from the
other and among them there will be
some of rare merit.
ga few years ago a lady in Indiana
planted some peony seed and produced
many new and choice ones. 1 helped
her to sell one for $1OO. She sold
another for $3.50, after she had pro-
duced several clumps from each. II
have had marvellous success with
phlOxes. These are natives of Ameri-
ca. They were taken to France and
the florists have wrought wonders
with them. At first the flowers were
the size of a dime; then they were
made as large as a quarter, then as big
as a half dollar, and, then for a won
der as large as a silver dollar / sent
for the finest, planted them in the
center of the group so the bees could
cross them. l planted the seed and
the first year secured over twenty
much finer than most of our imported
ones, some larger than a dollar. The
Nebraska Experiment Station at York
has sent out manual on the paeOny
the only one in any language. that
can be had for thirty cents. And there
is now in press, manual on the
phlOX, showing how you can work mir
acleS with these glorious flowers. The
price is only fifteen cents in stamps;
and then you can go into wonderland
and call out new and beautiful things
all your own"