“INVENTED FLOWERS.”

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1925, Page 1

“INVENTED FLOWERS.”

• Nurseryman in the “Daily Mail.”) Tim magnificent blooms that soi/ii will be seen in our best gardens are vastly superior to the dowers that iloiirished titty years ago. Not then did the rose possess its present exquisite colour and size. This improvement is due to the painstaking labours of horticulturists who ospeciali.se in plant “ breeding.” Hundreds of selections and crossings of elablislied varieties may have to he made before a real advance is achieved. Occasionally a good sort of, say. chrysanthemum turns up on its own accord, without any intervention on il'.e part of the lucky grower. It is then called a ” sport.” But progress cannot wait patiently for these haphazard occurences, so the method of selection and crossing is systematically carried on. Hybridising is the highest form of the nurseryman's craft, hut there is no copyright lor a new plant, nor any Patents Act, no matter how beautiful or useful the introduction may be. Having purchased some of a stork anyone can increase and sell it without. let or hindrance. How. then, must the introducer recompense himself for ids trouble A Having first worked up a large stock, lie charges such price for th(' new plants that the sales for a couple of seasons would reward him for his skill. The introducer is not ihe only olio w|u> runs risk's with a plant novelty. The second class to handle the introduction, amateur enthusiasts or professional growers, may part with much good money for a new variety of supposed great merit which will possibly turn out io be no better, or even worse, than some already existing sort. It may he an utmost exact replica, of an old variety, or it may he a beautiful bloom on a plant of sickly constitution. which is well-nigh impossible to rear. The stay-at-home nurseryman or amateur can only discover this when he has had the novelty Hovering in his own garden. If a new Mower is a failure it quickly passes to the limbo of the gone and forgotten; if n success it fakes it place in our floral treasury.