Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

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4.

because in some of the books you read, people talk about inches and
not centimeters. So I advise you to be familiar with both systems of
measurement."

I paused a moment. Then I pulled out a pocket lens with a
magnification of eight diameters. "This item is indispensable. You
simply must have one, to look at the bugs which are eating up your
client's cabbage plants. And it invariably interests the client when
he sees what to him is a new world, and realises that there are
thousands of these little animals which under the glass look as big
as mice, eating up his profits." Of course they don't look quite as
big as mice, but they look big enough to impress him no end.

"And now" I went on, "assuming you are horticulturists, and are
dealing with the propagation of woody plants." I pulled out a piece
of vinyl film. "These modern plastics have made horticulture easy,
in certain respects. You can wrap up scions in a piece of this
material and carry them home, or you can send them to South Africa
by air mail and have them reach their destination in good condition.
Forty years ago, when I was sending avocado scions from the tropics
to the United States, I wrapped them in sphagnum moss and waxed paper.
It was a tough job to get those scions to Washington alive. Now
it is simple. Now only do we have the polyethylene plastics but
we also have air mail, a tremendous help. But don't forget the plastics,
which are not only useful for shipping cuttings and scions long
distances, but also for tying buds and grafts as you make them in
the nursery. And I should mention that we are finding the veneer
graft extremely useful in the tropics, where we used to have a lot
of trouble grafting mangos and several other kinds of fruit trees."