260 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[August, 



The most delicate odor is that from the short- 

 lived bloom of the male or Wild Grape. No 

 veranda is complete without its perfume. 



AgricuUure and horticulture "before that time, 

 (forty years ago) may be said to be conducted 

 under a Virgilian system, cultivators adhering 

 more to blind custom than to reason." — Burnet 

 Landreth's Post Gardens. 



Cotvley quaintly says: "The first three men 

 were a gardener, a plowman, and a grazier, and 

 if any man object that the second was a mur- 

 derer. I desire he would consider that as 

 80on as he was so he quitted our profeosion and 

 turned builder " — Ibid. 



Odors. — There can be no doubt that something 

 is yet to be learned or re-learned with regard to 

 scent. In dogs, &c., instinct is credited instead of 

 smell. The ancients, it is thought, knew or studied 

 something of this, and availed themselves of the 

 discoveries, while we pay little attention to it- 

 There is a well authenticated story of a man in 

 Philadelphia some fifty years ago charming rats 

 by carrying a scented article to the regions o 

 their runs, when the animals flocked to him i 

 great numbers. Does any one know what his 

 secret was ? Fenugraek and assafoetida have 

 been tried in vain. That something must be 

 done to get rid of these pests, who take every- 

 where a percentage of our jiroducts is palpable- 

 The individual who can re-discover this lost 

 secret has as good a thing as the best patent. 



Kalm, the traveller, after whom is named our 

 too much neglected and beautiful Kalmdas waS 

 among the first to describe Niagara Falls. He 

 gives the height by guess at 140 to 150 feet. 

 The Marquis of Cavagnal had sounded it, and 

 fixed the perpendicular fall at twenty-six fath- 

 oms. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Trees of Fairmount Park. — The Fairmount 

 Park Commission of Philadelphia have issued a 

 catalogue of the trees and shrubs, not of the 

 whole Park, but of those only which are to be 

 found within a reasonable distance of the famous 

 Horticultural Hall. This will be of immense 

 service as showing the citizens of Philadelphia 

 that they have in this Park an arboretum of an 

 extent they little dreamed of, and one of which j 

 they may well be proud. It is doubtful whether 

 a more complete collection of open-air trees 

 and shrubs can be found anywhere else in the 



United States; and when we know the extreme 

 difficulty which the managers of iarge public 

 grounds like Fairmount Park have in pleasing 

 so many people, especially political people, an 

 extra meed of praise is due the Fairmount Com- 

 mission for what they have done in the interest 

 of arboriculture and intelligent tree planting. 

 We hope they may be induced to go still further 

 in their good work, and get out some day a 

 cheap, popular guide to the most notable trees, 

 plants and shrubs on the grounds. People gen- 

 erally do not want to know everything as a bot- 

 anist or enthusiastic cultivator would; but they 

 like to make the acquaintance of those plants 



i which have any especial bearing on their pros* 

 perity or pleasure. A work of this kind, accom- 

 panied by reference maps, so as to show where 

 the plants might be easily found, would be a 



I great boon to the people. The Commission 

 itself could hardly issue such a work. It could 

 not sell to some and give to others; and the de- 

 mand for them from parties who could not be 

 well refused would call for an edition that would 

 be an enormous tax on the Park's resources. On 

 the other hand, no person would publish a work 

 of this kind cheap enough to be of popular ser- 

 vice without some aid from the Commission. 

 But the Commission could appropriate a couple 

 of thousand dollars to some competent individ- 

 ual to prepare and publish such a work, on con- 

 dition of a certain number of copies being fur- 

 nished to the heads of Departments, and the 

 exclusive privilege of selling the book to visitors 

 to the Park 



Phylloxera in Europe. — We have from 

 Mons. Andre, Secretary of the Central Horticul- 

 tural Society of France, 49 Kue Blanche, Paris, 

 a circular letter in relation to the ridiculous 

 action of the Berne Convention, by which horti- 

 cultural products of every description are pro- 

 hibited from being imported into many coun- 

 tries of the old world, through fear of intro- 

 ducing the Phylloxera. Of course,this interferes 

 terribly with the export trade of French nurse- 

 rymen, and they have much interest in showing 

 that there is no chance of introducing Phyllox- 

 era, except directly through grape plants, and 

 nothing else. This is the object of the circular. 

 The insect, it says, cannot subsist on any other 

 vegetation than the vine, and therefore cannot 

 be introduced but by the carriage of vines. We 

 do not know that the two propositions necessa- 

 rily follow each other. In nurseries where vines 



