July 27, 1907 



HORTiCU LTURE 



103 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL 

 COLLEGE. 



SI'MMER SCHOOL OF AGRICUr.TLRE. 



An analysis of the attendance at the 

 summer school now in session at the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College 

 shows that the enterprise has much 

 more than a local character. In an 

 enrollment of 203 (more still register- 

 ing) there are 32 from outside the 

 State. The largest foreign delegation 

 is from Connecticut and numbers 

 thirteen. New York and Vermont send 

 four each: Pennsylvania three; while 

 a single representative is present from 

 each of the following States: Alabama, 

 Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey 

 and Rhode Island. 



The 171 registrations from Massachu- 

 setts show a very interesting distribu- 

 tion. Seventy-five towns and cities are 

 represented. Worcester leading with a 

 delegation of 21. Other large groups 

 come from Springfield, 15. and Brock- 

 ton 11. Amherst also sends 11. Boston 

 sends 6. Among the smaller cities and 

 towns No. Adams and Lawrence lead. 



It might be expected that western 

 Massachusetts would be the chief bene- 

 ficiary of a summer school at the Mass- 

 achusetts Agricultural College. The 

 figures show, however, that there are 

 43 enrolled from the western counties. 

 48 from Worcester county, and SO from 

 points east of Worcester county. It 

 is plain, therefore, that the State as 

 a whole has been pretty well covered. 



Ten per cent, of the pupils are men. 

 Mobile this looks small it is in reality 

 disproportionately high, since among 

 the whole number of teachers in ser- 

 vice .somewhat less than five per cent. 

 are men. 



PERSONAL. 



Julius Roehrs sailed on a short Euro- 

 pean trip on July 24. 



Visitors in Boston: Daniel Mac- 

 Rorie. Orange. N. J.; I. Rosnosky, 

 Philadelphia, Pa. 



John Scott of Flatbush, N. Y., sailed 

 on Saturday, July 20, on Red Star 

 steamer Zealand. 



S. Tokuda of Yokohama Nursery Co. 

 sailed from Seattle for Japan, on J\ily 

 23, to look after his shipments. 



Visitors in New York: W. Clark of 

 Pittsburg Cut Flower Co. and Mrs. C. 

 A. Williams of Pittsburg, Pa., A. T. 

 Vick, Albion, N. Y. 



Fred S. Cooley, who for several 

 years has be«;n assistant professor of 

 agriculture at the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College, has accepted a 

 position as supervisor of the Farmers' 

 Institute of Montana at Bozeman, that 

 State. Professor Cooley will begin lis 

 duties there Sept. 1. 



Frank McMahon, of Seabright, N. J., 

 famed as a rose grower for the New 

 York market, has been elected mayor 

 of Rumson, the richest borough on 

 the Jersey Coast. We have the honor 

 of Mayor McMahon's acquaintance 

 and can heartily record our u^ipi-oval 

 of Rumson's choice. The town is to 

 be congratulated. 



Many electric storms, some accom- 

 panied by hail, have done much dam- 

 age to trees, crops and greenhouses, 

 throughout many districts during the 

 past week. 



AN AMATEUR'S SUCCESS. 



Horticulture Publishing Co.: 



Gentlen.en. — I lier'nvilh enclose a 

 photograph of a Cattleya gigas San- 

 deriana. The plant is a small one of 

 tivelve bulbs and bearing five flowers 

 on one spike and three on another, 

 said flowers measuring ten inches 

 from tip to tip. The plant is one that 

 I bought from an importation last year 

 and I feel very proud of .(lowering this 

 plant when we take into consideration 

 that I am an amateur and it was only 

 three years this coming October that 

 I started a collection ct orchids and I 

 have, at the present time, two thou- 

 sand three hundred plants and over 

 four hundred .'arieties. 



I wish further to state I take entire 

 tleya labiata of thirty bulbs with 

 work outside of tny business hours, .i^t 

 the time I started this collection I had 

 seen very little of orchids and knew 

 absolutely nothing abotit their ""ai'e or 

 handling, but have had fine success in 

 flowering my plants and have lost, 

 during said period, only six plants. 



Cattleya gigas Sanderiaiia, 



T have, at the present time, one Cct- 

 tleya labiata of thirty bulbs with 

 fourteen new growths. I also have a 

 few specimen plants, one of Cattleya 

 Mossiae of one hundred and thirty 

 bulbs, one of Cattleya Schroederae of 

 forty-six bulbs and one of fifty-two 

 bulbs. I also have a large specimen 

 plant of Cattleya Bogotensis, Cattleya 

 Chocoensis and Percivaliana and 

 others. At the present writing I have 

 a plant of Cattleya Gaskelliana of a 

 very fine type, which I expect to have 

 named shortly. The plant has four 

 flowers in bloom and seven buds. 



I am giving you this information so 

 that you may, if you see fit, publish the 

 facts to show what an amateur has 

 accomplished simply by making a spec- 

 ial study of the plants and by using 

 good common horse sense, hoping it 

 will be the means of starting others in 

 the growing of orchids, for I find more 

 pleasure and more satisfaction In 

 growing orchids than I did in other 

 plants 



I wish to state in speaking of this 

 Cattleya gigas Sanderiana, the pic- 

 ture of which is enclosed, that experts 

 have seen this plant and pronounce 

 same the largest flower they have ever 

 seen. 



0. A. MILLER. 



East Orange, N. J. 



REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. 



THE 1500K OF WATER GAltnENING. 

 Bt rctei- Bisset, Twin 0.ilis. Wasliiuston, 

 r>. C. A. T. De La Mare Prhitin-.' and 

 I'liblishing Compariy. Ltd., New York, 

 Publishers. Price postpaid. $2.5ii. 



When it came to our knowledge that 

 Peter Bisset was writing a book, we 

 knew that it would be a book worth 

 having, the work of a sincere, pains- 

 taking and thorough man. And here 

 is a subject on which probably no gar- 

 dener in this country is so well quali- 

 fied to speak. It was with more than 

 ordinary interest that we opened this 

 elegant book, faultless in its typo- 

 graphical make-up and binding and pro- 

 fusely illustrated with beautiful half- 

 tone engravings, and we found it to be 

 just what we expected — a complete 

 treatise on every phase of practical 

 iquatic gardening. The l>ook comes at 

 an opportune time, and will be wel- 

 comed by all interested in this fascin- 

 ating and healthful phase of garden 

 work. 



Mr. Bisset is superintendent of the 

 beautiful estate, "Twin Oaks," belong- 

 ing to Mrs. Gardiner G. Hubbard, at 

 ■Washington, D. C, and has been a life- 

 long student of this class of plants, 

 having first become acquainted with 

 them in his apprenticeship days in the 

 Earl of Rosebery's gardens at Dal- 

 meny Park, Scotland. He has origin- 

 ated some of the handsomest seedling 

 nynipheas now in cultivation, and has 

 under his charge at the present time 

 one of the largest and most complete 

 water gardens to be found in the Uni- 

 ted States, It can safely be asserted 

 that never before has the subject of 

 water gardening been so concisely yet 

 so fully and interestingly treated as in 

 this book. It should be in the hands of 

 every admirer of aquatic plants. 



A MOTH SCHEME WHICH IS A 

 FAILURE. 



Local scientists have discovered by 

 experiment that it does not follow that 

 because a moth can be lured to death 

 by the evening lamp, the whole tribe 

 of gypsy and brown-tail pests that now 

 torment Massachusetts can be exter- 

 minated with the aid of a few glowing 

 arc-lights. 



Moths in plenty fly into the lights, 

 but the experimenters have found that 

 they are overwhelmingly of the male 

 sex. At Belmont, recently. Prof. Wil- 

 liam Lyman Underwood set up two 

 large wire frames, covered with cloth 

 to which were attached sheets of sticky 

 fly paper. Suspended in the glare of 

 powerful arc lights for two weeks, the 

 trap enticed to their destruction 2,104 

 moths, only 68 of which were females. 



Another experimenter is James H. 

 Bowditch, of Brookline. who used 

 boards covered with fly paper and 

 placed them around trees within range 

 of powerful lights. Examination of the 

 result by Inspector Joseph Sylva, of 

 the moth commission, showed for 32 

 traps a yield of 1,630 moths, of which 

 only 51 were of the female sex. Other 

 experimepts disclosed a percentage of 

 94. S males to 5.2 females. 



Entomologists agree that the coyness 

 of the female brown-tail moth in pre- 

 senting herself for annihilation, 

 whether due to abnormal prudence or 

 only to excessive domestication, is 

 fatal to the scheme for allowing the 

 pest to exterminate itself. 



