126 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[April, 



price for it," only to find it her old friend the Chi- 

 nese Yam. She thinks respectable papers should 

 denounce such tricks. The trouble comes from 

 the right which even some " respectable papers " 

 claim for everybody or anybody to give a plant an 

 English name. It is not a trick but a right they 

 claim. Botanical names are sometimes hard to 

 pronounce and to remember. Even with them 

 there are sometimes synonyms in general use — 

 but seldom to the extent that people buy a plant 

 twice over. 



Careless Statements of Facts. — Referring 

 to the statement of an English Encyclopoedia that 

 the "Pashamin" is a name given to Diospyros Lo- 

 tus, when it is the Indian name of an American 

 species, a correspondent says: "It is not in an En- 

 glish work of any kind to give even the simplest 

 fact correctly ; " and calls attention to a statement 

 in the Encyclopoedia Britannica, that " Dr. Hay- 

 den, of Yale College, made an extensive explora- 

 tion of the American Territories — Dr. Hayden 

 never having been connected with Yale College." 

 We cannot assent to the sweeping assertion of our 



correspondent, yet we are often surprised at the 

 unpardonable inaccuracies of statement that con- 

 tinually present themselves. Forestry, for March, 

 says that " Miss Mary Wagner has been writing 

 Transcontinental letters in the Rural New Yorker." 

 Mrs. Mary Wager Fisher will, no doubt, wonder 

 if it really means her. It is not usual, with For- 

 estry, however, to make slips like this. 



Derivation of Diervilla. — •' G." asks: — 

 " What was the name of the man from whom the 

 genus Diervilla got its name .'' His name is vari- 

 ously given as Diervilla, Diereville, (acute accent 

 j on first e,) Diereville, (grave accent,) etc." 

 j Linnaeus, in Hortus Cliffortianus, says the name 

 was given by Tournefort in compliment to a 

 French surgeon, named Dierville, who was the 

 first to introduce it " from Acadia, North 

 America," to Europe. As the names introduced 

 into botany follow the Latin or Greek pronunci- 

 ation, no matter how the person's name may have 

 been pronounced by his own countrymen, this one 

 will be Diervilla ; the accent being on the third 

 syllable, as if written Dier-villa. 



Horticultural Societies. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



THE WORLD'S EXPOSITION AND COTTON 

 CENTENNIAL. 



BY JAMES E. WALDO. 



What part have the horticulturists and florists had 

 in preparing this grand display ? The ground on 

 which this Exposition is spread out was once a plan- i 

 tation. Till within a few years it was not open to 

 occupation for residences ; hence the city is built all 

 around it, except the river front. It was a tract of 

 249 acres, extending from the river to St. Charles 

 Avenue. About ten years ago the city bought it 

 for a city park, but had done nothing towards its 

 improvement for want of funds, allowing it to be j 

 used as a stock pasture. Nothing on it or about j 

 it to remind one of a park, unless it might be the 

 majestic old live oaks, planted in avenues and 

 draped in Spanish mosS, spreading out their im- 

 mense arms over large areas of ground. Who 

 planted these live oak avenues, now so magnifi- 



cent, I have found no one to tell me. But any 

 one seeing them can but believe they were planted 

 by man, and not less than a century ago, to have 

 acquired such immense growth. This was the lo- 

 cality selected but a little more than a year since, 

 as the site for the World's Exposition. Within that 

 time the general management has covered about 

 seventy acres of this ground with roofs of the sev- 

 eral buildings for various exhibits. The main 

 building covers 33 acres; the Government build- 

 ing over 10 acres. The other buildings are for 

 machinery, live stock, art gallery, etc. All are 

 filled, — not only on the floors, but in the galleries, 

 with the goods of a thousand exhibitors. 



To the horticulturists and florists, under direction 

 of Mr. Parker Earle, President of the Mississippi 

 Valley Horticultural Society, was given the prepa- 

 ration of these rough 249 acres, and to properly 

 drain and level the surface ; to lay out miles of 

 walks, some shelled and some covered with asphalt; 

 to plant several thousand trees and shrubs; to 



