^^ 



i.-^' 



^ 



GV' 



a^ 



,>^; 



* NKV/ JC 



THE 



GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



AND 



HORTICULTURIST. 



/Jfl^OrfZ) 7"0 HORTICULTURE. ARBORICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 



Edited by THOMAS MEEHAN. 



Volume XXV. 



OCTOBER. 1883. 



Number 298. 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



JAPAN MAPLES. 

 BY S. B. PARSONS, FLUSHING, L. I.. N. Y. 



I notice in your August number that I\Ir. Strong 

 reports to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 that these plants in our nursery do not get from 

 the frames to the open ground, to any extent, and 

 that they require such careful nursing as to unfit 

 them for ordinary cultivation. 



If I recollect rightly, Mr. Strong has not visited 

 our grounds since 1879, and I think that he should 

 not, without careful inquiry, have made so sweeping 

 an assertion. The fact is that nearly all our sale- 

 able stock of Japan Maples is planted in nursery 

 rows and cultivated with the plough. There are 

 some twenty-two rows two hundred feet long. 

 There would be many more, except for the very 

 active demand. 



We have Polymorphum eight feet high, and 

 Polymorphum sanguineum five feet high, growing 

 luxuriantly in the open ground and rather too tall 

 to be kept in frames. 



Of valuable plants like hardy Azaleas, Viburnum 

 plicatum, and many well known hardy species, 

 we are in the habit of keeping very young plants 

 in frames without glass, for convenience of culture. 

 We do the same with Japan Maples until they are 

 large enough to plant out for plough culture. 



So far from being tender here, they are ex- 

 ceptionally hardy and have not been the least 

 injured the past winter, in localities where Norway 

 Spruce and Hemlock have been killed. They are 

 hardier than Altheas, because, in the twenty years 

 in which we have cultivated them Altheas have 

 been winter killed, and these have not. 



If any plant can be called hardy, the Japan 

 Maples can, and they have also a luxuriance of 

 growth which quite takes them out of the list of 

 those which require "careful nursing." 



A VISIT TO THE NATIONAL SOLDIERS' 

 HOME, DAYTON, OHIO. 



BY H. D. BRAND, DAYTON, OHIO. 



In my visits to this most delightful and beautiful 

 place, I have often wondered if there had been a 

 description given of it in the Monthly ; and have 

 had it on my mind to write a short sketch for it, and 

 my last two visits compelled me to do so. 



The Home lies three miles from the city of Day- 

 ton and upon rising ground, much higher than the 

 city. What Fairmount Park is to Philadelphia, 

 and Central Park to New York, the Home is to 

 Ohio and Indiana, for there is not a day passes 

 without one or more large excursions coming to 

 view this wonderful place, and all the trains are 

 run directly into the grounds. The Home stands 

 upon a square of land, six hundred and fifty acres, 



