38o 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[December, 



ported into America. He was an intelligent and en- 

 thusiastic cultivator, and a corresponding member 

 of the London Horticultural Society, to whose 

 valuable transactions he communicated some very 

 interesting information about American fruits and 

 forwarded a collection of our finest peach trees 

 for trial." 



Apple Butter. — In almost every part of the 

 world " Schimmel" is known in connection with 

 apple butter and fruit preserving generally. This 

 enormous business, like so many of great magni- 

 tude, began in a small way ; a five-dollar kettle 

 and twenty dollars in cash began the concern. 

 Wife and sister boiled during the day, while the 

 husband went round selling the product to the 

 neighboring stores. Only think of fifty thousand 

 pounds a day, as turned out now, of this tooth- 

 some product of the apple orchard. Like so many 

 extremely busy men in Philadelphia Jose O.Schim- 

 mel believes in continual self-improvement, and 

 gives a good portion of his time when not en- 

 gaged in active business to scientific studies. He 

 is an active botanist, and one of the leading 

 microscopists in the Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 which has done so much in the cause of self-edu- 

 cation. 



Rose William Francis Bennett. — An Italian 

 exchange on our table tells its readers : " II Sig- 

 nor Bennett che 1' ottenne ne ha ceduta 1' edizione 

 ad un Orticulture di Filadelfia per la somma di 

 20,000 franchi." We thought it well to let friend 

 Evans see his purchase as it is rendered in Italian. 



Discussions on Steam Heating. — We have 

 given more than usual space to the steam heating 

 question. There are some discussions we are 

 glad of some excuse to cut short — this is not one 

 of them. The subject has an immense interest. 

 Just how far steam can be used profitably, and 

 just what are its strong points and its weak points, 

 have not yet been made as plain as they will yet 

 be, and we fancy there will be room for good pa- 

 pers drawn from intelligent experience for some 

 time to come. We shall, however, for want of 

 space in justice to other topics, hold back those 

 essays which merely offer the writer's opinions. 



Vegetables at Wholesale and Retail. — 

 A correspondent sends us the following with the 

 remark that it was sent to a Philadelphia paper, 

 but no response came to his inquiry : 



" I live in the country, over in New Jersey. I 

 moved there to secure low rent, pure air and wa- 

 ter, healthy surroundings, fresh and cheap vege- 

 tables. You know the dream of the average city 

 man. Well, I think I've got left on the cheap 



vegetables. Although surrounded with truck 

 farms, we buy our vegetables in the city, carrying 

 them down home ourselves, the reason being that 

 the farmers ask two prices for anything they have 

 to sell. They haul their produce five miles and 

 sell in the city at one-third less than they are con- 

 tent to sell to neighbors in their own village. 

 They seem to prefer to lose the time, labor, fer- 

 riage and expense of the long haul rather than 

 sell in a home market, and we are compelled to 

 go five miles to purchase a home product. How 

 do you account for this ?" 



[It is remarkable that in a city where they have 

 a " chair of political economy," attached to the 

 University, no answer should be given. The ex- 

 planation is that " Time is money," and that a 

 man can make more money in taking one hour to 

 go five miles and sell a thousand cabbages for 

 I400, than he could by selling ten cabbages in the 

 same time at home for even fifty cents apiece. — 

 Ed. G. M.] 



William Lobb. — It is stated in horticultural 

 biography that after collecting seeds in California 

 he disappeared and no one knew what became of 

 him. Dr. C. C. Parry has contributed a very in- 

 teresting paper to the Overland Monthly, on the 

 early botanical explorers of the Pacific coast, and 

 there states that he met Lobb at Monterey, in 1850, 

 and that Lobb was then collecting seeds for 

 Veitch, and that he went about with him on his 

 excursions. He was then planning a trip to the 

 Big trees, having seen the cones in possession of 

 Dr. Kellogg, who had named the tree Washing- 

 tonia gigantea. He afterwards went, probably to 

 Calaveras, and got seeds, sending a description 

 under the name of Wellingtonia gigantea — a name 

 evidently suggested by Kellogg's proposition to 

 name it after a great military man. General Bid- 

 well saw the tree in 1843, and communicated the 

 fact to Fremont, who seems to have regarded it 

 merely as a big tree yarn. Mr. Lobb died some 

 years subsequently, after becoming reduced in 

 circumstances, and his remains are interred in 

 Lone Mountain Cemetery. 



Gidding's Greenhouses at Danville, Illi- 

 nois. — These are represented by Western papers 

 as among the most interesting in the State. All 

 the popular winter-cut flowers are grown to a large 

 extent. The houses are heated by steam. Mr. A. 

 C. Wasson is the Superintendent, and the business 

 is regarded as a great success. 



Charles F. Parker. — The advantages which 

 America offers over the old world, in the way of 

 education, is in no way better shown than by the 

 great interest manifested in the old world, when 



