794 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



Other talks will be given later and each is followed by 

 a lively discussion. Later in the season, field days, to 

 demonstrate the use of instruments and observe plantings 

 on various private estates and public parks, will be held. 

 There are 16 lessons, in a season's course, which costs 

 each student $8. There is a small additional charge for 

 instruments. 



The landscape committee of the club consists of W. N. 

 Craig, chairman ; F. E. Palmer and Donald McKenzie. 

 Any deficit which may arise over and above teachers' fees, 

 etc., is borne bv the club. 



MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society on December 28, the 

 committees for 1914 were appointed. The George R. 

 White medal of honor for eminent services to horticul- 

 ture was awarded to the park commissioner of the City 

 of Rochester, N. Y., for establishing one of the finest col- 

 lections of trees in America and for his successful ef- 

 forts in increasing the love of horticulture amongst the 

 people of Rochester, and for exploiting and utilizing the 

 flora of Western New York. Former recipients of this 

 medal have been Prof. C. S. Sargent, Jackson Dawson, 

 M. H. Walsh and the late Victor Lemoine. 



On December 28 A. Al. Davenport received a silver 

 medal for his new begonia, Florence Davenport. A simi- 

 lar award was made to F. J. Dolansky for Cattleya Iri 

 Trianae alba. The last exhibitor made a fine display of 

 choice Trianae forms. 



On January 3 William Anderson, superintendent to 

 Bayard Thayer, South Lancaster, Mass., received a silver 

 medal for a beautiful flowered specimen of the fine white 

 deliciously fragrant Buddleia Asistica, being also award- 

 ed a first class cultural certificate. 



The annual midwinter show will be held at Horticul- 

 tural Hall on January 31 and February 1. Classes arc 

 jirovided for Primulas, Begonias, Freesias, Hyacinthes. 

 Orchids and other plants, in addition to carnations, vio- 

 lets, sweet peas and other cut flowers. 



E. H. Wilson, of the Arnold Aboretum. the noted Chi- 

 nese traveler and plant collector, left Ijoston with his 

 wife and daughter on January 3 for Japan. He will tra- 

 vel by way of San Francisco and will be away until early 

 in 1915 looking up new and desirable plants in Japan and 

 adjacent islands for the Arnold Arboretum, ^lr. Wilson 

 has written a new book, entitled "A Naturalist in West- 

 ern China, with Vasculum. Camera and Gun," being an 

 account of eleven years" travel, exploration and observa- 

 tion in the most remote parts of the Flowery Kingdom. 

 Mr. Wilson made his first trip to China for James Veitch 

 & Sons, London, England,, the last for the Arnold Ar- 

 boretum, Jamaica Plains, Mass. 



THE FERTILIZATION OF CORN. 



From the esthetic point of view flowers are the most 

 beautiful things in the world. They are admired by oeo- 

 ])le of refinement and culture, while their influence is al- 

 ways beneficent on even those that have not had the ad- 

 vantages of education and of an esthetic environment. 



From the scientific point of view there is no more 

 beautiful, no more interesting device in all the realm of 

 living things for the union of the male and female ele- 

 ments than that that obtains among the flowers. In our 

 appreciation of the color, form and fragrance of the blos- 

 soms, we should not forget that the flowers are practically 

 sex organs. The more firmly this is kept in mind by 

 teachers and parents, in the modern demand for the 

 teaching of sex matters, all the more simple it .seems to 

 me will be our teaching on matters pertaining to sex. 



Is anything more daintily beautiful than a flower like 

 a violet, when one peers into its recesses? But of all the 

 plants with elaborate devices for the uniting of the male 

 and female elements, there is none, in the writer's opinion, 

 lovelier and more ini])res5ive than the common everyday 

 corn. 



What we know as the silk of the mature corn, is really 

 a collection of tubes for carrying the male elements from 

 the tassel down to each individual ovule which it awak- 

 ens into active life by that mysterious process of sex 

 union before which the profoundest philosopher and most 

 diligent student must stand with uncovered head, for he 

 then enters nature's arcanum, her sanctum sanctorum. — 

 Guide to Xaftirc. 



AN ORNAMENTAL GARDEN PLANT. 



In every well-appointed garden there is sure to be a 

 clump of chives in some out-of-the-way corner, for no 

 cook worthy of the name would forego the added piqu- 

 ancy which the tender green leaves of this plant add to 

 the salads and stews of early spring. But not to the 

 taste alone does this old-fashioned and long-domesti- 

 cated little plant appeal. Almost as soon as the snow is 

 gone, certainlv as soon as the ground is thawed, the in- 

 numerable slender green spears begin to push up, mak- 

 ing livelv splotches of color on the brown earth and pro- 

 phesying spring long before the dafl'odil dares, to say 

 nothing of the swallow. 



\ CLI-MP OF FLOWERING CHIVES. 



.Again in late May or early June the plants assume a 

 new attractiveness when the clumps put forth numbers 

 of slender stems tijijied with globular tufts of rosy-lilac 

 blossoms. All who view it then are of the opinion that 

 it is much too pretty to be considered a mere vegetable 

 fit only to be eaten, and not a few, prompted by this feel- 

 ing, have moved it into the society of choicer spirits 

 whose claim to consideration is the possession of beauty. 

 In many situations it is an ornament to the flower gar- 

 den. It is a clean trim, compact. Jittle plant with a good 

 natured air about it tliat goes far to make one forget its 

 plebeian origin. 



Chives still grow wild in the colder parts of both Eu- 

 rope and America. On this side of the world the plant 

 extends southward to the great lakes and the moimtains 

 of northern New luigland. The .American plant is re- 

 garded as slightly different from that of Europe, and it 

 is sometimes called the variety Sibiricum. The species 

 is known as Allium schoenoprasum and it is probable 

 that our cultivated plant has bedn derived from this. Un- 

 like most plants belonging to the onion alliance the bulbs 

 are never large and are ^el(lonl eaten. — American Botanist. 



