1 68 



GARDENING. 



Feb. 15, 



PUBLISHED THE 1ST AND 15TH OF EACH MONTH 

 BY 



THE GARDENING COMPANY, 



Monon Building, CHICAGO 



Subscription Prlce.l2.0Os Year— 24 Numbers. Adver- 

 tising rates on application. 



Entered at Chicago postofflce as second-class matter. 

 Copyright, 188. by The Gardening Co. 



Address all communications to The Garden- 

 ing Co., Monon Building, Chicago. 



GARDENING Is gotten up for Its readers and In their 

 Interest, and It behooveB you, one and all. to make It 

 Interesting. If It does not exactly suit your case, 

 please write and tell us what you want. It is our 

 desire to help you. 



Ask any questions you please about plants. 

 Bowers, fruits, vegetables or other practical gardening 

 matters. We will take pleasure In answering them. 



Send tjs Notes of your experience In gardening in 

 any line; tell us of your successes that others may be 

 enlightened and encouraged, and of your failures, 

 perhaps we can help you. 



Send cs Photographs or Sketches of your 

 flowers, gardens, greenhouses, fruits, vegetables, or 

 horticultural appliances that we may have them en- 

 graved for GARDENING. 



CONTENTS. 



Trillium grandi/lorum (illus) 161 



Plant notes }»• 



Erica Mediterranea J"? 



Clematis imlivisa ........ «g 



Lychnis Flos ououli n pi ]*>- 



Carnations and their culture 1W 



Calanthes (illus.) J" 



Shirlej poppies (illus. i J" 



Propagation of dahlias ]M 



The rrostweeds J J? 



Notes ,-m hollies (illus.) Jt» 



The northern ash trees lob 



A laudable effort (2 illus.) 1*5 



Books and bulletins j[>«, 



Catalogues r ived — Jo< 



Relation of our public schools to horticulture.. 168 



Workers in horticulture (portrait) lttj 



Tomatoes under glass j™ 



Nuts ami nut culture ITU 



The quince \'J 



Nova Scotia fruit growers' association 1.1 



The catalogues make mention of 

 comparatively few novelties this year— a 

 healthy indication. 



Plant lice in Maryland caused losses 

 last year to the amount of $100,000, 

 chiefly in melons. 



The conservatories of Washington 

 Park, Chicago, are now lighted by electric- 

 ity and open to the public every evening. 



A French writer refers to our native 

 Crataegus coccinea as one of the most 

 ornamental members of its genus, and 

 strongly recommends it as a stock for 

 grafting. 



New York apples sold last month in the 

 London markets for eleven shillings and 

 sixpence per case; Californians brought 

 from nine to eleven shillings per 40-lb. 

 box, Canadians twenty-three to twenty- 

 eight shillings per barrel. A serious fall 

 in the prices is said to be due to com- 

 plaints of uneven packing. 



For a long period much of the perfume 

 sold as the product of the violet, says the 

 Hardeners' Magazine, has been derived 

 from quite a different plant, namely, the 

 Florentine iris, and now we have to 

 record as one of the most recent achieve- 

 ments of scientific chemistry, the produc- 

 tion of an artificial perfume practically 

 identical with that of violets. 



An election of the best fifty Japan 

 ese chrysanthemums, conducted by the 

 Journal of Horticultures England, places 

 Edwin Molyneux, Viviand-Morel, Mme. 



Carnot, Charles Davis, Charles Tabor, 

 Phoebus and Mons. Chenon de Leche at 

 the head of the list with thirty-two votes 

 each. The American varieties Simplicity 

 and Mutual Friend follow close upon the 

 leaders with thirty votes each. Modesto 

 has twenty-seven votes, Western King 

 twenty-one, Col. W. B. Smith fourteen, 

 and Sunstone and Niveus are at the bot- 

 tom with twelve each. 



An interesting study in Japan is the 

 growing of mushrooms in the Shikoku 

 Islands, where most of the camphor is 

 produced. Of the numerous species of 

 edible mushroom, an English traveler 

 writes, the one called Shutake is the most 

 important, being abundantly exported 

 abroad, and also used for many culinary 

 purposes at home. Logs which are used 

 for cultivating this mushroom are of vari- 

 ous species of oak. Oak trees 25 to 33 

 years old are felled in the autumn, and 

 incisions made with axes at intervals of 

 three or four inches, the incisions gener- 

 allv reaching the woody layer. The trees 

 are then cut into logs of four to five feet 

 in length, and left in dark, secluded parts 

 of the forest. After the third year mush- 

 rooms make their appearance in the 

 incised portions. When the growth les- 

 sens the}' are replaced by new logs. After 

 beine collected the mushrooms are dried 

 either by the sun or by artificial heat. 



The Gypsy moth which has caused 

 so much trouble in the woodlands of Mas- 

 sachusetts, has not yet been banished; 

 but Dr. L. 0. Howard, who was ap- 

 pointed by the United States Agricultural 

 Department to investigate the work done 

 by the Massachusetts authorities, reports 

 favorably thereon. 'At the present time," 

 he says, "there can be little doubt that 

 the extermination of the insect is possible, 

 and that it will be a question of only a 

 few years if adequate stai e appropriations 

 are continued. The pest has unquestion- 

 abh- been exterminated over considerable 

 stretches of territory, and what can be 

 done for one section like this can be done 

 for all if the means be sufficient. The 

 question as to whether the money has 

 been used in the best possible way to for- 

 ward the end desired may be answered 

 both emphatically and in the affirmative." 



The Germans are making strong 

 efforts to exclude American fruits from 

 their markets, and the reason given is 

 that some shipments of American apples, 

 coming from California, have been de- 

 scribed as affected by the San Jose scale, 

 but just how German apples are endan- 

 gered even if this fact should be estab- 

 lished, is not made plain. One of the 

 standing complaints against American 

 dried fruit, the trade in which with Ger- 

 many has assumed enormous propor- 

 tions, is again brought to official notice 

 by a report of complaints to the state 

 department from United States Consul 

 Ozmun at Stuttgart, and is made public 

 in the daily consular reports. He trans- 

 mits a notice issued by the chief of police 

 at Stuttgart to the effect that most of the 

 samples of American or dried apples 

 taken from the local retailers show the 

 addition of metalic zinc in quantities of 

 0.3 grams to the kilogram (2.6246 

 pounds), and warning all dealers that 

 they will be punished and their goods 

 confiscated if further sales of such goods 

 are made. This complaint was made to 

 the department first about two years 

 ago, the German chief of police in Cologne 

 asserting in his notice that the zinc was 

 present in the apples because "the Ameri- 

 cans dry the fruit on zinc trays, instead 

 of wooden bars as we do." Immediately 



one of the most enterprising of our con- 

 suls in Germany visited an agricultural 

 exposition then going on in Germany and 

 reported that all of the fruit evaporators 

 exhibited, about fourteen in number, were 

 fitted with the alleged harmful zinc trays, 

 which were freely used in Germany. It 

 would seem that the full details are not 

 yet obtainable in Berlin, but it isexpected 

 that our representative will cable the 

 entire decree as soon as he can obtain 

 possession of it. The important facts 

 established by the last advices were, first, 

 that the decree of exclusion uses the word 

 "American" as descriptive of the place of 

 origin of the fruit and includes in the pro- 

 hibition all dried fruits from America. 

 The state department officials at Wash- 

 ington have not yet recovered from their 

 surprise at the method adopted by the 

 German government of accomplishing its 

 object in this matter, and undoubtedly 

 the correspondence to follow will set this 

 out very clearly. The objection to the 

 course pursued is three-fold. In the first 

 place, it is said to be entirely without 

 precedent and discourteous toward the 

 American representative at Berlin to 

 make the decree and put it into effect 

 without the slightest warning to him. 

 In the second place, by making the decree 

 take effect at once and stopping all fruit 

 in transit, a great injustice is done to 

 shippers who thus without warning are 

 made to lose heavily on their capital 

 invested in the fruit. Thus the decree is 

 condemned, in that it makes no provision 

 for the admission of fruit of absolute 

 purity, permits no demonstration of 

 origin or healthful condition, and in fact 

 condemns all fruit, good and bad alike. 

 These conditions are to be strongly urged 

 upon the German government as reasons 

 on which the decree should be revoked or 

 modified. Among the fruit exporters in 

 San Francisco, the news of the action of 

 the German government prohibiting the 

 importation of American fruit has created 

 no alarm. Albert Castle, of Castle Bros., 

 voices the general sentiment in the state- 

 ment that at present the market in Ger- 

 many for California's fresh fruits was not 

 of sufficient importance to justify alarm. 

 Joseph A. Fileher, secretary of the State 

 Board of Trade, said: "I believe thatGer- 

 many's action is in retaliation for the 

 sugar tariff of the Dingley bill. It will not 

 affect California much, as we export only 

 small quantities of fresh fruits to that 

 country. Of course, an expansion of pro- 

 hibition to dried fruit would concern us 

 mightily." 



RELATION OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO HOR- 

 TICULTURE. 



Mr. George T. Powell, of Ghent, N. Y., 

 delivered the following address on this 

 topic at the recent annual meeting of the 

 Western New York Horticultural Society: 



With the rapid growth of our popula- 

 tion, the great extension of orchards and 

 vineyards, and the close competition we 

 have to meet in our markets from both 

 domestic and foreign fruits, we need every 

 possible aid that can be brought to this 

 industry in our state, and the relation of 

 the public schools to horticultural inter- 

 ests becomes an important subject for 

 consideration. 



The tendency of population to concen- 

 trate in cities during the last half century 

 has been marked, and the growth of 

 cities during the past thirty years has 

 been phenomenal. From 1790 to 1880 

 the population of this country increased 

 twelve times, while that of cities of over 

 S,000 inhabitants increased eighty-six 

 times. In the past one hundred years the 



