1 66 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



prove reliable as remedies for this 

 dreaded plague of our apple orchards, 

 we may yet grow the Green Newtown 

 Pippin as our best Winter apple, the 

 Fall Pippin as our best fall Apple 

 and the Early Harvest as our best 

 summer apple. 



School Grounds is the subject of 

 the editorial in a recent number of 

 the Garden and Forest, in which the 

 editor commends Mr, Chase's sug- 

 gestion that prizes be offered for the 

 best kept and most tastefully embel- 

 lished school grounds. Would it not 

 be even better if the Government 

 would give a special grant to every 

 school for excellence in this way, the 

 amount to be based upon the approxi- 

 mation to some high standard of 

 excellence which should be designed 

 anew every year by an expert, and 

 distributed among the trustees or 

 teachers of each section. One very 

 important feature in planting school 

 grounds is the educational ; they 

 should teach not only the proper dis- 

 posal of walks and lawns, and flower 

 beds among trees and shrubbery, but 

 also some knowledge of our native 

 trees themselves, and with this in 

 view it is a mistake to plant too 

 many of a kind. We think that 

 each returning Arbor Day it should 

 be the rule that no tree be planted 

 which is a duplicate of any already 

 growing on the school grounds, and 

 thus, with a proper system of label- 

 ing, our school grounds would soon 

 become a place where our children 

 would become familiar with the 

 characteristics of our many varieties 

 of forest trees almost without any 

 mental effort. 



Rural New Yorker No. 2 Potato 

 has been tested at the Michigan 

 Agricultural College, and is thus des- 

 cribed : — 



In form, nearly as broad as long 

 and flattened. Skin, white ; eyes, 

 few and inconspicuous. Generally 

 very smooth and regular, although 

 an occasional prong manifests itself. 

 Flesh, very white and mealy when 



cooked. This potato is quite pro- 

 ductive and is an extremel}- valuable 

 variety. Had it been grown under 

 better conditions it might have 

 headed the list. Well worth planting. 



The Purple Leaved Beech. — 

 The Garden and Forest advises 

 grouping this tree with beeches of 

 the normal hue, or failing in this, 

 with the Horse Chestnut, or the 

 Scarlet Maple. Grouped with the 

 White Pine or Norway Spruce, its 

 effect would be ruined. As a general 

 rule, however, it is better planted as 

 a single lawn tree, where it attracts 

 much attention on account of its 

 peculiar color and beautiful sym- 

 metrical form. 



Ocean Rates for Apples. — Mr. 

 George Thom, of the Beaver Line, 

 sends us a sailing card, and quotes 

 the rates for apples to Liverpool at 

 two shillings and sixpence, or about 

 60 cents. 



The Woodpeekep. 



Mr. Nicol's article on the Wood- 

 pecker, page 95, calls forth the fol- 

 lowing comments from the Orillia 

 Packet :— 



How mortifying — after your little 

 friend has flitted away on his kindty 

 errand — to take up the April number 

 of the Canadian Horticulturist to 

 find all your pretty theories knocked 

 into a cocked-hat. Your favorite, 

 with the red top-knot, is also a sap- 

 sucker ; and while he has been gam- 

 moning you with the idea that he 

 has been catching insects, he has, in 

 reality, been boring holes and sucking 

 the sap — nay, the very life — out of 

 your white birches ; every hole he 

 makes being, so to speak, " a nail in 

 its coffin." This places you on "the 

 horns of a dilemma," and the notion 

 of a full grown man or woman being 

 put into such a degrading position 

 by a six-inch-long woodpecker, or 

 sap-sucker, seems absurd, but shows 

 what mites we are with all our swag- 

 gering. You can't " eat your cake 



