2898 



RADISH 



RAILROAD-GARDENING 



ties but are even more responsive to fertile well- 

 prepared soil and frequent cultivation. They may be 

 used as they reach desirable size and will stand con- 

 siderable frost without injury, but should be pulled and 

 stored much as one would carrots or parsnips so as to 

 avoid severe freezing. The Long Black Spanish, the 

 White Russian, the Chinese Scarlet Winter and Deep 

 Scarlet Panier, the latter one of the most symmetrical 

 and beautifully colored roots in cultivation, belong to 

 this class which is well worthy of more general cul- 

 tivation. 



Chinese and Japanese radishes. 



These are possibly the oldest of cultivated kinds. The 

 large many-leaved plants are 2 feet or more across 

 and form immense roots which not infrequently weigh 

 forty to fifty pounds. The flesh is less agreeable in 

 texture and flavor than that of the sorts more commonly 

 grown, and though they have been loudly exploited by 

 seedsmen, they have never come into very general 

 cultivation in this country, except by the Chinese and 

 Japanese who use them as a cooked vegetable more than 

 as a salad. 



Seed-growing. 



There are few garden vegetables in which uniformity 

 of varietal character is more important to satisfactory 

 results than in the radish. This is particularly true of 

 the quickly maturing forcing varieties, the seed of which 

 is largely grown in Europe. As grown there, carefully 

 bred stock-seed is sown thickly in narrow rows and 

 when the most mature roots reach usable size, the crop 

 is pulled, all immature or off-character roots are 

 rejected, and those which are of satisfactory form, size, 

 and color are promptly reset about 10 inches apart in 

 rows about 3 feet apart and soon start into fresh growth 

 and mature a crop of seed. 



In this country, seed of both the forcing and larger- 

 rooted sorts are commonly planted ten to twenty to the 

 yard in drills, 3 feet apart, and when the plants are 

 mature enough to indicate their varietal quality, the 

 plantings are carefully gone over, the inferior and super- 

 fluous roots pulled and destroyed, and superior ones to 

 furnish the desired quantity of stock-seed are pulled and 

 set in a block by themselves, where there will be little 

 danger of the flowers being fertilized by pollen from 

 other plants. 



The yield and quality of seed is very dependent upon 

 uniformly favorable weather conditions inducing a 

 quick, even growth, fertilization of the flowers by 

 insects, and freedom from storms or exceptionally high 

 temperatures. A hive or two of bees in the field will 

 often materially increase the yield of seed. When the 

 later and the most immature pods begin to ripen, the 

 plants may be cut and laid in windrows or piles not 

 over 3 to 4 feet deep on the threshing-floors and al- 

 lowed to remain from ten to fifty days (depending 

 upon weather conditions), until the stems are fully 

 cured and dry. The seed may then be threshed out 

 either with flails or machine and sacked, but must be 

 watched, and if necessary, winnowed out, to prevent 

 heating. In some localities it is a better practice, par- 

 ticularly with the later sorts, to leave the harvested 

 plants under shelter until midwinter or early spring 

 before threshing. Again, in case of some of the later 

 harder-fleshed sorts, better yields are secured by not 

 planting until autumn, and before severe weather, 

 pulling, topping, and storing the small roots until 

 spring, much as is done with 'seed-crops of beets or 

 turnips. w w TRACY. 



RAFFIA is the Malagasy name of a palm which fur- 

 nishes a staple article of commerce called raffia fiber. 

 It is indigenous to Madagascar, where it grows without 

 cultivation or attention of any kind. One palm leaf, or 

 frond, produces eighty to one hundred long green 



divisions 2 to 5 feet in length, like the leaves of the 

 sugar-cane, but of a dark lustrous green color and 

 thicker and stiffer. The under part of this green leaf 

 is of a pale greenish yellow color, and from that side 

 the inner skin is peeled off in the same manner as the 

 skin on the outside of a pea pod, except that it peels off 

 straight to the tip without breaking. It is then of the 

 palest green, and after being dried in the sun assumes a 

 light straw-color. This is the raffia fiber of commerce. 

 Raffia fiber is extensively used by the natives for 

 making cloths called silk lambas and rebannas, which 

 bring fancy prices in Europe and America, where it is 

 used in the manufacture of various kinds of hats, and 

 the like. A large trade is also had in raffia fiber in 

 Europe for use in the manufacture of fancy baskets, 

 but in America, while raffia fiber has been used to a 

 limited extent in the manufacture of hats, its principal 

 use is for tying vines, flowers, asparagus and celery 

 bunches and for grafting. It is soft as silk and not 

 affected by moisture or change in temperature so as to 

 risk cutting or wounding the most delicate tissues, and 

 it does not break or ravel when folded or knotted. These 

 qualities bring it into general use in Europe, especially 

 in the vineyards of France, where it is extensively used, 

 and consequently maintains its price. It is virtually 

 inexhaustible in Madagascar, the supply being limited 

 only by the scarcity of labor. For export, the fiber is 

 collected in large skeins, twisted or plaited, and then 

 packed in compressed bales of about 100 kilograms 

 (220 pounds) each. About 20,000 bales are exported 

 annually. CHAS. W. JACOB & ALLISON. 



RAFFLESIA (named for Sir Thomas Stamford Raf- 

 fles). Rafflesidcese. Fleshy parasites, with a solitary 

 large sallow fl. with a cadaverous odor rising from a 

 superficial rhizome, leafless; fls. direcious; perianth 

 fleshy, the tube hemispherical at the base, solid in the 

 male fls. and adnate to the ovary in the female fls., 

 broad-campanulate above the ovary, limb 5-parted, the 

 segms. imbricated in 1 row; ovary inferior, with numer- 

 ous ovules. About 5 species, Malaya. R. Arnoldii, R. 

 Br. Fls. flesh-colored, 3 ft. across, mottled with a thick 

 fleshy rim or corona lining the upper part of the tube. 

 In the male fls. there is a thick fleshy column within the 

 corona and adherent to the perianth-tube and haying 

 at the top a wide flat plate, the overhanging margin of 

 which is revolute and on which is placed a ring of sessile 

 anthers. The female fls. are similar, but lack the anthers 

 and possess an ovary adherent to the base of the peri- 

 anth-tube and having a single cell. Sumatra. G. 7 :547. 

 J.H. III. 54:373. 



RAILROAD-GARDENING. That phase or applica- 

 tion of landscape gardening (or landscape architecture) 

 which aims to improve the appearance of railway 

 rights-of-way and station grounds; and, as an art of 

 design, which lays out the approaches and makes the 

 subdivisions of the grounds as best to serve convenience 

 and beauty. 



In this article, in a cyclopedia of horticulture, it is not 

 intended to discuss the theory of design for railway 

 properties, but rather to consider the plant-growing 

 features; yet the layout must be taken into considera- 

 tion. The subdivision of the property and the general 

 theory of arrangement are necessarily controlled by 

 the nature of the property itself, the extent of track- 

 age, the need for passenger and freight access, the size 

 of settlement to be served. Probably nowhere are the 

 main elements more rigidly fixed by the necessities of 

 the case, for the engineering requirements must be 

 met ; and yet there are large civic relations that should 

 receive careful consideration. 



In a small suburban railway station property, the 

 planting feature may well be very prominent or even, to 

 the general observer, dominant. Large trees are in 

 place, and flanking lines of shrubbery and many good 



