20 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 411. 



the neighboring islands, including Madagascar. Gaudichaud, 

 another French botanist, visited the island in 1818, but his col- 

 lections were lost in the wreck of the French man-of-war 

 Uranie. Returning to the island seven years later in the 

 Bonite, he subsequently wrote the botany of the voyage 

 which, although still incomplete, Mr. Hemsley pronounces 

 one of the most interesting of the earlier contributions to 

 peninsular floras. 



Notes. 



A correspondent of The Gardeners' Chronicle, writing from 

 the Botanic Garden in Grenada, West Indies, states that the 

 Avocado pear, the fruit of Persea gratissima, is one of the 

 few vegetable substances which are relished by cats. It is said 

 that these animals will leave milk when an opportunity offers 

 and eat this fruit voraciously. 



In one of the late bulletins of the Cornell Experiment Station 

 the Russian Thistle is spoken of as one of those weeds whose 

 mission is to educate the farmer and ameliorate the sod. 

 Weeds only prosper on fields which have been mismanaged, 

 and judicious tillage and cropping will keep them down. If 

 the Russian Thistle spreads seriously it will be because our 

 scheme of farming makes room for it by not keeping the land 

 in full use. 



The experiment has been recently made in France of forc- 

 ing Strawberries under different colored glass, with the fol- 

 lowing results : (1) The best and earliest fruit was raised under 

 ordinary glass ; (2) orange-colored glass stimulated the vege- 

 tation, but was prejudicial to the quality, size and earliness of 

 the fruit ; (3) the plants under violet glass yielded a great deal 

 of fruit, but it was small, inferior in quality and not early ; (4) 

 red, blue and green glass all proved detrimental to the plants 

 in the experiment. 



The botanical garden at Smith's College, Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, is only a little more than three years old, but 

 during the past year more than one thousand trees and shrubs 

 were added to the collection, and the same number of herba- 

 ceous plants. Five glass houses were built during the year, 

 including a large Palm-house, so that there are now seven 

 greenhouses altogether. The policy of the college is to make 

 the garden primarily educational, but it is also interesting 

 from an ornamental point of view. 



During last week 8,625 barrels of apples were shipped to 

 this city for local trade, making 505,000 barrels since Septem- 

 ber istl an increase of 124,864 barrels over the supply for the 

 same period last season. The exports from this port for last 

 week amounted to 1,734 barrels, 220,455 barrels since Septem- 

 ber 1st, and nearly 3.000 barrels less than during the same weeks 

 last season. Northern Spies, Virginia Wine Saps and Kings sell 

 for the highest price, $4.00 a barrel to retail buyers, followed 

 closely by York Imperials; Greenings, Baldwins and Ben 

 Davis cost fifty cents a barrel less. 



Among house-plants easy to manage, Joseph Meehan men- 

 tions Begonia maculata and B. Saundersii ; Ruellia macrantha, 

 with its large trumpet-shaped rosy purple flowers ; Ardisia, 

 with its clustered berries ; Cypripedium insigne, which will 

 thrive among other plants under ordinary window-culture and 

 its flowers will remain open for six weeks or two months ; 

 Rubus rosaefolius, with double white flowers ; Streptosolon 

 Jamesonii, with abundant orange-colored flowers in late win- 

 ter, and Libonia Penrhosensis, which is covered with its crim- 

 son bloom throughout the winter months. 



Fruit-growers in the Hudson River Valley consider the 

 Lucretia dewberry as profitable as any of the blackberries, 

 because it ripens early, and as grown there it is large, uniform 

 in color and of good appearance, while the plants are very 

 productive. These are set about six feet apart each way ; the 

 vines are allowed to creep over the ground and are well 

 mulched at the beginning of the winter. Five or six of the 

 strong shoots from each hill are tied to a slake in the spring 

 and the rest are cut off and removed, and this insures clean 

 fruit and protects the plants from being bruised when it is 

 gathered. 



Florida is now sending limited quantities of lettuce, cucum- 

 bers, squashes and tomatoes to northern markets, besides 

 egg-plants, string beans and peas, the latter selling at fancy 

 prices when choice. Lettuce is also coming from Louisiana, and 

 new-crop cauliflower, spinach, kaleand radishes from Virginia, 

 and beets from South Carolina. Tomatoes, from California, 

 sell for twenty-five cents a pound, and celery from the same 

 state at twenty-five cents for a bunch of three stalks. Tender 



green stalks of asparagus, fifteen inches long, a dozen to a 

 bunch, have been credited to California, but these are grown 

 under glass in northern Illinois. They sell for $1.00 a bunch, 

 and two dozen blanched shoots less than half as long, from 

 glass houses in this state, cost seventy-five cents. The cran- 

 berry crop of the Uniied Slates, while considerably larger 

 than that of 1894, is still insufficient for home use, and some 

 have recently been imported from Europe. Other impor- 

 tations are new potatoes and beets from the Bermudas, and 

 cabbage from Denmark. 



Monsieur Charles Naudin announces in the last number of 

 the Revue Horticole of the year the flowering, in his garden at 

 Antibes, of Vigna strobilophora, the beautiful leguminous vine 

 discovered by Mr. C. G. Pringle in Mexico in 1893, and de- 

 scribed by Dr. B. L. Robinson. A figure of this plant, which 

 promises to be a first-class addition to garden vines, was pub- 

 lished in this journal (vol. vii., page 155), and seeds collected 

 by Mr. Pringle were distributed, through the agency of the 

 Arnold Arboretum, among American and European collec- 

 tions. At Antibes the seed sown in 1894 has produced stems 

 several yards in length, which were covered during October 

 and a part of November of last year with racemes of purple 

 and rose-colored pea-shaped flowers. According to Monsieur 

 Naudin, " V. strobilophora will rank among the most orna- 

 mental of the Mexican plants cultivated in Europe, and will 

 make a sensation in northern greenhouses as well as in the 

 gardens of southern Europe, where it will be especially valua- 

 ble for covering trellises and summer-houses." 



Small even sized Tangerine oranges, from California, of 

 bright orange-red color, now bring a dollar a dozen in the 

 fancy-fruit stores. The few coming from Florida are of un- 

 even size, the color varying from lemon to russet, and these 

 command the same price a dozen, as much as $14.00 a box 

 being obtained for them at wholesale. Tiny Mandarins, from 

 Italy, cost sixty cents a dozen. Small shipments of unusually 

 fine oranges are coming from Citra, Florida, and sell for $1.00 

 a dozen, grape-fruit from the same section commanding $2.50 

 to $3 00 a dozen. The choicest Navel oranges from California 

 are offered at $1.20 a dozen. Large showy Japanese persim- 

 mons, in excellent condition, cost sixty cents to Si. 20 a 

 dozen. California strawberries, with considerable suggestion 

 of the luscious summer fruit, are in moderate supply at 

 seventy-five cents a box, and the first hot-house strawberries 

 from Hackensack, New Jersey, cost $3.00 for a cup holding six 

 or seven immense berries. Lady-apples, brilliant and lus- 

 trous, cost thirty to fifty cents a dozen. Lychee nuts, from 

 China, sell for thirty cents a pound, the best pecans from 

 Texas bringing the same price, and new-crop Paradise nuts, 

 from Brazil, filty cents a pound. English filberts, or cob nuts, 

 in their husks, are also offered in the best stores, and cones of 

 Pinus Pinea, each scale enclosing two edible seeds known as 

 Pignolia nuts. 



The highest grades of roses were among the flowers that 

 sold most readily during the holiday season, when choice 

 American Beauties brought $36.00 a dozen in the retail shops. 

 New Year's sales were more active than in recent seasons, 

 and holiday prices were fairly maintained then, though they 

 had fallen fifty per cent, and more by the Saturday following, 

 when a half-dozen sprays of purple lilac cost $2.00, the white 

 variety bringing a third more. New carnations, as Maud 

 Dean and Lily Dean, then commanded $2.00 a dozen ; the 

 popular pink William Scott and deep red Meteor $1.50, and 

 Lena Saling and the scarlet Tidal Wave $1.00. Mignonette has 

 been one of the most popular flowers, the largest spikes cost- 

 ing as much as fifty cents each. Easter lilies have sold well at 

 $3.00 a dozen, and Marie Louise violets at $2.00 for a bunch of 

 fifty flowers. Spikes of white Swainsonia cost fifty cents a half- 

 dozen. Other cut flowers seen in florists' collections were 

 lily-of-the-valley, forget-me-not and heliotrope. Narcissus, 

 hyacinths and tulips have been forced into flower in large 

 quantities, but have failed to supersede more seasonable 

 flowers. Among flowering and fruiting plants the most deli- 

 cate, as the most showy, are thickly flowered Ericas. Cycla- 

 mens and Primulas of many hues and bright-colored Azaleas 

 enliven the florists' windows, as do well-berried plants of 

 Ardisia crenulata and Otaheite Orange in abundant fruit. 



The death is announced, at Anhalt, Germany, in his sixty- 

 sixth year, of Professor Hermann Hellriegel, the distinguished 

 agricultural chemist, whose name will be associated with the 

 discovery that organisms growing in the root tubercles of 

 many leguminous plants help to fix the free nitrogen of the 

 air and make it available as plant-food. 



