6o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 41 



expressions of sympathy with their purposes, and the country 

 at large will join in the hope that their expectations of success- 

 ful legislation may be realized during the present session. 



From the report of the Executive Committee it was learned 

 that the membership of the association had rapidly grown to 

 over 600, and it now feels strong enough to support a regular 

 monthly or bimonthly publication, and steps to establish such 

 a publication are presently to be taken by the Executive Com- 

 mittee as well as to secure an affiliation with the various state 

 organizations. 



Notes. 



According to official statistics the importations of lemons 

 into the United States during the past ten years amount to 

 $38,500,680. 



In the February bulletin of the well known Thayer Fruit 

 Farms, it is stated that after the land is put into high cultiva- 

 tion the actual cost of bringing an acre of Blackberries or 

 Raspberries, well set and with no missing hills, to a good bear- 

 ing age, is from $125 to $150. 



Fruits are usually considered luxuries, but Mr. G. C. Snow, 

 of Penn Yan, New York, presented many analyses to the horti- 

 cultural meeting at Rochester to show that at present prices 

 more heat-producing and life-sustaining power could be bought 

 for the same money in the shape of fruits than of most other 

 articles of diet. 



Professor Massey sends us a photograph of some flower- 

 ing plants of the Chinese Narcissus trom bulbs grown in 

 water. The specimens are very well grown and seem to dis- 

 pose of the objection that bulbs grown in North Carolina will 

 not flower in water. Professor Massey writes that he has Dutch 

 Hyacinths in bloom under glass, Trumpet Narcissi and Fre- 

 sias, from home-grown bulbs, which are quite as good as any 

 imported ones. 



In a recent lecture, Professor Goodale stated that one 

 who wishes to see the showy plants of the tropics at their best 

 ought not to go to the jungle or forest where they are widely 

 scattered and in many instances crowded out of proportion 

 and not in the best health. Under the care of an intelligent 

 gardener all their caprices are humored and they thrive 

 better than they do where they have to shift for themselves. 

 In a stove like that of Mr. Hunnewell, at Welles'ey, Massa- 

 chusetts, and in similar places, where the treasures of the tor- 

 rid zone are gathered together from the entire circuit of the 

 globe, these plants have a brilliancy of bloom and a perfection 

 of form which are rarely seen in their natural abode. 



Oranges have been in light demand for several weeks past, 

 due to the unsound condition of the last of the Jamaica crop 

 and to the injury by frost to the California fruit. Valencia 

 oranges have been selling at a loss recently, but a cargo which 

 arrived in sound condition early last week realized satisfactory 

 prices, and sold for $4 00 to $4.62 a box in wholesale lots. On 

 Saturday, however, practically as good oranges trom Spain 

 brought only $1.50 a box. Lemons, too, are selling at low 

 prices, Messina, Palermo and Malaga furnishing the main sup- 

 plies. Bananas share in this depressed condition, and the 

 highest grade of fruit from Port Limon commands but $1 15 a 

 bunch at wholesale, while smaller bunches sell for forty cents 

 each. 



Mr. Smith Hawley, of Luddington, Michigan, in a lecture 

 before the Horticultural Society of that state, said that the pic- 

 ture so often seen in agricultural papers of a man standingon 

 a wagon and throwing spray into Apple-trees as he was drawn 

 along is a delusion. To do thorough work one must go all 

 about a tree and throw spray upon it from every direction. 

 When this work is properly done the trees will retain their 

 foliage until the snow falls ; it will be bright, healthy and in 

 good working order long after unsprayed trees are bare. As 

 a result, trees will produce much fruit on off-years, and the 

 fruit, because properly ripened, will keep better than that 

 grown on trees weakened by the attacks of fungi and insects. 



A class of advanced students who are fitting themselves to 

 be professional horticulturists meet once a week at the resi- 

 dence of Professor Bailey, in Ithaca, New York, for the purpose 

 of an informal discussion of current horticultural topics or 

 matters of history and criticism. There are about a dozen of 

 these students, who are most of them Bachelors of Arts or 

 Bachelors of Science, graduated from different agricultural 

 colleges or universities, and they together constitute a class of 

 mature and trained men such as probably have never before 

 been brought together in this country for the express study of 

 higher horticulture. The topic last week was The Lindleys — 



their times and work. Other topics have been The Downings ; 

 Jethro Tull and the Tillage of Land ; The Commanding Fac- 

 tors in New York Pomology. 



The recent subscription of $10,000 to the endowment of 

 the New York Botanical Garden by Mrs. Esther Hermann 

 increases the fund to $260,000, besides $5,000 worth of plants 

 contributed by Mr. James A. Pitcher. Some 250 species of 

 trees and shrubs, besides those already in Bronx Park, where 

 the Garden is to be located, have now been placed in a tem- 

 porary nursery, and the construction of roads and erection of 

 buildings may be begun during the present season. The 

 Finance Committee of the Board of Managers will be glad to 

 receive subscriptions from any one who wishes to follow Mrs. 

 Hermann's generous example. All persons intending to con- 

 tribute can communicate with Mr. James A. Scrymser, chair- 

 man of the Finance Committee. 107 East Twenty-first Street, 

 or with Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, Treasurer, 23 Wall Street, New 

 York. Inquiries as to the scope and progress of the enterprise 

 will be answered by the Secretary, Professor N. L. Britton, 41 

 East Forty-ninth Street, this city. 



The St. Louis Lumberman says that there is no wood which 

 equals the Cypress in value, of which so large a proportion of 

 the total supply still standing is put into market every year. 

 The president of the association predicts that in ten years there 

 will be but seven mills cutting Cypress in Louisiana, in twenty 

 years but four, and in twenty-five years none. This means 

 that within ten years from sixty to seventy-five per cent, of the 

 Cypress will be cut and sold, and that probably half of all the 

 Cypress now standing will have been marketed before the end 

 of the century, and yet the production is now only about two 

 billion feet, say, one-thirtieth that of White Pine, the wood 

 with which it mainly competes. Cypress belongs to the finer 

 class of woods, and it certainly seems short-sighted to sell it 

 for less money than it must soon be worth. It is not abundant, 

 nor is it rapidly reproduced, and it is practically certain that 

 when the present supply is used up that will be the last of 

 cypress lumber as a commercial product. 



Mr. Rydberg prints in the third volume of the Contributions 

 from the United States National Herbarium an interesting 

 paper on the flora of the sand-hills of Nebraska, a region ex- 

 tending from the ninety-eighth to the one hundred and third 

 degree of west longitude and from the Niobrara River on the 

 north to the North Platte River on the south-west. This is a 

 region of shifting surface and of sandy soil, which is carried 

 away by the wind when it is not held down by the roots of plants 

 or otherwise protected. Someattempts at agriculture have been 

 made in this region, but a farmer, after breaking his field, may 

 find it transformed into a deep hollow and its soil deposited 

 miles away, perhaps, in a great drift which serves as the 

 foundation for one of the hills which are the characteristic 

 feature of the region. Probably once covered by a forest of 

 Pines, the only trees of the region now are Willows and 

 Poplars, confined to the river-bottoms, the largest part of its 

 flora being composed of grasses, sedges and low leguminous 

 plants. A Thistle, the Cnicus Hookerianus variety, of Gray, is 

 elevated by Mr. Rydberg to specific rank as Carduus Plattensis, 

 a plate accompanying his description. 



In a bulletin issued by the Chemical Division of the Experi- 

 ment Station of Minnesotaon the composition, digestibility and 

 food value of potatoes, a cross-section of a tuber is given, in 

 which the relative amount of water and other compounds is 

 graphically illustrated. Three-fourths of the potato is water. 

 One-fifth of it is starch, with limited quantities of fat, fibre, ash, 

 malic acid and pectose or jellies. Only two and a half 

 per cent, of protein occurs, and only about half of this is 

 digestible. It is noted that early varieties of potatoes con- 

 tain less starch and a larger proportion of protein, because the 

 protein or nitrogenous compounds are formed in the early 

 part of the growth of the tuber, while the starch is added at a 

 later stage. For starch-making the medium-sized and later 

 varieties are preferable, but in excessively large potatoes the 

 jellies and other substances replace the starch. A large part 

 of the limited quantity of albumen in potatoes is often 

 lost in cooking ; since when they are placed in cold water 

 to boil much of this material will be extracted while the 

 water is warming up, and, therefore, most of the vegetable albu- 

 men is lost. If the tubers are placed directly in boiling water 

 the albumen is coagulated and retained. Peeled potatoes, when 

 placed in cold water and boiled, lose four-fifths of their albu- 

 men. Potatoes not peeled, and started in hot water, lose only 

 one-fiftieth. This means that when a bushel of potatoes are 

 improperly boiled as much protein is lost as is contained in 

 two pounds of beefsteak. 



