8o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 417. 



eration has little of the didactic ia its method. The pupil 

 is forced to study the plant, and the book is merely inci- 

 dental — a part of the apparatus he uses in reaching his 

 determinations. With the whole realm of outdoor nature 

 as a laboratory, twigs, buds, seeds, seedlings, leaves, buds 

 again, flowers and fruit are inspected in turn, and with the 

 passing season the pupil knows something of his plants 

 and has thought little of his book. This is the true 

 method, and a welcome addition to efficient helps in 

 teaching. ^ 



Notes. 



In regard to the statement that the Idaho Pear is hardy where 

 other varieties fail, Dr. T. H. Hoskins writes that he does not 

 find it sufficiently hardy for north-western Vermont, or, at 

 least, not more hardy than Flemish Beauty or Ondaga. The 

 trees will live until they begin to bear, but producing fruit and 

 resisting cold winters together prove too severe a strain upon 

 them. The only Pears which have succeeded in northern Ver- 

 mont are die Russian varieties, which are entirely at home and 

 yield abundant fruit. 



A correspondent of The Independent writes that the original 

 Apple-tree from which the variety known as Grimes' Golden 

 Pippin has been distributed, is still standing two miles from 

 Wellsburg, West Virginia, at the head of a deep ravine. The 

 tree is about a hundred years old, and Mr. Thomas Grimes, 

 who originally brought the fruit to notice, has but recently 

 died. The tree is untrimmed, neglected and shows many 

 signs of age and decay, and there is nothing about it to indi- 

 cate that it is the parent of trees scattered all over the world, 

 for even in Australia Grimes' Golden is a famous apple. 



A spar of Douglas spruce, which has been one of the con- 

 spicuous landmarks at Kew, where it has been used for thirty- 

 five years as a flagstaff, has become decayed at the base, so 

 that it was necessary a short time ago to cut off several feet of 

 it. A new piece has been spliced on and strengthened by iron 

 bands, and the staff is once more erected. The spar was pre- 

 sented to the Royal Gardens in 1861 by Edward Stamp, Esq., 

 and was cut in the woods of British Columbia. Its total height 

 is 159 feet, of which twelve feet are sunk in a brick pit. The 

 age of the tree was about 250 years and its total height about 

 180 feet. 



Mr. J. Hale says that a Peach-tree three or four years old 

 should not be allowed to bear more than 250 peaches, one four 

 or five years old not more than 300, and a full-grown tree not 

 more than 500. This means that the peaches should be at 

 least six inches apart. Five hundred peaches make six to 

 eight baskets of fancy fruit. Three thousand peaches to a tree 

 would sell for less money and ruin the tree. Mr. Hale puts 

 step-ladders under the trees and begins to thin when the 

 peaches are about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and 

 every fruit that is diseased or stung by the curculio is carried 

 away to be burned. The rest of the thinnings are thrown on 

 the ground and left there. 



Oranges are in plentiful supply from the Pacific coast and 

 the Mediterranean, and continue to sell at low figures, although 

 there has been an advance of fifty cents a box during the past 

 fortnight. While Florida oranges are extremely scarce and 

 consequently high-priced, $1.00 apiece, as stated by us last 

 week, is evidently an error, that being the rate for a dozen. 

 Grape-fruit, the high price of which we noted last week, has 

 since then continued to advance, and the limited importations, 

 now at the close of the season, are commanding extraordinary 

 sums. A few days since two barrels of small-sized grape-fruit 

 realized the extraordinary price of $20.00 each in this city, and 

 seven barrels were sold in Philadelphia for $22.00 each. 



The floral decorations at Delmonico's on Monday evening 

 for the last of the Patriarchs' balls of this winter, while the 

 most elaborate of the season, were characterized by marked 

 simplicity. In the ball-room the rich cream-colored walls, 

 delicately touched with gold, served as an admirable back- 

 ground. Graceful festoons of wild sniilax, from Alabama, 

 depended from the cornice. The unconventional treatment of 

 the large mirrors which comprise the sides of the room was in 

 striking contrast with the profusion of Orchids used in previous 

 years. A hidden trellis of wire half-covering the upper part of 

 each mirror in irregular outline was gracefully covered with the 

 smilax and roses, the effect being that of a wild Rose-bush clam- 

 bering at will. An effort had been made to use Bougainvillea 

 glabra for color instead of Bridesmaid and Madam Cusin roses, 



but persistent search in New York, Philadelphia and Boston se- 

 cured only enough for one mirror. La Reine tulips, in heavy 

 garlands, afforded the color-relief between the windows, and 

 the chandeliers and music-balcony were gracefully orna- 

 mented with roses and asparagus. This color-effect was con- 

 tinued in the corridor, where the walls were heavily banked 

 with pink azaleas, luxuriant plants of Kentia Belmoreana, their 

 immense drooping leaves contrasting with bushy plants of no 

 less graceful Arecas, and with young trees of native New 

 Jersey Red Cedar. Well-grown plants of Nephrolepis davilli- 

 oides furcans massed with tulips and other pink flowers 

 formed banks for the mirrors in this sheltered promenade. 



A bulletin has just been issued by the Division of Botany of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture on Legislation 

 Against Weeds. Laws against noxious weeds are already on 

 the statute books of twenty-five states, and as these are all 

 quoted a comparison between them is interesting. In most of 

 them the common names alone of the weeds to be suppressed 

 are used, and, therefore, in some cases it is doubtful what 

 species is meant. Again, the laws of Wisconsin and Minne- 

 sota proscribe species which do not grow in those states, 

 and by a misuse of technical names Wheat and Oats are pro- 

 scribed in a late Minnesota law. In the Iowa law against 

 Thistles the common name of the Canada Thistle is followed 

 by the botanical name of another plant, and since the law is 

 evidently meant to apply to one species it may be doubtful 

 which of the two is meant. A table of all the proscribed weeds 

 in the different states is given, and Mr. Lyster H. Dewey, who 

 has prepared the bulletin, observes that although the Canada 

 Thistle is proscribed in almost all the states, it is not as gen- 

 erally troublesome as this would indicate. In two of the states 

 Sweet Clover is proscribed, a plant which is rarely harmful as 

 a weed, and in certain places it has been found valuable as a 

 renovator of the soil and as a forage-plant. In the southern 

 states, where the Nut Sedge, the Giant Ragweed and the Wild 

 Onion are most serious pests, there are no laws whatever 

 against weeds, while Arizona is the only state of the Rocky 

 Mountain region and in the Great Basin which has passed such 

 a law, although this region is inhabited by many native weeds 

 which are particularly aggressive, and many introduced weeds 

 thrive with great vigor in irrigated fields. The most interest- 

 ing part of the bulletin is the chapter on the essential provi- 

 sions of a general state weed law, which we commend to the 

 legislatures of the various states, most of which are now in 

 session. 



On the 5th of February, Mr. Frank H. Nutter read a paper 

 at Taylor's Falls, Minnesota, in which, after discussing in a 

 general way public parks and reservations, with their history 

 and treatment, he gave a preliminary report on the proposed 

 interstate park at the Dalles of the St. Croix, where something 

 like four hundred acres of land, partly in Minnesota and partly 

 in Wisconsin, have been acquired as a public reservation. The 

 Falls proper are not high, but the Dalles, with their lofty and 

 precipitous rocks on either side, stained with brilliant colors 

 trom oxides of copper, or painted with Lichens and Moss, 

 make a most interesting passage of natural scenery. Mr. 

 Nutter says it would be difficult to find a more attractive com- 

 bination than the cheerful sparkle of the upper rapids with its 

 tributary brooks, the gloomy grandeur of the Dalles them- 

 selves, the quiet beauty of the lake, the sunny intervale dotted 

 with park-like shade-trees, thelotty hills on the Wisconsin side 

 and the gorges across the river, the picturesque cliffs, the 

 plateau on the western bluffs, with its stretch of virgin forest 

 and a westward prospect over rolling farm-lands. Mr. 

 Nutter has made a hasty survey of the place, and, therefore, 

 does not propose anything like a complete plan, but he feels it 

 necessary to state that any comprehensive improvement on this 

 reservation should be based upon a design prepared after a 

 thorough study of the subject as a whole and in detail, so that 

 whatever is done should be done with an eye to what the park 

 shall be as a unit when it is completed. It is a pity that an ele- 

 mentary statement like this needs to be made to an intelligent 

 American audience, but we very much fear that the people of 

 the east, as well as those of the west, will need to be reminded 

 of such truths over and over again before landscape-garden- 

 ing assumes its true rank among the arts of design. Of course, 

 Mr. Nutter is right when he says that the future possibilities of 

 such a park, it it is enlarged according to his suggestion, 

 should not be developed by the addition of exotic shrubs and 

 the obtrusion of much artificial adornment, but rather by fos- 

 tering, protecting and emphasizing its natural features, for a 

 true artist in landscape is the one who strives primarily to 

 develop the poetic charm of the place and preserve its spirit 

 in the line of the sentiment which it naturally inspires. 



