u8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 421. 



rines ripen in July, and many Plums. Our Plum-trees include 

 Kelsey japan, Burbank and French Prune ; a Birtlett Pear-tree 

 ripens fruit in August. Strawberries can be kept in fruit the 

 year around. Blackberries come into fruit as early as latter 

 April, and continue until the middle of December. There 

 were green leaves and a little bloom scattered through the row 

 during all of last year. Red Raspberries bear two crops, the 

 first fruit coming the latter part of April, and the second bloom 

 starting in September, making a continuous crop, with lessened 

 vigor in August, until January. There have been scattered 

 bunches of delicious fruit on our row during the entire year 

 of 1895. Black Raspberries do not thrive here ; they are very 

 dry, and we were disappointed in our one plant. Our early 

 Grapes came into fruit in August, not as early as our neigh- 

 bors', and the late varieties lasted into December. 



A high wire fence was arranged about the Citrus orchard, 

 and a flock of Plymouth Rock fowls housed there. Four 

 movable hen-houses are located wherever fertilizer is needed, 

 and the orchard is cultivated every month. 



In our vegetable garden a pretty effect is produced by a long 

 row of Swiss Chard next to the dark green Alfalfa. We plant 

 Lima Beans in March, and they bear prolifically until the latter 

 part of July, when they rest some four or six weeks, and in 

 September come up anew from the same roots, and bear quite 

 as well until the slight frosts about New Year's. Spring 

 Squash-vines cut off in August will become green at once and 

 bear a second crop, as will also Melon-vines. We plant Peas 

 in September and October for winter use, and in February for 

 summer use, the frost not being heavy enough to damage 

 them. Tomato-plants may be kept over, and do well the sec- 

 ond year. Onion and herb seeds are planted in October. The 

 herb-bed contains Sage, Peppermint, Thyme, Dill, Summer 

 Savory, Sweet Marjoram, Lavender, Borage and Caraway, and, 

 with the exception of Dill, Summer Savory and Caraway, these 

 are green the year through. We have a bed of large and small 

 Chilis and Lettuce during all the year. Lettuce is sown in a 

 seed-bed, and some of it is always ready to transplant. A 

 plant transplanted in February, with bottom-heat, will more 

 than cover the largest dinner-plate by the last of March. 

 Asparagus is ready for use in February, and the second year 

 our bed furnished large fine shoots into June. 



We have about fifty varieties of Roses, which bloom the year 

 around, the flowers being most perfect from March to June or 

 July. Grass is very tedious to grow in southern California, the 

 least bit of shade from a shrub turning it yellow. We have no 

 grass because our front yard is shaded by the Oaks, but we 

 cultivate Violet-lawns instead — one of Swanley (white), one of 

 Czar and one of Giant California. The lawn of Czar Violets 

 gives bloom the year around, and all are green. We have be- 

 sides other Violet plots. Our row of Freesias is in luxuriant 

 bloom from February until May. Chrysanthemums flower 

 from September to January, and can be coaxed to bloom on 

 into March. 



Our Palms are small now, but thrifty. Two plants of Phcenix 

 reclinata, set out soon after our arrival, are six and eight feet 

 across ; they are in the open ground. Our Kentias are potted 

 and kept in sheltered places from wind ; we have Kentia Fos- 

 teriana, K. Belmoreana and K. Canterburyana ; also a Seaforthia 

 elegans, potted. A Washingtonia filifera and W. sonora are 

 thriving in the open, and so are plants of Erythea armata and 

 E. edulis. Under one Oak is a rockery to make an exposure 

 for Ferns, and here seven of the native sorts are doubling the 

 size of wild ones. But a tale of the rockery flowers would 

 make a book. 



Outside of the labor of watering, a gardener can keep one 

 acre in fine shape by doing two days' work each week, after 

 the kitchen garden is planted. Watering is an item in this 

 land of perpetual summer, with rain in only four months of 

 the year, and is a daily necessity at twilight in many parts of 

 the garden. To one who delights in this kind of a playground, 

 considering that the skies in daylight are blue and cloudless 

 eight months in the year, with never a horrible thunder- 

 shower, the labor with hose and spray is not a heavy exercise. 



Lincoln Park, Calif. Jennie Kruckeberg. 



The Aspidistra Scale in California. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In 1869 Signoret described Chionaspis aspidistra;, found 

 on Aspidistra in cultivation in Europe. Maskell in 1891 re- 

 ported the species from Areca Catechu in India. Mr. E. E. 

 Green (in litt.) has detected a variety of it in Ceylon, and has 

 been so good as to send me specimens. This Ceylon form is 

 found on Musssenda frondosa. Finally, Mr. Craw has found 



the species on leaves of Aspidistra lurida, from Japan, exam- 

 ined in the course of his quarantine work. 



It was believed that the insect had not effected a landing on 

 our shores, but now Mr. S. A. Pease, Horticultural Commis- 

 sioner for San Bernardino County, California, sends me 

 some, mixed with Aspidistus ficus, on Aspidistra, from 

 San Bernardino. So long as this scale is confined to orna- 

 mental plants in hot-houses or gardens it is, perhaps, to be 

 considered as of comparatively small importance ; but a form 

 found by Takahashi on Orange, at Tokio, Japan, is extremely 

 close to it, and may even be specifically identical. This latter, 

 which I have named Chionaspis latus, seems to me to be a 

 valid species, but Mr. Hubbard, of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, for whose opinion I have great respect, believes that there 

 is only one species concerned. Should his view be correct, 

 we must regard C. aspidistras as rather a dangerous scale. The 

 male scales of these insects are white and tricarinate; the 

 female scales mytiliform, reddish brown. That of C. latus is 

 much broader than that of C. aspidistra;, but individuals of the 

 latter are sometimes quite broad, though not so broad as C. 

 latus. 



According to Mr. Pease, this Chionaspis was brought from 

 Japan to San Francisco two years ago on plants which were 

 fumigated, and then sent from there to Redlands. The 

 original plants were used there fsr propagation after having 

 been dipped in kerosene emulsion to insure disinfection. 

 The scale must, nevertheless, have come from the original 

 stock, and this well illustrates the necessity for destroying, 

 not merely fumigating, imported plants infested by exotic scale 

 insecis. 



New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



The Forest. 



Forest Protection.*— III. 



POURING the present century," says Professor Hartig, 



\_J in his Diseases 0/ Trees, "and especially dur- 

 ing the last few decades, the forests of Germany have 

 been threatened with dangers of a magnitude formerly 

 unknown. These have been occasioned by the gradual 

 relinquishment of natural regeneration, and by the substi- 

 tution of pure even-aged woods for woods consisting of 

 trees of different species and of various ages, but most of 

 all by the displacement of broad-leaved trees by pure 

 coniferous woods. It is especially noticeable that enemies 

 from the animal and vegetable kingdoms find favorable 

 conditions for rapid development in our modern forests, so 

 that the complaints of increasing devastation of woods 

 appear to be by no means unfounded." 



Of late years a vigorous reaction against the former 

 methods of forest management has been taking place in 

 Germany under the leadership of Karl Gayer, Professor of 

 Forestry in the University of Munich. Among the reasons 

 urged, the greater safety of mixed forests against the attacks 

 of both insects and fungi is conspicuous. The danger of 

 devastation from each of these sources is great in pure 

 forests, especially if they are composed of coniferous trees. 



The attacks of fungi never reach the extensiveness of 

 insect depredations, a most fortunate circumstance, since 

 the means of resisting them are almost entirely indirect, 

 and very inefficient at the best. Such remedies as exist are 

 prophylactic and disinfectant, and the most important of 

 them is to avoid woods of a single species and to keep the 

 forest in general good health. Measures against insects, 

 on the contrary, are often direct and effective, where the 

 relatively heavy expense can be borne. I may add that 

 owing to a copyist's error the destructiveness of insect 

 pests was not treated in my last paper with the emphasis 

 which it abundantly justifies. 



Among the conspicuous American fungi closely allied 

 to the European species described in the volume under 

 discussion are those of the genus ^Ecidium, to which the 

 Witches '-brooms and other excrescences on various species 

 of American Firs and Pines are due. Polyporus sulphureus, 

 a fungus destructive to the Oak in Europe, also attacks 



* A Manual of Forestry, by Dr. W. Schlich, CLE. Vol. iv., Foreft Protection, 

 by W. R. Fisher, B.A, London : Bradbury, Agnew & Co, 



