120 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 421. 



ture, and published at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, has just come to 

 this office. It is edited by M. Crawford, and it is full of prac- • 

 tical instruction on the cultivation of fruits, vegetables and 

 flowers. It costs twenty-five cents a year. 



The stormy weather of the past week has made dull trade in 

 the fruit markets, and shipments, too, have been interfered 

 with. Oranges are commanding somewhat better prices, 

 while lemons continue so cheap as to involve heavy losses to 

 importers. About 110,000 boxes of oranges and 320,000 boxes 

 of lemons are now on the way from Mediterranean ports. 

 Cocoanuts are abundant, some 95,000 having reached this port 

 during last week. The supply of Cape Cod cranberries is be- 

 coming small, and some fancy berries have recently sold at 

 wholesale for $1 1.50 a barrel. 



The vacancy in the Department of Botany at Cornell Uni- 

 versity, made by the resignation of Professor A. N. Prentiss, 

 has been filled by promoting to his place Mr. George F. Atkin- 

 son, who has been Associate Professor. Assistant Professor 

 Rowlee has been promoted to the highest grade of Assistant 

 Professor ; Mr. E. J. Durand has been appointed Instructor, and 

 K. M. Wiegand, Assistant. Under the reorganized scheme of 

 study, courses in comparative morphology, mycology and 

 algology are offered by Professor Atkinson and Instructor Du- 

 rand, and courses in comparative histology, systematic botany 

 and dendrology by Professor Rowlee and Mr. Wiegand. 



Mr. F. E. Emory, Agriculturist of the North Carolina Experi- 

 ment' Station, has just issued an interesting circular on hillside 

 terraces — that is, a succession of comparatively level benches 

 arranged on sloping ground to prevent the soil from washing 

 away. All who have seen the unsightly gullies in the rolling 

 lands of the south and who appreciate the enormo 's loss of 

 plant-food which is washed away every year will rect ;;nize the 

 importance of any device which will arrest this waste. The 

 method of constructing these terraces is carefii n y explained, 

 and the value of the practice has been proved by ten years' 

 experience. It is a misfortune that the bulletin is printed on 

 such poor paper that the illustrations have little value. 



The frost which came in California last week after the warm 

 weather did considerable damage to Almonds, Apricots, Cher- 

 ries and Peaches in Sonoma and other counties, but the 

 fruit prospects in the state generally are said to be unusually 

 bright. In spite of the freezing weather at the end of the year 

 the shipments of oranges from Southern Calfornia have paid 

 a better average, perhaps, than ever before. Over 2,400,000 

 boxes have been shipped eastward, and 8oo,ooo_boxes still re- 

 main ; the price offered has averaged $3.50 a box, of which the 

 grower gets a clear $2.00, or $300 an acre. As it will be some 

 years before Florida can actively compete in this fruit, invest- 

 ments made in Orange groves in Southern California are lik lv 

 to continue profitable. 



Kaffir Corn, one of the so-called non-saccharine Sorghums, 

 has been found to flourish well in Kansas, Oklahoma and Ne- 

 braska, where the soil warms up early and where droughts are 

 severe. It might flourish well in the east in dry seasons if it 

 were not planted until the soil was thoroughly warm. Fifty, 

 and even more, bushels of seed have been grown to the acre 

 in Kansas, and frequent tests have shown that the seed is 

 almost equal in feeding value to Indian corn, but it is princi- 

 pally useful as a forage crop. Kaffir Corn, Jerusalem Corn, 

 Milo Maize, Brown Darra are all varieties of this group of 

 Sorghums which are especially useful on account of their 

 drought-resisting qualities ; both as forage and for the grain 

 which they produce they have been proved to be more desir- 

 able than the so-called saccharine group of Sorghums. 



Professor Taft, of the Michigan Agricultural College, says 

 that the Peach growers in that state who have sprayed their 

 trees with the Bordeaux mixture, in order to prevent curled 

 leaf and rot, have found a decrease in the number of their trees 

 attacked by the yellows. Some of these orchards, where the 

 disease had neverfailed to appear in previous years, have been 

 entirely free from it for two seasons, while its ravages have 

 been continued in surrounding orchards. This does not prove 

 that the disease can be prevented by using fungicides, but 

 since it is known that the yellows is highly contagious and that 

 it probably is spread by germs of some kind, it is possible that 

 trees kept covered with copper sulphate are protected against 

 it. Peach growers who spray their trees just before the buds 

 start in spring, and once or twice after the blossoms fall, will 

 certainly find that this treatment will pay against rot and leaf- 

 curl, even if it fails to. arrest the progress of the more dreaded 

 yellows. 



In the absence of statistics relating to forestry in this coun- 

 try a circular of facts and figures regarding our forest resources, 

 just issued by Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Division of For- 

 estry, is an interesting little document. The data given are, 

 of course, only approximations, but they give estimates as far 

 as practicable on such important points as the extent of our 

 forest area, the character of the forest growth in different 

 regions, the amount of timber standing, the annual cut and 

 value of these products, the amount of exports and imports 

 and the extent of losses by fire. This is followed by a brief 

 description of the principal centres of production of the lead- 

 ing commercial timbers, including the White pine, the Red 

 pine, the Bull pine (Pinus ponderosa), the Long-leaf pine, the 

 Cuban pine, the Short-leaf pine, the Loblolly pine, spruce and 

 fir, the Douglas spruce, hemlock, Bald cypress, Red cedar, 

 redwood, oak, hickory, ash, poplar, cottonwood and other 

 hard woods. 



Not long ago two men were convicted of plundering the 

 lanes of Devonshire, England, of the Ferns which give them 

 such beauty. Five hundredweight of Fern roots were found 

 in their possession as the results of former raids, and it is not dif- 

 ficult to imagine how the banks and hedgerows will be changed 

 in appearance after such wholesale pillage. In speaking of 

 this case The Gardeners' Magazine says that if these plants 

 should receive proper care, so as to lighten up the gloom of 

 some city or town room with their foliage, the case would not 

 be so bad. But these raiders select a time when the roots are 

 least likely to survive removal, especially after they have been 

 carelessly stored. These spoils of shady lanes are hawked 

 about for sale, it seems, in open barrows, and are often noth- 

 ing but rootless crowns, and as they are often baked in the 

 glare of city streets for days together, not one in a thousand 

 will ever survive to make a good specimen. Obviously many 

 buyers are found, however, or the trade would not exist, and 

 yet it is said that very few nurserymen in all the country find 

 it worth while to raise or distribute even the most beautiful 

 varieties which have been developed from the common British 

 Ferns. 



Mr. Theodore L. Mead, of Oviedo, Florida, writes an inter- 

 esting note to the Orchid Review on the Vitality of Pollen. He 

 has had success in hybridizing Laslias and Cattleyas with pollen 

 which had been kept after removal from the flowers for two 

 weeks, and in some cases even more than a month. On other 

 occasions he has failed with pollen that had not been kept so 

 long, and he well says that it would be instructive if other ex- 

 perimenters would state how many good pods they have 

 secured from pollen which has been kept three weeks or more, 

 and especially if they would specify the conditions as to dry- 

 ness, darkness, ventilation and the like, which seem important 

 in keeping the pollen alive. His own method has been to put 

 the pollen in paper packets, and these are kept in tin boxes. 

 He has found no advantage in enclosing it in gelatine capsules 

 or other almost air-tight coverings. Mr. Mead thinks that the 

 pollen parent has much to do with the length of time required 

 for ripening seed, and gives many examples which show what 

 he considers a tendency toward a mean between the normal 

 time for ripening seed of each parent. It must be admitted, 

 however, that the real cause of the variation of the periods of 

 ripening between crossed and uncrossed capsules has not been 

 satisfactorily determined. 



The stock of apples to be depended upon for the remainder 

 of the season is smaller than usual at this time of year, not 

 many more than 100,000 barrels being held in the entire coun- 

 try. Since September 1st about 650,000 barrels have come to 

 this city, 265,000 of which were exported. The New York 

 Tribune says that the export trade has been large and fairly 

 profitable, notwithstanding that transatlantic countries, as a 

 rule, had full crops. The foreign apples, however, were mostly 

 early ones, which were mainly consumed before New Year's, 

 so that a good market existed for American apples. London, 

 Liverpool and Glasgow, as usual, were the best markets, and 

 some satisfactory shipments were made to Paris. Not a few 

 apples have come east from Kansas and Missouri, and some 

 choice Pippins are now on the way from Oregon, the fruits 

 separately wrapped in paper and packed in boxes holding a 

 bushel. These are intended for export. Altogether, this sea- 

 son, 750,000 barrels of American apples have been exported, 

 including the Canadian output. As but few more will go 

 abroad, the total foreign shipments will fall short of last year, 

 when 1,438,155 barrels were exported, the largest amount 

 ever sent out of this country in a single season, excepting 

 only 1891-92, when 1,450,336 barrels were sent to foreign 

 markets. 



