190 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 428. 



merit stations than this, and the time ought not to be far 

 distant when nut-trees can be propagated with the same 

 ease and rapidity as our ordinary orchard fruits. 



Notes. 



Egyptian onions are already seen in the wholesale markets, 

 the first shipment of 250 crates having arrived a few days ago. 

 The Havana product is about out of market, but nearly 30,000 

 crates came from Bermuda last week. 



Pineapples, from Cuba, continue to come in limited quan- 

 tities, about 5,000 barrels having reached this port during last 

 week. The extremely high prices commanded by the earliest 

 receipts of small lots of this fruit are broken in view of larger 

 supplies. From eight to eighteen cents apiece is now the rate 

 by the hundred. The first cargo shipments are expected by 

 the middle of May, when the Bahamas will also contribute to 

 the supply. 



New potatoes are now coming from California, Louisiana, 

 Florida, Cuba and Bermuda, and prices at wholesale range 

 from $6.00 to $10.00 a barrel. The highest grade of sweet 

 potatoes, from Vineland, costs $5.00 in barrel lots. During last 

 week 16,072 barrels of domestic potatoes were brought into 

 this city, and since October 1st 1,091,516 barrels have been 

 sold here, besides 5,986 sacks from Europe and 11,805 barrels 

 from Bermuda. 



The apple export season is now nearly ended, 154 barrels 

 having been shipped from New York last week, while 267,319 

 barrels were forwarded to Europe from this port since Sep- 

 tember 1st. For home supply 4,622 barrels were received 

 here during the six days ending with last Saturday, and since 

 September 1st, 687,212 barrels. Choice Ben Davis apples now 

 cost the retail buyer $5.50 a barrel, Baldwins $4.50, Roxbury 

 Russets $4.00, and Golden Russets $3.50. 



More than two hundred tons of cut Narcissus flowers are 

 sent every year from the Scilly Islands to England. In addi- 

 tion to these, the bulbs raised here, which have excellent free- 

 flowering qualities, constitute an important branch of trade. 

 Mr. F. W. Burbidge states that in the crowded manufacturing 

 centres of England these flowers and bulbs are as cheap as 

 they are beautiful, and are largely bought by artisans, so that 

 flower-farming in the Scilly Islands, at least, is not a business 

 which depends for support on the luxurious rich, but one which 

 brings freshness and beauty into the homes of the people. 



The Spinach Leaf Miner is a small white maggot which tun- 

 nels through the leaves of Spinach, Beet and Pigweed, and it 

 has been multiplying with such rapidity in the market-garden 

 district of Long Island that the cultivation of Spinach will have 

 to be abandoned unless it can be controlled. There seems to be 

 no period of the year during which insecticides can be applied 

 with success, and the only feasible plan of controlling it is to 

 destroy all the Pigweed and plow old Spinach fields late in the 

 fall and early in the spring. A bulletin has just been issued 

 from the Geneva Experiment Station on the subject in which 

 the insect is fully described and figured. 



We have received a copy of the American Florist Company's 

 Directory, a list of the florists, nurserymen and seedsmen in 

 the United States and Canada, to which is added a list of the 

 park superintendents and directors of botanical gardens and 

 cemeteries. Besides this there is a comprehensive catalogue 

 of the Chrysanthemums, Cannas, Roses and Carnations which 

 have been introduced into cultivation in this country, together 

 with the names of the introducers, the date of introduction and 

 a brief description of each plant. A list of the officers of the 

 most important horticultural societies in the country, with a 

 brief history of other important associations in some way con- 

 nected with the nursery, flower and seed trade, complete this 

 compact and highly useful volume. 



A bulletin of the Maine Experiment Station makes the fol- 

 lowing record of some of the comparatively new varieties of 

 wrinkled Peas as tested last year. Station (Gregory), mod- 

 erately vigorous grower, five to six peas in a pod, quality good, 

 edible in from forty-five to fifty-five days from planting ; Morn- 

 ing Star (Cliilds), growth rather less vigorous, five or six peas 

 in a pod, quality excellent, edible in from forty-five to fifty-five 

 days ; Exonian (Thorburn & Co.), vines of medium height, but 

 very slender, foliage noticeably light-colored, six peas to the 

 pod, edible in from fifty to sixty days ; Early Woodside (Smith), 

 rather dwarf, six peas to the pod, quality good, edible in from 

 sixty to seventy days ; Echo (Burpee), moderately vigorous, 

 seven peas to the pod, edible in from sixty-five to seventy-five 



days ; Nott's Excelsior (Maule), dwarf habit, about a foot high, 

 five or six peas to the pod, maturing in from fifty to fifty-five 

 days, an excellent pea. 



The March issue of the Bulletin de la Societe Centrale Fores- 

 tiire de Belgiqut contains an interesting note on a plantation 

 of White Pine (Pinus Strobus) about two and a half acres in 

 area, situated near the railway station of Gedinne, in the prov- 

 ince of Namur. The trees, which have been planted twenty- 

 five years, have already been thinned three times since 1888, 

 the thinnings having been sold for six hundred francs, or in 

 round numbers $125. Two thousand two hundred trees are 

 now standing, and their measurement shows that the planta- 

 tion contains three hundred and fifty-four cubic metres of 

 timber, equal to an annual growth of more than fourteen 

 cubic metres over the whole area. It is stated that the White 

 Pine is distinguished in Belgium by its rapid growth and hardi- 

 ness, resisting the severest cold and the effects of late spring 

 frosts, and growing, when mixed with other trees, more 

 rapidly than any of its associates. 



The eighth report of the Mississippi Experiment Station 

 gives the results of a series of experiments with grasses and 

 forage plants which have been conducted there now for eight 

 years past for the purpose of ascertaining what plants will 

 restore fertility to the soil most rapidly while giving fair re- 

 turns in hay or pasture, which ones will make the best perma- 

 nent meadow, which ones are most suitable for permanent 

 pasture, especially for winter grazing, and which hay-producing 

 plants are of the best temporary use. Five hundred and 

 eighty-six species have been tested on different varieties of 

 soil, the seeds having been sown under different conditions in 

 all parts of the state. When this work was begun it is said 

 that no hay was grown in Mississippi except that used for 

 home consumption, and thousands of tons were brought into 

 the state every year. The average yield per acre has since then 

 been more than doubled, and in 1895 it was eighty-four per 

 cent, above the average yield of the whole United States and 

 114 per cent, in excess ot the average yield in the northern and 

 central states of the Mississippi valley. 



In the last number of The Country Gentleman, Mr. S. D. 

 Willard, of Geneva, states that the extreme cold weather of 

 January has proved very disastrous to the orchards in the 

 great fruit region of western New York. Of Plums, the French 

 Damson, which is grown in a limited way, is the only variety 

 which is likely to give any crop at all. Such entire failure 

 has never been known since the growing of plums became a 

 recognized industry in this section, and it proves that the 

 fruit cannot endure a temperature of twenty-two degrees below 

 zero. The extremely dry autumn which left no moisture in 

 the soil to supply the demands of evaporation may have aided 

 in the injury, and yet the trees held their leaves very well and 

 developed a good stand of fruit-buds and were in apparently 

 good condition to withstand such winters as are usually expe- 

 rienced. With the exception of Hill's Chili, few varieties of 

 Peach-trees show a single live bud. Sour Cherries will set an 

 average crop, while of the sweet varieties Elkhorn and Wind- 

 sor are in much the best condition. This last is a compara- 

 tively new variety which originated in Windsor, Ontario, and 

 was disseminated by Ellwanger & Barry. It is of fine quality 

 and beautiful appearance and its hardiness will give it addi- 

 tional value. 



Andrew S. Fuller, widely known as a writer on subjects re- 

 lated to agriculture and horticulture, died suddenly of heart 

 failure on Monday at his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in 

 the sixty-eighth year of his age. Mr. Fuller was agricultural 

 editor of the New York Weekly Sun for more than a quarter 

 of a century, and at different times he had been connected 

 with The Rural New-Yorker, The Tribune, The Agriculturist 

 and American Gardening. He was the author of several 

 popular books on arboriculture, small-fruit culture and the 

 propagation of plants, and he had recently completed a treatise 

 on nut-culture, which he considered his most important work. 

 He was an authority in some branches of entomology, an 

 enthusiastic student and experimenter in his chosen field, and 

 was absorbed in his favorite occupations until the very hour of 

 his death. He had gathered about him at Ridgewood a choice 

 collection of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, which he 

 grew with rare skill and distributed with unfailing liberality. 

 His orchard of nut-bearing trees was especially interesting, and 

 it is sad to think that the world will lose the benefit of Mr. 

 Fuller's trained habits of observation as he watched the beha- 

 vior of the numerous varieties he was testing and reported on 

 the value of different modes of treating them. 



