20O 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 429. 



flowers appear before the leaves, opened here fully a month 

 ago, but just now L. Morrowi is covered thickly with its little 

 white flowers somewhat in advance of the Tartarian Honey- 

 suckles. This is a beautiful plant, and later on it makes a fine 

 appearance when in fruit, although, perhaps, not quite as inter- 

 esting in late June as L. Ruprechtiana with its dark red bloom- 

 covered berries. These two are among the very best of gar- 

 den shrubs for this latitude, being perfectly hardy and of 

 admirable shape and easily propagated. L. Morrowi comes 

 from Japan and L. Ruprechtiana from Manchuria. 



The single-flowered form of Peeonia tenuifolia is rare in gar- 

 dens, although, like many other single-flowered Pceonias, it is 

 handsomer than the double-flowered variety. The segments 

 of the leaves of the single-flowered P. tenuifolia are rather 

 broader than those of the plant more generally grown, which is 

 also beautiful in form and color. Both are perfectly hardy, and 

 once planted they need only ordinary care to flower abun- 

 dantly every spring. Another beautiful flower which is rather 

 ahead of its time is the Satin Flower, Ornithogalum nutans, a 

 plant of the Lily family, with a raceme of half a dozen nodding 

 bell-shaped flowersan inch long with white perianth segments 

 flushed with pale green without and shining like satin within. 

 It is an old-fashioned flower and it does not deserve the neglect 

 into which it has fallen. 



Professor W. F. Massey writes to The Southern Planter that 

 he begins to doubt whether the Albemarle Pippin is simply 

 the Newtown Pippin modified by soil and climate. During 

 last winter he has had winter apples sent from the best Pippin- 

 growing region of Albemarle, produced by trees which had 

 been brought from the north. They were not identical with 

 the genuine Albemarle Pippin, but were distinctly the northern 

 Newtown Pippin. He thinks there is danger that the growers 

 of what is known as the Albemarle Pippin will lose their pres- 

 tige if they continue to get Newtown Pippin trees from northern 

 nurseries and plant them in the hope of getting Albemarle 

 Pippins. The only safe course, he thinks, is to propagate from 

 the original Ragged Mountain stock and consider the apple as 

 a distinct variety. Whether it is so or not is a matter for 

 pomologists to discuss. If the two varieties are not distinct 

 he believes that it will take generations to change the northern 

 form to a genuine Albemarle Pippin. He adds that WineSaps 

 and York Imperials grown in the Piedmont countryare becom- 

 ing the most popular apples in the northern and foreign mar- 

 kets, and that both in Virginia and North Carolina there are 

 thousands of acres where these varieties can be grown, to one 

 acre where the Albemarle Pippin will thrive. 



Some time ago we published an article relating to the appre- 

 ciable drying up of the small lakes of Minnesota and of South 

 Dakota. From this it appeared that throughout the whole 

 area of these states the larger lakes had diminished in volume, 

 and the smaller ones have dried up. The monthly Weather 

 Review, published by the Department of Agriculture and 

 edited by Professor Cleveland Abbe, in speaking of these facts, 

 says that the average rainfall for ten years past may have been 

 slightly below the normal in these states, but not so much 

 below as to justify the conclusion that this change in the lake 

 levels is due to any great change of climate or meteorological 

 condition. The true reason for this drying up of the lakes is 

 said to be the cultivation of the soil and the artificial changes 

 in drainage. Every acre of virgin prairie plowed up and culti- 

 vated begins to evaporate into the air the moisture that it 

 formerly held, every new drain that is dug helps the water that 

 once settled in the soil to flow off into the river. Agriculture 

 begins with an effort to drain rich lowlands that are too wet 

 and ends by artificially watering the dry uplands and warm 

 lowlands — that is, we begin by evaporating and draining off 

 the water that we eventually wish to get back again. To all 

 this it may be said that the advocates of underdraining uplands 

 claim that this practice by changing the texture of the soil and 

 in other ways actually leaves more available moisture for the 

 roots of crops than could be found in the same soil before the 

 drains were laid. That is, it is held that underdraining is a 

 good defense against drought. 



Professor John B. Smith, of the New Jersey Experiment Sta- 

 tion, writes to The Rural New- Yorker that he is about leaving 

 for California to study the character of the ladybird beetles, 

 which feed on scale insects in general and upon the San Jose 

 scale in particular, so as to determine which of them offer the 

 best chance of surviving in the east. When he has selected 

 the California insects he will distribute them at different places 

 in New Jersey and in Florida, and colonies will also be sent to 

 Maryland and Virginia, so as to give these insects from the 



Pacific coast as many chances of becoming acclimated as pos- 

 sible. It may be that they will survive without any trouble in 

 Florida, and from Florida colonies can be easily sent north. 

 If they survive in Virginia it will be easy to select specimens 

 to send to New Jersey hereafter, and the chances are that each 

 generation will become a little better fitted to sustain our 

 changeable climate. The reason for all this is that the San 

 JosS scale, introduced irom California some years ago, is 

 increasing rapidly in the east, and no applications have been 

 as yet successful in arresting their progress. On the Pacific 

 coast there are natural enemies like the ladybirds introduced 

 from Australia, which hold the scales in check, and although 

 there are many difficulties in the way of introducing insects 

 from one climate to another where they differ so widely as the 

 Pacific coast climate and our own, still there is ground for hope 

 that some species, if properly selected, might endure our 

 climate. At any rate, it is worth trying, and the Legislature of 

 the Slate of New Jersey, at the request of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, appropriated last winter a thousand dollars for the 

 experiment. Professor Smith's mission and its results will be 

 watched with interest. 



Bidwell peaches, from Florida, the first of this fruit seen this 

 year, were sold here on the 7th instant, and now command 

 Si. 00 to $1.25 a dozen at retail. Peaches from New York state 

 hot-houses, the white skin beautifully marked with pink, cost 

 from $2.00 to $10.00 a dozen in boxes holding six neatly 

 wrapped fruits. Cherries, from California, are coming in lim- 

 ited quantities, owing to injury to the crop by frost, and not in 

 the best condition, but are of fair size and color. They cost 

 $[.00 a pound. The first cherries of the season from North 

 Carolina reached New York on Monday, but were small and 

 unattractive, and met no demand. Richly colored strawber- 

 ries, from Charleston, of large size, long and green at the tip, 

 on Saturday sold for thirty cents a quart box at retail, and the 

 first Downings, from Maryland, more spherical and even deep 

 red in color, brought twenty-five cents. Cups of Sharpless 

 strawberries, from near-by hot-houses, containing a dozen 

 immense fruits, cost fifty cents, and smaller berries twenty 

 cents. These are decorated with their own foliage. Navel 

 oranges, from California, may still be had for seventy-five 

 cents, and grape-fruit, from Jamaica, for J1.00 to $2.00 a dozen. 

 Limes cost from thirty to fifty cents a dozen. Shipments of 

 Jamaica oranges continue, and one steamship last week dis- 

 charged 228 barrels of this fruit at this port, besides 14,000 

 cocoanuts. Porto Rico pineapples of the largest size, with 

 luxuriant tops and three to six heavy shoots at the base, com- 

 mand seventy-five cents each. Lychee nuts are seen in all the 

 best fruit-stores, and, more rarely, cocoanuts in their outer 

 shell, and Brazil nuts in round shells five inches in diameter, 

 each enclosing from eighteen to twenty-four individual nuts 

 closely packed together. 



The windows of the uptown flower-stores still make attrac- 

 tive displays of choice flowers in simple and harmonious 

 arrangements. One window of the four in one of the best 

 establishments, on Saturday, showed half a dozen small vases 

 containing loose, graceful masses of the yellow Sweet Sultan, 

 Centaurea moschata, the clear lemon-fringed flowers standing 

 out effectively above the Asparagus with which the floor was 

 loosely carpeted. The only other decoration in this window 

 was an immense bronze vase bearing a mass of the bold and 

 striking Parrot tulips, with their confusion of rich yellow, 

 green and crimson splashes and stripes, relieved by handsome 

 glaucous foliage. Neat and tasteful flat bamboo baskets in 

 ttieir natural color, for orders for cut flowers, were displayed by 

 another firm. Here the clean and cool-looking white tile 

 flooring made a suitable summer relief for vases of Moss 

 rosebuds, a bright mass of Meteor roses, sprays of flowering 

 Almond and Dogwood, and boughs of Apple-blossoms. The 

 most conspicuous flowers were clumps of late single crimson 

 tulips, with purple-black markings at the base of the petals. 

 Other showy exhibits were groups of light gladiolus, the bright 

 red Peeonia tenuifolia, and William Scott, Tidal Wave and 

 Helen Keller carnations, while among less showy offerings 

 were the delicate white blossoms of Swainsonia, the yellow, 

 flowered Alyssum saxatile, lily-of-the-valley, handsomely 

 marked pansies, violets and sweet peas. The excessively hot 

 days in April forced hot-house plants into early and profuse 

 flowering, some kinds being urged six weeks ahead of the 

 rightful season. Except in the case of carnations, which had 

 been in scant supply, a glut naturally followed. Now that this 

 is past there is sufficient scarcity of roses and some other 

 cut flowers to hold up wholesale prices, and the season 

 for flowers grown under glass will undoubtedly be short- 

 ened. 



