230 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 432. 



same kind of tree, which had been used as a sleeper and has 

 been partly imbedded in the ground for forty-three years, does 

 not show any decay even in the sapwood. 



Virgilia trees are flowering in the parks and gardens about 

 New York this year with unusual profusion. The weight of 

 the blossoms is so great as to give the branches a still more 

 drooping habit even than they naturally possess, and as they 

 wave slowly in the wind the long racemes of pure white flow- 

 ers among the light green and delicate foliage make a picture 

 which cannot be excelled for beauty and grace, especially 

 when seen against some dark background like a mass of 

 conifers. 



Since the account of Mr. Burbank's new Canna, which 

 appears in the correspondence columns of this issue, was in 

 type, we have again received from Mr. Frank Pierson speci- 

 men flowers of Austria, the new Italian hybrid. The color is 

 a luminous golden-yellow, very pure and lighter in tone than 

 that of the Canna Italia and but faintly shaded at the base of 

 the petals. The splendid flowers stand above the foliage on 

 long stems ; they are flat, spreading, bold in appearance and 

 nearly six inches across. 



During the five business days' of last week 2,420 cases of 

 evaporated apples were received by wholesale merchants in 

 this city, and 2,226 packages of other dried fruits. Since Sep- 

 tember 1st 159,061 cases of evaporated apples have been 

 handled in this market, and 678,221 packages of other sorts of 

 dried fruits. During last week 7,096 packages of evaporated 

 and dried fruits left this port, and since the season began, nine 

 months ago, 323,780 packages have been exported. Besides 

 apples, evaporated and dried raspberries, blackberries, huckle- 

 berries, cherries, plums, prunes, peaches, apricots are now 

 being sold. 



Willow Twig, Cooper's Market, Ben Davis and Roxbury 

 Russet were comprised in 1,397 barrels of apples shipped to 

 this city during last week. The highest grade of Willow Twig 

 brings $5.75 a barrel at wholesale ; Ben Davis, $5.00, and Rox- 

 bury Russet, $3.25. Cherries from near-by points are offered 

 at fifteen cents a pound, retail. Cultivated blackberries of good 

 size and quality, from North Carolina, cost twenty cents, and 

 huckleberries, from the same state, an equal price. Green 

 gooseberries are in limited supply, and sell for fifteen cents a 

 quart. The first watermelons of the season came from Florida 

 early last week, and sold at from sixty to seventy-five cents, 

 wholesale. 



One of the most important vegetable productions of Persia 

 is the crop of dates which are grown to great perfection in 

 many parts of the country. The Date Palms begin to yield at 

 about three years of age, reaching their prime at thirty, and a 

 good yield for one tree is from eighty to one hundred pounds. 

 The flowers are fertilized by hand, one male tree supplying 

 pollen for perhaps forty pistillate trees. The dates used for 

 export are those that grow at the summit of the trees. From 

 the action of the sun they become hard and dry and are thus 

 easily packed, while those on the lower branches remain soft 

 and are kept for local consumption. The exports of dates of 

 the country could be easily doubled by planting fresh groves 

 of Palm. 



The first sugar corn of the season, from Florida, is now 

 offered in our markets at seventy-five cents a dozen ears. 

 Peas are coming from New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. 

 All the summer vegetables, but Lima beans, may now 

 be had well grown and ripened, excepting tomatoes, which 

 for the past few weeks have been poorly colored. Potatoes 

 have been plentiful and cheap, the best Bermudas cost- 

 ing $4.00 a barrel at wholesale, those from Florida $3.00, 

 and from New Orleans $2.50. As many as 15,000 barrels of 

 this staple arrived from the south during last week. Owing 

 to dry weather the bulk of the stock is small. The supply of 

 domestic potatoes from last year is still considerable. During 

 five days of last week 40,806 barrels of the latter were received 

 in this city, besides 2,875 barrels from Bermuda and the West 

 Indies. In the same time Bermuda sent 21,205 crates of onions, 

 and 5,967 bags came from Egypt. 



One of the remarkable and often observed correlations be- 

 tween the scent of flowers and the animals who visit them 

 is the development of the floral odor just at the time 

 when the insects fly. Professor Kerner cites the example of 

 certain species of Honeysuckle, Petunia, some Orchids and 

 other plants which smell faintly or not at all in the daytime, 

 but give off abundant odor between sunset and midnight, just 



when the insects fly which feed on them. Various Pinks and 

 Pelargoniums, which are visited by small night moths, exhale 

 a strong odor of Hyacinth at twilight, but give off no scent 

 during the day. On the other hand, many flowers which are 

 visited by bees and butterflies in the daytime become scent- 

 less at sunset, like the ornamental Clover, Trifolium resupina- 

 tum, which smells of honey in the sunshine and becomes scent- 

 less when the bees return to their hives in the night. The 

 same is true of the Grass of Parnassus, and a species of 

 Daphne, which grows in the Pyrenees and emits a delicate 

 violet odor during the day, but has no smell whatever after 

 nightfall. 



If the fruit-growers of the country suffer from diseased trees 

 and vines, which can be prevented by spraying, it will be their 

 own fault, as the literature which gives full directions for the 

 prevention and cure of these ordinary diseases is increasing 

 every month. A farmers' bulletin, entitled Spraying for Fruit 

 Diseases, contains the latest authoritative directions which we 

 have seen. It is written by Professor Galloway, Chief of the 

 Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology, and gives the 

 method of preparing the variousfungicides, the special qualities 

 of each and the proper time and the best means of applying 

 them. The various diseases of the Grape, Apple, Pear, Quince, 

 Cherry and Plum which yield to treatment are also briefly, but 

 accurately, described, and all this within the compass of a 

 dozen pages. In the final paragraph fruit-growers are urged 

 to bear constantly in mind that the treatments are not curative, 

 but preventive, and that it is, therefore, necessary that the 

 spraying should be made at the proper time and in a thorough 

 manner. Of course, a saving of both time and money will 

 follow where experienced and trustworthy labor and first-class 

 machinery are used, and the plants will be more certainly pro- 

 tected. Poor help, cheap makeshift machinery and lack of 

 personal and intelligent supervision by the fruit grower him- 

 self are the chief causes of failure. 



We have been interested in a little pamphlet on Potato Cul- 

 ture on the Island of Jersey, written by the Rev. Charles B. 

 Merrill, of Beloit, Wisconsin, and published at Medina, Ohio. 

 It is a complete description of the methods of raising Potatoes 

 for the great markets of London and Liverpool in the Channel 

 Islands, and shows how what is called high-pressure garden- 

 ing can be made to pay on small areas. The details of the prac- 

 tice in the Island of Jersey might, perhaps, not be strictly adapted 

 to our different climates and soils, but as the principles of plant 

 growth are the same the world over there is much in these 

 pages to make American farmers reflective. In a soil which 

 has been cultivated for a thousand years and which has grown 

 richer all the time, where careful tillage makes it easy to work, 

 and clean cultivation has practically exterminated weeds, the 

 Jersey farmer has a great advantage to begin with, but he does 

 not neglect his crops for this reason, but gives them all the 

 more care. He mellows the soil deeply, fertilizes it freely 

 with manures which have been made as fine as possible by 

 rotting, grinding or liquidizing, spares no expense to secure 

 the best of seed, of which he plants thirty or forty bushels to 

 the acre, and sets the tubers in a particular way in every 

 hill, cultivates thoroughly, harvests with the greatest of care, 

 markets the crop as soon as it is gathered, and then hauls it 

 over the smoothest of roads so that not a single potato is 

 bruised or chafed on the road. The seed is never cut, but 

 the whole tuber is planted, and then all the vigor is thrown 

 into two or three strong shoots, rather than into a dozen weak 

 ones. The result of all this care is abundant and paying crops. 

 Seven thousand and seven acres, or one-third of the crop-land 

 of the whole island, was planted in 1894, and 60,605 tons were 

 exported, with 15,000 tons kept at home for seed and food. 

 The average yield of the whole per acre was 333 bushels, or 

 more than ten tons. The average price received an acre was 

 $343, or an average net cash of $260. The highest yields to the 

 acre were 500 to 600 bushels, and the highest receipts to the 

 acre were from $500 to $600. This was not an exceptional 

 year, but for twelve years past the yields and prices have 

 ranged about the same. In other words.during these twelve years 

 more than twenty millions of dollars — that is, more than $300 for 

 each acre of the Potato area every year have been brought into 

 this country. Potato-culture is such a settled and sure source 

 of profit that it seems to have no element of experiment or 

 uncertainty, so that the cash rents of land range from $25 to 

 $65 an acre a year, and the lands sell for from $600 to $1,500 

 an acre, if they are offered, which is rarely done, except be- 

 cause of death or misfortune. Though most of the farmers 

 till their own land, yet applications for rent are continuous, 

 and farmers whose fields are in fine condition have been 

 offered and have refused $70 an acre annual rent. 



