260 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 435. 



tended. A system of rotations must be practiced in blocks of 

 years, not in single years. But this alternating cropping can 

 be greatly shortened by giving greater attention to the addition 

 of fibre to the soil while the nursery stock is growing. There 

 are instances in which the alternation may be made short, and 

 some in which there need be hardly any. Professor Bailey said 

 that he did not look for a general corrective of the depletion of 

 nursery-lands, therefore, by the addition of concentrated or 

 chemical fertilizers, but by better management of the lands. 



Notes. 



Lima beans, from Virginia, the first of this season, sell for 

 forty cents a half -peck, the pods but poorly filled, and Windsor 

 or Broad beans at the same price. Corn is now coming from 

 southern New Jersey, and costs fifty cents a dozen. 



It was reported not long ago that among the twenty young 

 women thus far graduated from the Horticultural College at 

 Swansey, eight were growing fruit or vegetables for the mar- 

 ket, one was the manager of a bulb-growing nursery and two 

 were the managing gardeners of large estates, while the other 

 eight were utilizing their acquirements at home. 



The old home of the naturalist, Audubon, in Pennsylvania, 

 is on the south bank of the little River Perkiomen, about three 

 miles to the eastward of Phcenixville. The house, which is 

 locally famous as the Mill Grove House, was built nearly a 

 century and a half ago, and stands on a knoll which affords a 

 fine prospect. It is of stone, solid and substantial, thickly 

 overgrown with Ivy and shadowed by a number of tall Pines, 

 under the branches of which Audubon produced some of his 

 best work. In spite of certain interior changes, the chimney- 

 corner where his studying was done still remains as he knew it. 



The large white flowers and the purple stamens of the native 

 shrub Stuartia Virginica were lately seen in flower in the 

 Meehan nurseries, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and the buds 

 of S. pentagyna were about opening. A large specimen of 

 Pterostyrax hispidum, twenty feet high and as many feet 

 across, was covered with hundreds of racemes of drooping 

 white flowers. These give a fringe-like character which re- 

 sembles somewhat that of the Chionanthus. It seeds freely. 

 Cedrela Sinensis wasagain in flower in these nurseries, as it was 

 last year, the greenish white flowers borne on panicles two to 

 three feet in length, and pendulous from the ends of the 

 branches. The tree resembles Ailanthus glandulosa in ap- 

 pearance, but the flowers are entirely without odor. 



A large variety of fruits is now shown in this city. All 

 the berries are offered, as raspberries, blackberries, huckle- 

 berries, strawberries, currants and gooseberries. Cherries 

 from western New York are plentiful. The first LeConte pears 

 are here from Florida, with the last apples from cold storage. 

 The first grapes of the season, Niagaras, also came from 

 Florida last week. Botan plums are coming from the same 

 state, and the small Chickasaw and showy Wild Goose plums 

 from the southern Atlantic coast states. There are apricots, 

 peaches, plums and cherries from California, besides peaches 

 from Florida and Georgia. Oranges and lemons are, of course, 

 seen in the collections, and occasionally grape-fruit in excel- 

 lent condition ; medium-sized smooth specimens cost twenty 

 cents each. Watermelons are coming by the car-load and by 

 steamer ; one boat from Savannah on Friday discharged thirty- 

 three car-loads. Some large ripe muskmelons have been com- 

 ing from New Orleans, but most of this fruit from South Caro- 

 lina and Florida is small and immature. 



The smudge fires which are kindled in orchards to raise a 

 screen of smoke as a protection against frost are only effective, 

 says Mr. F. C. Barker in the Irrigation Age, on a broad flat 

 expanse of land, for in narrow valleys the cold air flows down 

 from the hill-sides underneath the smoke. The smoke, like 

 clouds, only acts as a screen to prevent radiation. Of course, 

 the heat from the fires has practically no effect in reducing the 

 intensity of the cold, but the efficiency of the fires may be 

 greatly increased by spraying them with water, so as to add 

 vapor to the atmosphere, and in this manner raise the dew- 

 point, which is reached at a higher temperature when the 

 vapor of the air is increased. Without this spraying the heat 

 would otherwise establish an upward current of warm air 

 which would rise above the space which required protection ; 

 while if water is sprayed on the fires the heat is utilized in 

 forming vapor which is distributed through the lower strata 

 of air, where it is most needed. As soon as this vapor is con- 

 densed at the dew-point this latent heat is set free and tends 

 to raise the temperature. 



The Apple orchards of Tasmania, from which a great deal 

 of fruit is shipped to England every spring, have a very dif- 

 ferent appearance from those of western New York, for exam- 

 ple. The trees are planted closely, sometimes twelve feet 

 apart each way, but usually sixteen feet apart each way. 

 They have a short main trunk or none at all, with from 

 five to nine main branches starting as nearly as possible 

 from the ground and forming an inverted cone open in the 

 centre. Each of these branches is kept covered with fruit 

 spurs as nearly as possible down to the ground, and, therefore, 

 a large portion of the apples are borne below the point where 

 our own trees carry any fruit at all. Summer pruning is prac- 

 ticed before the apples have matured, so as to check prolific 

 growth and encourage fruiting, and partly to let the sun in and 

 give the apples color. This also is the reason for having the 

 centre of the tree open, because the fruit does not color as 

 well as it does in climates which are drier and more sunny. 

 In some cases a stake is driven into the ground near the trunk 

 and passes up through the centre of the tree, and the branches 

 are supported by binder's twine attached like umbrella braces to 

 this central stake. In other cases props are used to hold up 

 the limbs. A very interesting description of these orchards, 

 with illustrations showing the low and closely pruned trees 

 loaded with fruit, is found in The Garden and Field, published 

 in Adelaide, South Australia. 



The American Association of Nurserymen held its twenty- 

 first annual meeting at the Sherman House, in Chicago, on the 

 10th and nth instant. Of the various horticultural trade or- 

 ganizations of this country this association holds the chief 

 place in the broad and catholic spirit of its management. Its 

 purpose is the serious acquisition and diffusion ot knowledge 

 in all that pertains to the growing of woody plants, not only in 

 the nursery, but in the orchard and on the lawn. Its member- 

 ship is comprised almost wholly of the owners and managers 

 of nursery businesses, and these are men whose sympathies 

 are necessarily as broad as the cultivation of plants itself. A 

 large part of its function must always be social, but its meet- 

 ings are happily free from that type of conviviality which is often 

 the discredit of trade or special gatherings. The chief interest 

 in the Chicago meeting centred in questions relating to customs 

 tariff on nursery-stock, and a committee (VV. C. Barry, J. H. 

 Hale, N. H. Albaugh) was appointed to aid in securing addi- 

 tions to the present tariffs ; in the laws designed to prevent the 

 free exchange of nursery-stock for the purpose of checking the 

 spread of the ban Jose scale and other pests, and which were 

 condemned because considered to discriminate unjustly and 

 to fail of their ostensible purpose ; in the causes for the decline 

 in prices of nursery-stock ; and in the means of maintaining 

 the productiveness of nursery-lands. The association is to 

 meet in St. Louis in 1897, and its new officers are Silas Wilson, 

 Iowa, President ; E. Meissner, Missouri, Vice-President ; George 

 C. Seager, Rochester, New York, Secretary ; N. A. Whitney, 

 Illinois, Treasurer. 



It will be of much interest to the scientific and gardening 

 world to learn the extent of the damage done to the Missouri 

 Botanical Garden by the destructive tornado that recently 

 visited St. Louis. The garden was in the direct path of the 

 wrecking wind at its extreme western point. As this was the 

 starting point of the destruction the garden suffered less 

 severely than the region just to the east, though the damage 

 was considerable, more especially in the timbered portion. 

 Something like 160 trees were either uprooted or broken off so 

 near the ground that it was found necessary to take them out. 

 Many of these were rare and choice plants, and an estimate of 

 their value would be impossible. More than 250 trees were 

 seriously damaged, many of them having their tops almost 

 entirely carried away. Some of these, by judicious pruning, 

 will, in a few years, grow to be beautiful trees again, while it is 

 probable that a few will die. The shrubbery was badly whipped, 

 but the damage to it was comparatively slight. The herba- 

 ceous plants were almost totally destroyed in the exposed 

 places, but these are now all replaced by reserved stock. The 

 grounds are rapidly being put in order, and in a month it is ex- 

 pected that all vestige of the storm will have been cleared 

 away and only the vacant places left to indicate its awful work. 

 It is fair to say that the damage is not so great as to mar the 

 beauty of the garden nor to impair its usefulness as a place of 

 instruction. In these particulars it will not suffer in the least. 

 The injury to the buildings was mainly in broken windows and 

 damaged roofs. The glass portion of the roof of one large 

 greenhouse was entirely demolished, and the roof of the 

 southern half of the herbarium and library building was car- 

 ried away. By prompt action of the employees in the library 

 building its contents received no damage whatever. 



