270 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 436. 



against these pests in American greenhouses are not men- 

 tioned. The various fungous diseases to which plants 

 under glass are subjected are hardly alluded to, and the 

 book seems to have been prepared before the modern 

 methods of preventing rust and other contagious diseases 

 were discovered. It is a large octavo of 361 pages. 



Notes. 



A summer meeting of the Nebraska State Horticultural 

 Society at York, Nebraska, is announced for July 22d and 23d. 



During the week ending June 24th there arrived at this port 

 22,200 boxes of Sicily oranges and 125,750 boxes of Sicily 

 lemons. In the same term of 1895 the receipts were 13,500 

 boxes of Mediterranean oranges and 64,350 boxes of lemons. 



The latest parts of Engler & Pranll's Die Naturalischen 

 Pflanzenfamilien, Numbers 131-135, inclusive, which have 

 reached us, are devoted to the Rutaceaj, Simarubaceae and 

 Burseraceae, elaborated by Engler ; Meliaceae, by Harms, and 

 a continuation of the Labiatse, by Brequet. 



Professor W. H. Jordan has been elected Director of the 

 New York Experiment Station at Geneva, and will be suc- 

 ceeded in the Maine State College and Experiment Station, at 

 Orono, by Professor Charles D. Woods, now of the Storr's 

 Experiment Station, Middletown, Connecticut. 



Probably the largest Cedar of Lebanon in the British Isles is 

 one at Stanford Court, Worcester, which is about two hundred 

 years old, and its branches shade a circle one hundred and 

 sixteen feet in diameter. The trunk is twenty feet nine inches 

 in circumference, and that of the largest branch is more than 

 eleven feet. 



A correspondent of the Country Gentleman writes that new 

 Strawberry-plants should not be allowed to bear the first sea- 

 son, but that fruit-stems should be picked off as soon as they 

 appear. Too many plants should not be allowed in the same 

 space, as they consume the moisture, and, therefore, all suffer 

 from drought and produce small berries. As a rule, each 

 plant needs from four to six inches square of space to mature 

 good fruit. 



It is seldom that universal satisfaction with a new plant can 

 be chronicled, but from every side we hear approval for the 

 new Rose, Crimson Rambler, which is now in flower in many 

 gardens for the first time. The plants, properly grown, are 

 always remarkably vigorous and make thick long shoots. The 

 Mowers are produced in large clusters, even on small plants, 

 and are of a pleasing crimson color. It is evidently perfectly 

 hardy in all sections. 



The second annual meeting of the Josselyn Botanical Society 

 of Maine will be held in the State Normal School Building in 

 Farmington, Maine, from July 7th to 10th. The society is 

 composed of representative persons interested in Maine bot- 

 any. The teaching of botany in schools, the study of fungi, 

 mosses and aquatics, and the preparation of flowering plants 

 for the herbarium are among the lecture subjects, and there 

 will be field excursions. 



The finest Corn fields in Lebanon valley, in eastern Penn- 

 sylvania, says the Public Ledger, of Philadelphia, are those on 

 the 600 acres belonging to Isaac S. Long. The planting is 

 done with great care, there being precisely the same number 

 of stalks in each row. Mr. Long provides against delay in 

 growth in cases of replantings in the fields by planting one 

 seed of corn in each of 5,000 flower-pots set out in the open. 

 At replanting time this year a hole was made wherever a stalk 

 was missing and one of the young plants transferred from a 

 pot. The potted stalks have grown well and are as large and 

 thrifty as those first started in the field. 



Corlears Hook Park, in this city, was formally opened to the 

 public on Monday evening of last week by the Mayor and Park 

 Commissioners, some 15,000 citizens being present. The park 

 comprises about ten acres in a thickly populated section of the 

 east side and fronts on the East River. The tract has been 

 sodded, planted with trees and shrubs and provided with 

 seats, and conveniently arranged broad walks laid with con- 

 crete. A shelter built of Indiana limestone, in Roman style, 

 extends along a part of the western border. The Lookout, as 

 this building is known, is intended to serve as a resting-place 

 for the mothers and children of the district, and cost $37,000. 

 The park, which is on the site occupied by manufactories, 



stone and lumber yards until two or three years ago, is already 

 a verdurous and refreshing spot. A series of public concerts 

 is arranged for Monday evenings through the summer. 



Among the exhibits at the Rose and Strawberry show of the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in Boston, last week, was 

 the new seedling hardy Rose named M. H. Walsh, which last 

 year received the first gold medal ever awarded to a new Rose 

 by the society. The exhibitor was Hon. Joseph S. Fay, of 

 Wood's Holl, M. H. Walsh, gardener. This Rose, which com- 

 bines the qualities of vigorous habit, good color and substance, 

 is thought by some to be the best of all the hardy dark red 

 Roses. The petals shade from a deep red at the base to bril- 

 liant crimson at the tip, and some of the fully expanded flowers 

 measure six inches across. The stock has been purchased by 

 Peter Henderson & Co., of New York, who will send it out 

 next year. 



Arbor Day, which every one knows to be an American insti- 

 tution, has been adopted in Spain by royal command. On 

 March 26th, of this year, the Queen Regent and her Court went 

 with the young King to some grounds lying about two miles 

 to the eastward of Madrid. There the King ceremoniously 

 planted a Pine-sapling, and afterward the same act was per- 

 formed by each of the two thousand children who had been 

 chosen as his associates from the public schools of the city. 

 All expenses were defrayed by the city, and each child re- 

 ceived a medal bearing the inscription, " First Fete of the Tree. 

 Instituted in the Reign of Alfonso XIII., 1896." Similar fetes 

 are to be held yearly hereafter until the environs of Madrid are 

 well planted. Nor will the children be allowed, as so often 

 happens in this country, to think their work finished with the 

 mere act of planting the trees. They are to be taken periodi- 

 cally by their schoolmasters to inspect their plantations, and 

 will be taught to foster tree-planting wherever and however it 

 may hereafter be in their power so to do. 



Twenty-six car-loads of California fruits were sold in this 

 city last week. The season for cherries is nearly ended, but 

 large and showy specimens of Royal Ann, Black Tartarian, 

 Black Republican and Napoleon Bigarreau are still seen. 

 Among varieties of plums now coming from the Pacific coast 

 are Burbank, large greenish yellow, with a flush of pink; 

 Prunus Simoni, large, flattened with deep cavities at base and 

 apex, yellow flesh with aromatic flavor, the fruit large and 

 brick-red in color ; Cherry, pale red ; Royal Hative, light pur- 

 ple ; Clyman, mottled reddish purple, with beautiful blue 

 bloom ; Abundance, KoningClaudie, Saint Catherine, and Trag- 

 edy prunes. Montgamet apricots are the largest and best 

 specimens of this fruit now in season ; other good sorts in 

 market are the English variety Moorpark ; Peach, a little earlier 

 than Moorpark, deep orange mottled with brown ; and the 

 French variety. Royal. The well-known Alexander, Briggs' 

 Red May, Hale's Early and Governor Garland peaches are 

 coming from California. New figs and Harvest apples are 

 also arriving from the western coast, and Madeline, Sugar and 

 Bartlett pears. With these new crop fruits are offered last 

 year's P. Barry pears, held in cold storage. 



The "Journal of Commerce of this city in a recent editorial 

 on new fibres states that artificial silk is now successfully 

 made from wood pulp. The pulp is boiled in nitric and sul- 

 phuric acids, a process suggestive of gun cotton making, and 

 is then squeezed under hydraulic pressure, washed in water, 

 dried, and agitated in alcohol and ether. Its inflammability is 

 also counteracted. After passing through a filtering process 

 it appears like a solution of gum and is forced by pneumatic 

 pressure through pipes that lead to glass tubes, each of which 

 ends in a microscopic aperture. The gummy substance 

 emerges as a filament very much like that spun by the silk- 

 worm, and so fine that six or eight or ten are joined for spin- 

 ning into a thread. This artificial silk is said to take dye better 

 than natural silk and to have a higher lustre ; the strength of 

 the threads is only four-fifths that of natural silk. Dress goods 

 and other products of the artificial silk imported from France 

 are sold in London. A factory for its production is now being 

 built near Manchester, and six weaving establishments have 

 contracted for the output. In Europe and America chemists 

 and mechanics have been working to cheapen the preparation 

 of Ramie, and a new process is soon to be tested in a factory 

 in Brooklyn. Besides the remarkable strength of Ramie fibre, 

 its high lustre makes it available as an adulterant, if not a 

 substitute, for silk. It is stronger than hemp and lighter than 

 duck, and if it can be produced cheaply enough it will be avail- 

 able for sails and cordage and for wearing and household 

 fabrics. 



