August 5, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



3i7 



Campanula Japonica. We have seedlings of this plant, but 

 they have not blossomed yet. The plants look now much like 

 seedlings of Platycodon grandiflorum growing near by. Were 

 these sent out by the same enterprising person who intro- 

 duced the so-called Coreopsis Japonica ? 



Botanic Garden, Harvard Univers'ty. 



Robert Cameron. 



Notes from Germantown. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In the flower-border the double-flowered Hemerocallis 

 fulva is one of the showiest plants now in bloom. Double 

 flowers of this class are not, as a rule, attractive, but these 

 flowers last longer than those of the species and they make a 

 much finer display. 



It ought to be moregenerally known that Tritoma uvaria is 

 quite hardy here. Some of these plants are now nicely in 

 flower and they have been unprotected for two winters past. 



The double-flowered Rudbeckia, called Golden Glow, is 

 displaying its first flowers. They are a good clear yellow and 

 quite double, and from the number of buds appearing the plants 

 promise to make a good display later on. 



Passiflora incarnata is in flower. It lives out-of-doors here 

 only when leaves are placed about it in winter to prevent the 

 frost from getting to the roots. When we treat our plants in 

 this way we are rewarded with an abundance of beautiful 

 flesh-colored flowers. 



Germantown, Pa. Joseph Meehan. 



California Fruits at Home. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Nearly all the fruits of California now find their way 

 east, and even to England, where they are gradually winning 

 wider markets. Enterprising growers have partially succeeded 

 in devising methods of shipment which carry the different 

 fruits to the consumer in satisfactory condition. A statement 

 of the prices and qualities of these handsome fruits where 

 they are grown may interest the eastern reader. Many per- 

 sons in selecting southern California as a place of residence 

 count the luxuriance, the abundance and the cheapness of its 

 fruits as one of the principal inducements, believing that a 

 plentiful supply of fresh fruit every day, as an article ot diet, 

 is healthful and wholesome as well as enjoyable. 



In California, as elsewhere, the larger towns always have 

 the greatest variety of fruits in the market, because they draw 

 their supplies from all of the smaller places, most of which 

 have their specialties. The choicest fruit also, and the earliest, 

 naturally seeks the largest market. San Francisco, for instance, 

 buys fresh figs from Palm Valley, an isolated and torrid nook 

 in the mountains adjacent to the Colorado desert, some weeks 

 before they appear in the markets five hundred miles nearer 

 the place where they are grown. These early figs bring fifty 

 cents a pound. In the same city oranges have been offered 

 at from eight to ten dollars a box a month in advance ot the 

 ripening ot the crop in southern California. These oranges 

 were grown in Salt River valley, Arizona, but the supply is 

 very limited. 



The winter supply of fruit is, of course, less than that of the 

 summer. Few persons in California eat oranges before the 

 first of February, although, nominally, they may be had in any 

 month. They are at their prime between the first of March 

 and the first of July. The strawberry, in favorable years like 

 the two seasons last past, is in market every month. The win- 

 ter fruit is usually large and handsome and takes the eye of the 

 tourist, but it is not sweet and wholesome until about the first 

 of March, when the warmer suns of spring give it more sugar 

 and a better flavor. In April, when strawberries usually sell 

 in New York for sixty cents a quart, they retail in southern 

 California for eight cents, and the first crop is at its best. There 

 are three principal crops a year, with short intervals between. 

 In the winter, when scarce, they usually sell for twenty or even 

 twenty-five cents a box. They are in good flavor from March 

 to Christmas and frequently sell as low as four cents. 



The apple is, as everywhere, a principal winter and summer 

 fruit. Apples of excellent quality are grown in the higher 

 lands, both in the north and the south, but not in sufficient 

 quantities to supply the home demand. In the south they first 

 appear about the middle of July and are in market until the 

 following May. In the fall large quantities are imported from 

 Oregonand otherstates. Three cents a pound is considered 

 cheap for good sound fruit, and eight cents is about as high 

 as the price goes, apples then being regarded as a luxury for 

 the rich. Figs, pears, guavas, grapes, Japanese persimmons, 

 lemons and limes, with imported pineapples and bananas, 



make up, with the apples and oranges, the bulk of the winter 

 display upon the fruit-sellers' stalls. 



In April the loquat makes its appearance, the earliest fruit 

 of the year and one of the least desirable, except as a novelty. 

 It is a small, oblong yellow fruit and contains two huge seeds, 

 which make up the bulk of the material inside of the tough 

 skin. It has an odd, subacid flavor which some people affect 

 to enjoy, but it is not a fruit of commercial importance, either 

 at home or abroad. Currants come late in May. They are 

 not grown to any extent in southern California, and command 

 a price which is considered high, rarely selling for less than 

 ten cents a pound. Memories of the currant jelly of the east 

 bind many housewives to the practice of purchasing them, no 

 matter what the price may be. In June several fruits are 

 added to the slowly increasing list. First, we have cherries ; 

 the earliest are imported from the north and bring twenty-five 

 cents a pound. These are the same brilliant, glossy, highly 

 flavored cherries that bring fancy prices in the east. The black 

 varieties are the first, but are soon followed by the white, red 

 and yellow sorts in great profusion. None of them sell, how- 

 ever, at less than ten cents a pound. It has been found that 

 cherries flourish at the same altitudes and on the same soils 

 as apples, and very fine fruit is now being grown in southern 

 California in the mountain valleys at an altitude of about three 

 thousand feet. Here the Black Tartarian and the Governor 

 Wood flourish admirably. In the north this favorite fruit has 

 been brought to great perfection and has always repaid its cul- 

 tivators most handsomely. After the cherries, in June, come 

 apricots, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, plums 

 and prunes. In July we get the first fresh figs, nectarines, 

 pears, melons and grapes, and all these fruits, with the addi- 

 tions later of pomegranates and persimmons, last until the 

 first of December or even longer. 



The black raspberry is rarely seen in California markets, 

 and in many portions of southern California the red raspberry 

 is a recent fruit. This, doubtless, is due to the fact that peo- 

 ple were too busy at first in the new towns with matters of 

 greater importance to pay much attention to small fruits, for 

 the red raspberry as grown here is delicious and produces 

 profusely. There are many varieties of blackberries and dew- 

 berries. These small fruits usually bring fifteen cents a box 

 when they first appear and drop quickly to eight or even five. 

 California apricots and peaches cannot be had in perfection in 

 the east. They must be grown with little or no irrigation and 

 fully ripened on the tree to be at their prime. Then they are 

 truly delicious. They are very cheap, retailing most of the 

 season at two cents a pound, or even less. The luscious and 

 varied California grapes are also sold at the same low price as 

 apricots and peaches. Fresh figs are also very cheap after 

 they have ceased to be a novelty. Favorite varieties of grapes 

 in the home market are the Sweetwater, the Muscat and the 

 seedless Sultanas of the white sorts ; the Rose of Peru, the 

 common Mission, the Black Morocco, the Black Hamburg 

 and the Cornichon of the darker varieties, and the ever-popu- 

 lar Flame Tokay. Some of the highly perfumed eastern sorts 

 are grown in California with moderate success. But most of 

 these varieties require trellising, and this is a refinement as 

 yet beyond the average hurrying Californian. He prefers to 

 cut his vines back to the slump every season rather than to 

 train and prune them over trellises. 



Bananas are imported from points in Central and South 

 America and from the Hawaiian Islands. They usually retail 

 at thirty cents a dozen and are in the market practically all the 

 year. The red sort is never seen in California. Pineapples 

 are brought from Florida in the winterand from the Hawaiian 

 Islands in the summer. They are always expensive, sellingat 

 from fifty cents to a dollar and twenty-five cents each. I 

 are always cheap in California. The Bartlett is the favi 

 but Winter Nelis and Seckel are later varieties that find 

 ready sale. The huge, ungraceful Pond pear is grown and 

 sold as a curiosity and frequently attains a weight of three 

 pounds, but is not valued for its flavor. It is useless to enume- 

 rate the varieties of plums. This brilliant, showy fruit 

 greatly to the beauty of the fruit-seller's display. These fruits 

 bear transportation and are familiar to the eastern consumer. 

 The common prune when ripe and fresh is delicious and 

 sweeter than many of the other plums. Melons are prod 

 by the thousands of tons, both north and south. In (he smaller 

 towns they quickly come down in price to the small sum of 

 five to ten cents each, at which they can be bought during four 

 or five months. The muskmelons enjoyed in San Frani 

 are among the pleasantest recollections of a residence in that 

 city — great, handsome, juicy, highly colored, delicately fla- 

 vored fruits, in unequaled variety. I do not think that better 

 melons can be raised in any part of the world. 



