3i8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 441. 



The flavor of the nectarine is between that of a peach and 

 a plum, and it has, I think, more acid than either of those 

 fruits. It is grown more for drying than for consumption 

 when fresh. Like the other fruits of its class, it is sold at a 

 very low price. Persimmons, pomegranates and pomelos are 

 offered for sale, but they are all among the fruits that one has 

 to learn to like, and the demand is, therefore, limited. Cali- 

 fornians are still shy of the pomelo, which has long been con- 

 sidered a door-yard curiosity, and the average buyer hesitates 

 at paying from five to ten cents each for these tart, ill-shaped 

 monstrosities. Probably they do not yet appreciate this fruit 

 at its true value except in a commercial sense. The pome- 

 granate makes an attractive table decoration, but the task of 

 extracting nutriment from its pretty red seed-cells is a tedious 

 one. The persimmon is a mushy thing, and not in popular 

 favor among so many better fruits. The Guava is a perennial 

 producer, but sells best in the autumn ; the Strawberry variety, 

 in particular, has a very delicate flavor. It is not particularly 

 popular as a fresh fruit, being cultivated principally for the 

 delicious amber-colored jelly made from it. The cherimoyer, 

 or custard-apple, is said to be grown in a few localities suc- 

 cessfully, but it does not appear in the markets. 



The prices here quoted are the ordinary average retail rates. 

 Under unusual conditions they may be higher or lower. It 

 will be seen that one need not have a very long purse or take 

 the trouble to grow his own fruits in order to enjoy an abun- 

 dance of the very best. The customary retail price of oranges 

 during the season is from ten to twenty-five cents a dozen, 

 except on the stands that cater principally to the tourist trade, 

 where the prices are doubled. In the orange-growing dis- 

 tricts nearly every door-yard has its trees to grow fruit for 

 home use. 



California is becoming known for fruits, flowers and fiestas. 

 Its flowers are certainly beautiful. Its fiestas, or gala days, are 

 more elaborate and more numerous every year, and afford 

 innocent entertainment to thousands of residents, both perma- 

 nent and temporary ; but its constant succession of varied and 

 luscious fruits is a pleasant feature of life in California even 

 greater than these others, because it is one which all can 



appreciate. 



Redlands, Calif. 



Win. A/. Tisdale. 



The Arrangement of Flowers. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — My garden lies in a hidden corner at the foot of a steep 

 hill, sheltered among the evergreen Balsams and graceful 

 Birches. It is a long terrace, sloping to a short level space, 

 and losing itself in the deep woods beyond. It is a wild, old- 

 fashioned garden, flowers growing from the top of the steep 

 terrace to the bottom, and they seem to fall like a curtain to 

 the path at the foot. A flight of stone steps leads from the top 

 of the terrace to the flower-beds below. ' Looking over the 

 lovely mass of flowers I wonder how to cut and arrange them 

 to their best advantage, and Nature herself answers and 

 teaches me. 



In one corner a long row of brilliant carmine perennial 

 Peas blooms profusely, and hundreds of buds open to the sun- 

 shine every morning. Below them, its branches all about and 

 over them, grows the dainty veil-like Baby's Breath, Gypsophila 

 paniculata, Nature seemingly weaving it in and out among 

 the Peas to soften the glow of their vivid color. In this way 

 I arrange them in the house, using glass vases so as not to take 

 away from the delicate effect of the whole. Filling the bowl 

 with clear spring water I place the clusters of Baby's Breath 

 first, and then arrange one by one the Peas, until it all looks 

 like a small piece of the garden outside. 



Near the woods, in a dark corner, grow the Pansies, the 

 always cool atmosphere keeping the flowers large and rich 

 all through the summer. They grow in bunches, and dozens 

 of the rich clusters stand up together. Back of them, a little 

 way in among the trees, are thick beds of soft, damp moss, 

 with here and there a delicate Fern. Growing so near together, 

 it strikes me that nothing can be better to bring out the beauty 

 of the Pansies than the bed of spongy Moss. Placing a piece 

 of it on a long platter or round dish, with the little Ferns fring- 

 ing the edge, I saturate it with water, and then stick in one by 

 one the Pansies, pushing the stems down into the moss until 

 hardly a glimpse of it is to be seen. 



Hundreds of scarlet Poppies grow on the sunny slopes, 

 blooming among waving tutts of grass ; next to them are the 

 clear yellow fairy-like Iceland Poppies and the bright blue Corn 

 Flower. A few field Daisies have found their way into this 

 mass of color ; one would have blind eyes, indeed, not to per- 

 ceive that with these materials could be fashioned a bouquet 



that would tempt a French woman to put it in her bonnet and 

 remind the German of his fatherland. In a tall glass vase scar- 

 let Poppies are arranged with waving Grasses, yellow Iceland 

 Poppies looking like huge sunny Buttercups, German Corn 

 Flowers and field Daisies. The effect is like a little piece of 

 foreign lands brought into New England. 



As the season advances the Sunflowers open their great 

 smiling heads to the sun ; something must be done with them ; 

 they, too, must do their duty in decorating the house, but how ? 

 They are so large and stiff that it is a hard problem to solve. 

 Nature has done it for me ; a cluster of Golden-rod, uninvited 

 and uncared for, has persistently taken its place among the 

 finer flowers. I take the hint, and in a bunch of stiff Sunflow- 

 ers mix those graceful, fringing heads, softening down the 

 unyielding mass until the whole has become a delight to one's 

 eye, and to memory long after the bunch in reality has faded. 



The lessons in my garden have been many and never-end- 

 ing. To lighten up a bunch of dark-colored Pansies with a 

 few light yellow ones, or bring out the pink tints of the cinna- 

 mon Rose by combining it with the delicate Forget-me-not, 

 Nature may have already taught you. Many flowers show off 

 their beauty best alone, some in great masses, and some in 

 clusters of a few. Every one knows how to arrange them by 

 themselves ; these few examples are to call attention toarrang- 

 ing different flowers into happy combinations. The beauty 

 of a flower is often enhanced when it is helping to bring out 

 the beauty of other flowers. 



Rangeley. Maine. Dorothy Root. 



The Forest. 



The Burma Teak Forests. — I. 



IT has been suggested by my friends in the United States 

 that an account of the first introduction of regular forest 

 management, forty years ago, in the Burma Teak forests, 

 might be useful to those who desire to see good forest man- 

 agement established in North America, and particularly to 

 those who are themselves working in this direction and en- 

 deavoring to make the forests a source of steadily increasing 

 wealth instead of devastating them. Some of the readers of 

 this paper may feel an interest in Burma because there it has 

 been given to the self-denying labors, to the faith, charity and 

 courage of American missionaries, beginning with Adoniram 

 Judson, to convert the larger portion of the Karen tribes into 

 one Christian nation, rising steadily in morality, in education, 

 and in power, and to spread the light of the gospel also 

 among Burmans, Chins and Shaus. 



But apart from those who are actually engaged in forest 

 work, I am afraid that this paper may not be more interesting 

 than my previous communications on forest management in 

 Germany. The subject is heavy, and hardly admits of light 

 popular treatment. In forest management we cannot do with- 

 out facts and figures, and these are not entertaining. Instead 

 of dry facts and figures I would gladly place before the reader 

 a picture of the woods in which the Teak-tree grows, in com- 

 pany with a great variety of other trees, mostly towering over 

 dense Bamboo forests, pleasant and shady in the beginning of 

 the dry season, from November to January, when the dew is 

 heavy and everything is fresh and green ; black and desolate 

 in March and April, when everything is dry and parched, 

 when the jungle fires have passed over the ground, the trees 

 are leafless and the rays of a fierce sun are almost unbearable 

 — green again during the rains from May to October, when the 

 broad pyramidal flower panicles of the Teak-tree, with small 

 white flowers on numberless slender branchlets, make their ap- 

 pearance among the large leaves at the ends of the branches. 

 It would give me pleasure to describe another class of forest : 

 with ground carpeted with a variety of herbs and Ferns, Pteris 

 quadriaurita beingprominent, while large, bright green funnels 

 of Asplenium Nidus nestle between the branches of the Teak- 

 tree and huge specimens of Platycerium Wallichii are attached 

 to the trunk. 



More interesting, even to the gardener and botanist, than 

 the Teak-producing tracts, would be those where the Teak- 

 tree is absent, the extensive gregarious forests of Dipteroray- 

 sus tuberculatus, the Eng ben of Burmans, during the hot 

 season the branches covered with a profusion of gorgeous 

 tree Orchids, while during the rains, between the large leaves 

 of the young Eng plants, the ground is carpeted with a wonder- 

 ful display of showy and delicate species of Impatiens, all in 

 full flower ; or the evergreen forests of Tenasserim, forming a 

 dense unbroken mass of foliage from the ground upward to 

 a height of 200 feet, the space between the old trees being filled 

 with shrubs that thrive in deep shade, and with young growth 



