34° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 443. 



Notes. 



According to The Gardeners' Magazine, candidates for de- 

 grees in horticulture in the Victoria University, in addition to 

 their written papers, will be tested by a practical examination 

 to show their proficiency. It would be interesting to know more 

 specifically what is the nature of this practical examination. 



Mr. Carman speaks in high praise of the Pea, New Life, 

 which he considers the most productive and valuable of its 

 season. On the 6th of July the vines were two ieet high, vig- 

 orous and of uniform growth, and the straight bright green 

 pods, three to four inches long, each contained from five to 

 eight seeds of the largest size. The peas mature just before 

 those of Stratagem and Heroine. 



A correspondent of The Rural New Yorker writes that 

 the Crimson Rambler Rose does all that has been claimed for 

 it, is especially good in foliage and in the abundance of its 

 large clusters of flowers. He notes two defects, however, one 

 of which is that it is not as fragrant as a good rose should be, 

 and the second is that the flowers which open first begin to 

 drop their petals before the others expand, and in this way the 

 beauty of the whole cluster is marred. 



At the exhibition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 on August 8th, a silver medal was awarded to Mr. Robert 

 Cameron, of the Harvard Botanic Garden, for a display of the 

 flowers ot showy annuals. The collection filled two hundred 

 large vases and embraced 140 species and varieties. Mr. 

 Cameron also received from the same society on the 25th of 

 July a silver medal for the flowers of perennial herbaceous 

 plants, which filled 150 vases and consisted of eighty species 

 and varieties. 



In the making of wine in California there is considerable 

 loss on account of the undue heat, which arrests fermentation 

 before the proper time, so that the wine must be graded as 

 inferior or else made into brandy. Professor Hayne, of the 

 University of California, has devised a machine for reducing 

 the temperature of wineatfermentation by bringingit into con- 

 tact with cold water pipes. The apparatus has been tested 

 successfully at the University, and it is to have a practical trial 

 at once in one of the largest vineyards in Sacramento 

 County. 



For some years inventors have been trying to transport fruit 

 in cars filled wilh carbonic acid gas. Inasmuch as the germs 

 of fermentation cannot live in this gas it is assumed that no 

 ice would be needed, and since this is both heavy and expen- 

 sive it is thought that fruit can be transported for long dis- 

 tances much more cheaply in the new way. A car-load of 

 fruit in one of these gas cars was lately sent from San Jose\ 

 California, to Chicago, but the result was not satisfactory. It 

 is reported in the local papers that the fruit had not rotted, but 

 owing to the extreme hot weather it had almost been cooked. 

 Ice will still be a necessity in very hot weather unless some 

 means of keeping the car cool is added to the antiseptic advan- 

 tages of the gas. 



We have received from Mr. William Tricker flowers of 

 Nymphsea Sturtevantii, which was figured in this journal, vol. 

 vii., page 354, and also of N. O'Marana, which we described 

 in our last volume, page 95. The latter flowers are consider- 

 ably larger, being nearly a foot across, with heavier stems and 

 of a pink so deep as to be almost red, but since the petals of 

 this flower grow darker with age they may have been origi- 

 nally of no richer color than those of N. Sturtevantii. Alto- 

 gether the new Lily seems an improvement upon its 

 parent — it is a cross between N. dentata and N. Sturtevantii — 

 especially since Mr. Tricker says that it is more floriferous, 

 that it grows more freely, and, in fact, quite as freely as any 

 other plant of its class. 



A correspondent of the Arizona Gazette writes that the set- 

 ting apart of the San Carlos Reserve for the Apache Indians 

 twenty years ago has preserved " the largest continuous belt 

 of forest in the United States," namely, that which clothes the 

 Mongallon and the Sierra Blanca. In southern Arizona the 

 forests have largely been sacrificed to the interests of the 

 stockmen and lumbermen, and the rich, fine soil that once 

 covered hill and valley has already been scoured and gullied 

 until in many places nothing but the rock skeleton of the 

 landscape remains. The writer urges that this San Carlos 

 forest, which has thus far been saved wilh some that lies adja- 

 cent, ought to be rescued and set apart as a forest reserva- 

 tion since the Salt, the Verde and the Little Colorado rivers 

 all take their rise and receive their supply from this source. 



Mangoes from the West Indies are rather more common in 

 the fancy-fruit stores than usual this year, but whether it is 

 because only inferior varieties are sent here, or because the 

 fruits are picked too green, the fact is that none of the sam- 

 ples which reach this city justify the high esteem with which 

 this fruit is held in the tropics. As a rule, in the West Indies 

 little care is taken to select and improve varieties, and, no 

 doubt, the seedlings of this tree, Mangifera Indica, vary quite 

 as much as apples do. Mammee apples of fair size are also 

 now to be had, and are often four or five inches in diameter. 

 In its native habitat the fruit is often as big as a child's head 

 and of a beautiful yellow color. The flesh has an aromatic 

 flavor, and as received here it is palatable when served with 

 wine and sugar. Alligator pears, the fruit of Persea gratissi- 

 mum, come here in much better condition than the two fruits 

 named above, and there is an increasing demand for them on 

 account of their firm, marrow-like pulp, which is more often 

 served here as a salad than in any other way. 



Mr. Joseph Meehan writes to The Country Gentleman that 

 Clapp's Favorite is esteemed about Philadelphia as the very 

 best of early pears. This fruit should not be condemned 

 because it rots at the core when overripe, as this can be 

 avoided if one knows how to ripen it properly. The first pick- 

 ing in that partot Pennsylvania was made this year before the 

 end of July, and in late seasons it should be picked before the 

 middle of August. The fruit is gathered in three installments 

 about a week apart to have a succession, and if it is put in a 

 close closet it will be in fit condition to eat in a week or ten 

 days. Ot course, it does not keep well — no early fruit does — 

 but when ripened in this way it is a beautiful fruit, perfect 

 throughout, juicy and refreshing. One good quality of this 

 variety is that it rarely fails to bear a good crop. In a little 

 orchard well known to Mr. Meehan it has not missed a good 

 crop tor ten years, and now when there is not a fruit on Tyson, 

 Sheldon Jones and Belle Lucrative, and but a tew on Bart- 

 lett and Lawrence, trees ot Clapp's Favorite are bending with 

 their load of fruit. 



There never has been a more trying week for fruiterers and 

 greengrocers in this city than the last. With a temperature at 

 ninety-five degrees fruit ripens so rapidly that it must be sold at 

 once or not at all. Pears which were green in the morning were 

 dead ripe in the afternoon and hardly fit to use next day. This 

 trouble was aggravated by an unusually large supply, and since 

 buyers had little energy for anything beyond the effort to keep 

 themselves cool with iced drinks, it is little wonder that all 

 kinds of fruit were sold at sacrificing figures. Tragedy prunes 

 are about past and Gros prunes are just beginning to arrive. 

 Highly colored apples ot fine size when carefully collected and 

 packed are selling fairly, but ordinary kinds like Orange Pip- 

 pins can hardly be given away. Early apples are always an 

 uncertain crop for growers, as they must be disposed of 

 quickly, being almost as perishable as peaches. Besides this, 

 tew summer apples are ot such high quality as the later ones. 

 But, after all, the very best of sauce is made with the summer 

 fruit, and good fresh-apple sauce is quite as appetizing and 

 wholesome as any berries or other Jruit of the season. 



The great Hale Peach orchard, in Georgia, covers 1,078 acres, 

 600 ot which are in bearing trees, and the remainder in nursery 

 stock. There are avenues running north and south through 

 the orchard 500 feet apart, with a cross road every 1,000 feet. 

 There are two large packing-houses a hundred teet long and 

 forty feet wide and two stories high, and a lodging-house or 

 hotel has just been built for the help. Last year some four 

 hundred helpers camped in barns, wagons, tents, etc. At 

 picking-time about five hundred men and women, chiefly 

 colored, and seventy-five horses and mules are employed, 

 while fifty men and thirty mules are employed the year round. 

 At the lodging-house rooms and beds are free, and board costs 

 $2.50 a week, while families and parties can furnish their own 

 food and have it cooked for themselves if they choose. This year 

 the curculio attacked the Peaches, and Mr. Hale waged prompt 

 war upon the insects, jarring the trees and catching the insects 

 in sheets tacked to light semicircular hoop frames. Two of 

 these were brought together about a tree which was struck by 

 a rubber-padded club, and the insects which dropped were 

 then thrown into buckets and carried by boys to barrels in 

 wagons and drawn away to be burned with the stung fruit 

 which dropped with them. Fifty men were busy for nearly 

 two months, from early April onward, at this work, which cost 

 $4,000. But while in other orchards from sixty to ninety per 

 cent, of the fruit was lost, and in some orchards the entire 

 crop, the Hale orchard alone had a full crop, and many of the 

 trees were so overloaded that they required severe thinning 

 by hand. 



