3 6 ° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 445. 



in the main the book is a trustworthy guide. It will serve 

 a good purpose if it encourages any reader to observe trees 

 more closely, for, after all, books of popular science can do 

 little more and nothing better than to stimulate habits of 

 personal investigation. 



Notes. 



The great Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg, in Java, has the 

 richest collection of Palms in the world. There are three hun- 

 dred determined species and a hundred which appear distinct, 

 although they are yet unnamed, besides varieties of known 

 species, so that it may be said that there are at least four hun- 

 dred different Palms cultivated there. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle for August 22d contains the first 

 part of a monograph by Mr. J. G. Baker on the genus Brodia^a 

 and its allies. There has been so much confusion in the 

 nomenclature of these American bulbous Liliacea; that botan- 

 ists and every one who grows these beautiful plants will feel 

 under obligation to Mr. Baker for classifying and describing 

 the species. 



Trees of Magnolia cordata in this vicinity are giving a 

 second crop of bloom this year, which, in truth, is not a very 

 uncommon thing, butowing, perhaps, totheabundant rainsand 

 warm weather the bright canary-yellow flowers are rather 

 more abundant than usual. This is now classed by botanists 

 as a variety of the Cucumber-tree, M. acuminata, but the color 

 of its flowers, its broader, more darkly green and more per- 

 sistent leaves make it quite a distinct tree for garden pur- 

 poses. 



The so-called Japanese Wineberries, Rubus phcenicolasius, 

 have been marketed, it seems, in limited quantities at Portland, 

 Oregon, and in other cities on the Pacific coast during the 

 present season. It is said that the fruit appears to be larger 

 and better than it has been in former years, and it commands 

 about the same price as Black Cap raspberries. We have 

 never seen any of the fruit in this market, and should like to 

 hear the experience of any persons who have grown this berry 

 for sale. 



Half-dead conifers by the hundred have been removed from 

 Central Park during recent years, but too many still remain to 

 mar the beauty of the landscape and often to impair the effect 

 of well-grown adjacent trees or prevent younger ones from 

 attaining symmetrical development. On the western edge of 

 the East Drive, opposite McGown's Pass Tavern, there are a 

 dozen decaying and unhappy-looking Spruces which could be 

 cut out to the immediate profit of their neighbors and to the 

 improvement of a picturesque bit of road. 



At the last session of the Ohio Legislature an act was passed 

 to prevent the spread of contagious diseases among fruit-trees, 

 especially the yellows and the black-knot. The act provides 

 for the destruction and burning of trees and fruits infected by 

 the yellows, and, in accordance with its provisions, the experi- 

 ment station has just issued a bulletin giving full informa- 

 tion relative to the different diseases, with illustrations and 

 with regulations and directions for marking and destroying 

 the trees by the fruit commissioners of the various town- 

 ships. 



All kinds of fruit are now so abundant in this city that only 

 the very best qualities are salable at remunerative prices. The 

 best Bartlett pears in large barrels have brought $4.25 at 

 wholesale ; the few Seckels which have come to market have 

 sold for as much as $5.00 a barrel. Plums are coming gen- 

 erally now from western New York, and good Green Gages 

 bring only twenty-five cents a basket, and the best Lombards 

 and Egg plums no more than forty cents. Grapes are abun- 

 dant and cheap. A few Tokays, from California, brought 

 $2.00 a box, but, of course, they have not as yet much color. 



The city of Leipsic is encircled as far as the eye can reach 

 by a monotonous plain. Many years ago the City Council 

 ordered that all the refuse and ashes of the town should be 

 deposited at a certain point in a suburb which is imaginatively 

 called the Valley of Roses, a suburb which in reality shows no 

 valley and is chiefly devoted to the cultivation of prosaic 

 edible vegetables. Gradually this ash-mound, which has been 

 named Mount Georgi, in honor of the burgomaster who de- 

 creed it, has risen to the imposing height of some 120 feet, and 

 the Council recently appropriated the sum of ten thousand 

 marks for the purpose of covering it with vegetation and 

 erecting upon its summit an outlook tower which they assure 

 the world will be a most attractive point of pilgrimage. Ameri- 



cans who read of the long effort which the citizens of Leipsic 

 have been making to enliven the landscape ought to feel 

 some compunctions of conscience at their neglect of the 

 original and striking natural beauties of their own cities which 

 are so often despised and destroyed. 



The last number of The Garden contains a beautifully 

 colored plate showing various hybrids of the Pheasant's-eye 

 Narcissus, and in a brief, but instructive, article the Rev. G. 

 H. Englehart calls attention to the wide range over which hybrid 

 Narcissi have expanded, so as to embrace greater variety of 

 form and color, since the blood of Narcissus poeticus has 

 been introduced. Stately and beautiful as the Trumpet Daffo- 

 dils are, there would be a considerable sameness among them 

 without the Poeticus blood. Secondary crosses between N. 

 incomparabilis and N. poeticus give the most brilliant scarlets 

 and oranges by infusing the red in the eye of the latter into the 

 highly colored hybrids which have already derived their color 

 from the first cross. One of these figured hybrids has a cup 

 of apricot-scarlet, another of clear yellow, with a perianth as 

 purely white as that of N. poeticus itself. Mr. Englehart also 

 notes that by intercrossing good forms of the Pheasant's-eye 

 Narcissus and by seed selection this species is capable of great 

 increase in size and enrichment of color, showing solid, bold, 

 well-formed flowers almost twice the size of those of Poeticus 

 ornatus and with large eyes deeply suffused or margined with 

 fiery red. 



Mr. George A. Cochrane, in writing to the Country Gentle- 

 man about foreign markets for our tall apples, says that the 

 fruit crop in Europe for this year is likely to be no more than 

 fair, but that there will still be an active demand for American 

 apples if carefully selected and well packed. There are many 

 varieties of fall apples growing in New England and New York 

 which have been thought too tender for the long voyage 

 across the sea, but since the introduction of fast steamers they 

 could be exported with profit if packed in boxes holding half 

 a barrel, with each piece of fruit wrapped in paper, as oranges 

 and lemons are transported. The boxes recommended are 

 similar in style to ordinary orange boxes with a middle piece, 

 making two apartments, and nailed so as to leave a space of 

 at least a quarter of an inch between the strips. Duchess, 

 St. Lawrence, Alexander, Gravenstein, Snow and Wealthy, 

 which will not carry safely in barrels, will carry perfectly well 

 in these boxes, and in some instances a case of well-packed 

 and well-selected fruit will bring as much as a barrel. It 

 should be borne in mind that in England crisp apples with a 

 hard meat are preferred. Soft-meated or mealy fruits, such as 

 Porter, Williams and Astrachan, are not favorites. 



Bulletin No. 45 of the Illinois Experiment Station is taken 

 up with a record of the different kinds of Apple-trees which 

 have been planted on the experimental farm of the University 

 of Illinois, during (he past twenty-seven years, and the follow- 

 ing are the varieties which have given promise of the highest 

 and most continuous value, taken in the order of their season 

 of ripening : William Prince, Red Stripe, Hicks, Cole's Quince, 

 Large Yellow Siberian Crab, Jefferies, Sharp's, Utter, JoTiathan 

 of Buler, Sweet Bellflower of Wyandotte County, McLellan, 

 Higby Sweet. Mansfield Russet, Westfield Seek-no-further, 

 Coon's Red, Ned, Indiana Favorite and Royal Limbertwig. The 

 descriptions of all these apples and many more are given with 

 great care and will be found a valuable supplement to the 

 fruit lists of the Pomological Society or of local state societies. 

 It is rather a singular fact that good authorities like Downing, 

 Warder and Thomas differ so widely in their descriptions of 

 the various characters of apples. One, for example, will 

 describe the flesh of a certain apple as white, while another 

 will call it yellowish. The truth is, as stated in this bulletin, 

 that there are individual characters which it is impossible 

 to describe accurately or minutely, but which, nevertheless, 

 distinguish the variety. These are rarely all present in any 

 one specimen, and it is not uncommon to find a number of 

 specimens together, each of which or all of which lack some 

 one very characteristic mark. As a rule, the more minute the 

 description the more likely it is to fall into error. This comes 

 (1) from individual variation, (2) from variation with the sea- 

 son, (3) from slight peculiarities, climatic differences, etc., 

 because apples grown in one locality differ in form, quality 

 and other characters from those grown in another. Descrip- 

 tions which have been made of the same variety in different 

 seasons often vary more or less, and sometimes vary so 

 widely as to justify the supposition that they were made for 

 different varieties. Fruit which is undoubtedly of the same 

 variety is not always the same on different trees, and summer 

 pruning and other cultural conditions are often potent in caus- 

 ing variation. 



