390 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 448. 



Notes. 



The Rural New Yorker speaks highly of the McPike Grape, 

 originated by a vineyardist of that name in Alton, Illinois. It 

 is a seedling of the Worden, hardy, with good leaves, large 

 compact bunches of even size, berries with a blue-black bloom 

 and ripening uniformly. The berries are of the largest size 

 (three inches in circumference) and extremely juicy. The 

 skin is thin, but not tender, the pulp is melting and the seeds 

 are small and few. It is spoken of as an improved Eaton. 



In the Museum of the Oxford Botanical Garden there is pre- 

 served a primitive utensil which was once used to protect 

 greenhouse plants from cold in frosty weather. This is an 

 open wicker box fixed upon four wheels. It used to be filled 

 with red-hot charcoal and the gardener rolled it backward and 

 forward in the glass-house throughout the night during severe 

 weather. A correspondent of the Journal of Horticulture 

 speaks of this as a very interesting reminder of the develop- 

 ment of the apparatus for heating glass-houses. 



For some reason probably connected with the hot summer 

 and heavy rainfall, mushrooms are unusually abundant 

 in the pastures and meadows about this city. In Dutchess 

 County the farmers and others gather them and carry fine ones 

 around to the different towns and villages for sale, and they 

 are so abundant they are offered in quantities at thirty-five 

 cents a bushel. The Poughkeepsie Eagle reports (hat not only 

 true mushrooms but many other fungous growths, both edible 

 and poisonous, are common in all parts of that city. 



When seen in masses in their native homes Sobralias are 

 among the most beautiful of Orchids, as various travelers have 

 borne testimony. We learn from the Orchid Review, and 

 record it as a matter of interest, therefore, that Mr. F. J. 

 Le Moyne, of Chicago, is trying to make a complete collection 

 of these plants. Most of the species are handsome, although 

 they are not so much cultivated as they would be if their 

 flowers were not so fugacious, and, in some cases, if they were 

 not so large. The long succession of flowers which they bear 

 compensates in some degree for the first effect. 



Mr. W. Botting Hemsley, in writing of plant distribution in 

 Knowledge, calls attention to the fact that Lord Howe Island, a 

 speck of land less than a quarter of the size of the Isle of 

 Wight, situated in mid-ocean, three hundred miles from the 

 coast of New South Wales, produces four species of Palms 

 peculiar to itself. The Seychelles group in the Indian Ocean 

 is also interesting. These islands, more than thirty in num- 

 ber, are situated six hundred miles north-east of Madagascar, 

 the largest being seventeen miles long and five miles wide, 

 with an altitude of nearly three thousand feet. Three hundred 

 and fifty species of flowering plants and Ferns are recorded 

 from these islands, one-sixth of which have not been found 

 elsewhere. Among the latter there are nine distinct kinds of 

 Palms, and seven of these have not been found elsewhere, and 

 among the latter class is the famous double Cocoanut or Cocoa 

 de Men 



This is the season of Sunflowers, and wherever a mass of 

 yellow is needed they will never be a disappointment. In the 

 herbaceous garden at Prospect Park the tall stalks of Heli- 

 anthus orgyalis, in full flower from top to bottom, which 

 means for a distance of ten feet, are very striking when standing 

 against the dark green of the still taller Arundo donax, while 

 the common Artichoke, H. tuberosus, is by no means to be 

 despised. Heiianthus mollis is a lower plant, two or three feet 

 tall only and bearing light lemon-yellow flowers with a yellow 

 disk and soft woolly-white leaves, while H. rigidus, with rich 

 orange-yellow flowers, and rather a taller plant, would grace 

 any garden. Besides these, H. multiflorus, which continues 

 in bloom for a month, with its double variety, which flowers all 

 summer long, H. decapetalus, the semi-double cup-shaped 

 H. Iaetiflorus, with many rather coarser ones, are all useful in 

 large wild gardens. These, with Heleniums, Rudbeckias and 

 Silphiums, with their light yellow, almost straw-colored flow- 

 ers and varied leaves, will suffice to make any border gay till 

 mid-September, after which there are later varieties of almost 

 equal merit. 



The Pollination of Plums is the subject of Bulletin No. 53, 

 issued by the Vermont Experiment Station, and prepared by 

 Professor Waugh. Plums are uncertain in setting fruit, and 

 this is partially due to lack of proper cross-pollination, and 

 therefore different varieties should be planted together or 

 scions of other varieties should be set in the tops of trees 

 which do not bear satisfactory crops. This cross-pollination 



is provided for by the defectiveness of their floral parts and by 

 the sterility of certain varieties toward their own- pollen. 

 American cultivated varieties have been derived from several 

 botanical species, and these varieties retain, to some extent, 

 the characters of the parents, and it is thought that botanical 

 relationships will prove the best guide in cross-pollination. A 

 very interesting account of the economic characters of the dif- 

 ferent groups is given, but it is admitted, alter quoting the 

 opinion of eminent horticulturists and botanists, that there are 

 many questions, practical and theoretical, which are still open 

 to investigation. Some of these questions are asked at the 

 close of the bulletin, and readers are requested to make a 

 reply. The statement that the Beach Plum, Prunus maritima, 

 is of little importance for its fruit, although desirable for orna- 

 mentation, ought, we think, to be modified. We have seen 

 individual trees of this species which bore fruit of beautiful 

 color and rich flavor, and it seems to us that both in the line of 

 selecting and hybridizing it is a promising tree for fruit. 

 The bulletin is commended to all who wish to grow trees 

 intelligently. 



Chautauqua growers are complaining that they hardly get 

 enough for grapes to pay for transportation to market, and in 

 some sections farmers are allowing their apples to lie on the 

 ground and rot or they feed them to hogs. This means that 

 in many districts the fruit crop is uncommonly abundant. 

 Nevertheless, the prices for fine fruit on the street-stands and 

 in the fancy-fruit stores were rarely,if ever, higher than now. It 

 ought to be added that the quality of the fruit offered has, per- 

 haps, never been as good. The lesson of all this is that the 

 only assured success for fruit growers is by careful cultivation, 

 thinning, etc., to insure fruit of the very best quality, and then 

 to withhold everything that is not strictly first-class. In spite 

 of the surplus of ordinary grades of fruit and of the limited 

 demand for fruits of the highest grade, it is evident that there 

 is considerable margin for profit between the prices farmers 

 receive and those the consumer pays. Among the showiest 

 fruits now offered are immense Salway peaches, measuring 

 fully seven inches around, the downy skin a cream-yellow, 

 with bright crimson cheek. Persimmons, from Florida, are 

 already quite abundant, and large, luscious specimens of a 

 % rich golden color cost sixty to seventy-five cenls a dozen. 

 As many as forty shipments of Alligator pears have been 

 handled by one of the down-town retail Iruit-stores since 

 the beginning of the season in May, when this fruit came 

 from the United States of Colombia. Later, Jamaica and 

 Cuba furnished the supply, and from August to the close 

 of the season in October they are received from Turks 

 Islands, among the Bahamas. The demand for this fruit is 

 reliable, and even now, near the end of the season, when 

 the specimens are no larger than a good-sized Bartlett pear, 

 they readily command from twenty to thirty cents each. Man- 

 goes, which are also passing out of season, have eager buyers 

 among persons familiar with this variously flavored apple of 

 the tropics. An importation received from Cuba last week 

 sold on sight at retail at ninety cents a dozen for the entire lot. 

 The first cargo of Almeria grapes of this season, consisting of 

 two thousand barrels, is now on the way to this country. 



William Robinson, who for nearly twenty years has been at 

 the head of the famous Langwater Gardens, belonging to Mrs. 

 F. L Ames, North Easton, Massachusetts, died of pneumonia 

 on Wednesday last in the full vigor of his manhood at the age 

 of forty-five years. Mr. Robinson was born in Bedel, York- 

 shire, England, and learned his craft in such good gardens as 

 those of the Duke of Cleveland and Sir Titus Salt, and he spent 

 some years at the Veitchian Nurseries. He was a thorough 

 gardener, well skilled in every department of his art, but he was 

 especially noted as an expert in the cultivation of Orchids, and 

 it will be difficult to find a successor who can worthily fill his 

 place in charge of the most valuable collection of these plants on 

 this continent. Mr. Robinson was more than a mere cultivator, 

 and by his skill in hybridizing he has produced many interest- 

 ing crosses. Some of his hybrid Cypripediums it would be 

 almost impossible to duplicate, owing to the rarity of the 

 parent plants. He was very successful with Masdevallias, 

 which are somewhat difficult to manage in this climate, and 

 several excellent hybrids of this genus originated by him have 

 been distributed. Mr. Robinson was an occasional contribu- 

 tor to these columns, and what he had learned by study and 

 observation he took care to write with clearness and accuracy, 

 and he was always ready to give information from the abun- 

 dant stores of his experience. He not only loved his work, 

 and was loyal to his art, but he compelled respect by his 

 straightforward honesty and manliness of character. 



