October 28, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



43 l 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Conducted by 



Office: Tribune Building New York. 

 Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, if 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



E (itorial Article : — Horticulture and Health 431 



An Arizona Cactus Garden Professor J. W. /barney. 432 



Five Ornamental Gaits Professor S. C. Mason. 432 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 433 



New or Little-known Plants: — Restiu subverlicillatus. (With figure.) 



W. Watson 454 



Plant Notes 434 



Cultural Department : — Utilizing Coal Ashes W. E. Briiton. iu 



'J he Vegetable Garden W. H. Craig. 4^6 



Notes on Violets T. D. Hatfield. 436 



Orchid Notes.— I E. O. Urpet. 437 



Notes on I rise? J N. Gerard. 437 



Experience with Summer-flowering Plants IV. H. Taplin. 43S 



Coriaria Nepalensis Wax Lsichtlirt. 438 



Late-flowering Begonias T. D. Hatfield. 438 



CuRKK- F'indenck : — Notes from Germantown Joseph Median. 439 



Smilax tor Florists' Use Patrick O'Mara. 439 



Orchids on Mount Desert Annie Sawyer Dowries 439 



Recent Publications 439 



Note; 440 



I li uslration : — Restio subverticillatus. Fig. 57 435 



Horticulture and Health. 



AT the Buffalo meeting- of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, Professor W. R. 

 Lazenby, of the Ohio State University and Vice-President 

 of the section devoted to social and economic science, read 

 an essay on the subject which we have taken as the title to 

 this article. Using the word horticulture to include fruit- 

 growing and vegetable-gardening in the realm of domestic 

 art, with floriculture, which is partly industrial and partly a 

 fine art, and landscape-gardening, which lies wholly within 

 the province of fine art, Professor Lazenby discussed the 

 relation of all these divisions to physical, intellectual and 

 spiritual health. Of this broad subject we have only space 

 to examine briefly a few phases. It will be admitted that 

 no calling is superior to horticulture in furnishing pure 

 air, good food, an adequate amount of muscular exercise 

 and restful sleep, all of which are essentials to physical 

 health. The man employed in a greenhouse or garden or 

 an orchard spends most of his working hours in the fresh 

 air and sunshine ; his task ends with the twilight, and an 

 unbroken rest enables him to start in the morning with his 

 physical energies renewed. He is not shut up in a crowded 

 workshop, but is brought into close contact with nature, 

 and this is universally recognized as a genuine recupera- 

 tive force in human life. 



But what are the chances of making a livelihood in this 

 country in branches of horticulture which offer such health- 

 ful conditions for working? Professor Lazenby asserts that 

 few industries show fairer returns for capital and labor than 

 the cultivation of small fruits or flowers, and there are few 

 that can be started with such small means and have the same 

 capacity of extension into large enterprises. Fruits and flow- 

 ers are products which are in universal demand — necessities 

 of the rich and appreciated luxuries of those in moderate 

 circumstances. Not only in densely populated cities, but 

 in our fashionable summer resorts, it is rare that the supply 

 of these products exceeds the demand. Good berries and 

 fine roses rarely lack purchasers, and the same is true of 

 vegetables forced in winter, which, after an experience ol 

 twenty years, Professor Lazenby affirms, is a profitable 

 industry if it is intelligently and energetically pursued. To 

 substantiate this thesis he states that the vegetable-forcing 

 house belonging to the horticultural department of the 



Ohio State University has an area of about 4,000 square 

 feet of glass, comprising two plain structures which can 

 be built for about $900 each ; the total bench space in these 

 two houses is a trifle over one-twentieth of an acre, and the 

 annual sales from them during five years. past have averaged 

 about $600. The products include lettuce, rarlishes, beets, 

 cucumbers and hyacinths. Besides this, there were grown 

 in smaller quantities, for experimental purposes, parsley, 

 peppers, eggplant, cauliflower, string-beans, onions, mush- 

 rooms and a few flowering plants. When it is considered 

 that these houses are in use but little more than half the 

 year die result is certainly encouraging. If small-fruit 

 culture, floriculture and vegetable culture in summer are 

 connected with this winter-forcing of vegetables there are 

 few places where a small capital can be invested with 

 greater certainty of success by an intelligent and thrifty 

 person. The large proportion of failures in business life is 

 due to sharp competition ami the great number of persons 

 who are crowding into every opening. There is no such rush 

 toward horticulture by persons of limited means, and the 

 number of those in almost any community who are raising 

 winter vegetables or small fruits might, perhaps, be doubled 

 without lessening the income of any one. 



Both floriculture and small-fruit culture especially com- 

 mend themselves to women who are struggling to support 

 their children in frugal independence. Wherever a small 

 cottage can be obtained with half an acre of land with a 

 warm southward exposure, suitable for early vegetables, 

 the addition of a few cold frames will furnish something to 

 sell all summer long. If a small forcing-house can be 

 added it will give occupation during the winter months, 

 and probably this part of the establishment can be made to 

 bring more profit than the land. In this way Professor 

 Lazenby urges that many a widow could find profitable 

 and congenial employment for herself, and, perhaps, for 

 her children at home, where she could be her own mistress, 

 and not subject to the caprices, or possibly the injustice, 

 of an employer. For such persons few pursuits offer greater 

 inducements for securing a livelihood under conditions 

 which are physically healthful and which stimulate the 

 intellect to wholesome exercise. The experience on the 

 vacant-lot farms in this and other cities has shown that 

 the light work of gardening is well adapted to women, and 

 they soon acquire a deftness and skill which seem to be 

 essentially their own. When such a conservative institu- 

 tion as the Royal Gardens at Kew admits young women as 

 students, it must be allowed that horticulture in some of 

 its branches is one of the occupations which may be con- 

 sidered open to women of intelligence and industry. 



Professor Lazenby claims that the practice of horticulture 

 inculcates a reverence for honesty and truth, but we appre- 

 hend that it would be difficult to prove that horticulture as 

 a vocation has any stronger tendency to regenerate the 

 morals of a community than any other reputable calling 

 honestly pursued. But there is no doubt that the atmos- 

 phere of horticulture is favorable to intellectual health and 

 progress. It is very plain that the ampler knowledge we 

 have of Nature's laws, and the fuller command we have of 

 scientific truth, the better we are able to cope with the 

 problems of practical horticulture, which means the trans- 

 forming of crude and comparatively worthless material 

 into substitutes of value for food or for administrating to 

 our love of the beautiful. A knowledge of botany, chemis- 

 try, entomology and geology can all be utilized in floricul- 

 ture, in vegetable-gardening and in fruit-growing, anil any 

 one of these occupations will stimulate the ambitious prac- 

 titioner to study and cultivate his habits of observation. 

 It is not unfair, therefore, to call horticulture an intellectual 

 pursuit, and the highest success will come to those who 

 keep their minds open and their mental faculties constantly 

 alert. Finally, for those who are no! in direct need of the 

 rewards of manual labor, there is no more healthful recrea 

 lion for mind or body than gardening in all its branches, 

 anil it may be added that there is no recreation which will 

 more thoroughly satisfy the inborn longing lor the beauti- 



