44o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 453. 



Notes. 



The orange crop of Louisiana is estimated at 20,000 boxes, a 

 slight increase over last season, and about one-seventh of the 

 output previous to the damage by freezing two years ago. 



Mr. J. H. Maiden has been appointed Government botanist 

 and director of the Botanic Garden at Sydney, in succession to 

 Mr. Charles Moore, who has recently retired after a service in 

 these capacities of nearly half a century. 



Last week the American Gardeners' Society was organized 

 at a meeting held in Madison Square Garden, with J. M. Hun- 

 ter, Hempstead, Long Island, President ; Wallace G. Gomer- 

 sall, Fishkill-on-Hudson, New York, Vice-President; James I. 

 Donlan, New York, Secretary, and R. Butterbach, Oceanic, 

 New Jersey, Treasurer. The purpose is to establish branches 

 of (he society in various sections of the country; its future 

 course, however, can hardly be predicted until it is in more 

 complete working order. 



A Florists' and Gardeners' Club has recently been organized in 

 Morris County, New Jersey, with A. Herrington, gardener to H. 

 McK. Twombley, as President; W. Duckham, gardener to D. 

 Willis James, as Vice-President ; William Charlton, Treasurer, 

 and William H. Thomas, gardener to A. P.Whitney, Secretary. 

 The club consists at present of about forty members. The 

 monthly meetings will be held in Madison, with an exhibition 

 in the Lyceum at Morristown on November 10th, nth and 

 1 2th. Several gentlemen with large estates have promised the 

 project their hearty support. 



We learn from the Public Ledger, of Philadelphia, that a 

 well-known Pecan-tree, said to have been the product of seed 

 brought to Germantown by Nuttall nearly a century ago, and 

 probably the first specimen of its kind planted in this part of 

 the country, is to be cut down. The tree had grown to a great 

 height and was one of the most famous in Germantown, where 

 famous trees abound. It is located on what is now the grounds 

 of a new Methodist Episcopal Church, and when the land was 

 purchased it was decided to save the tree, for which purpose 

 the architect designed the building so that it could be left 

 standing. Recent heavy storms, however, have caused the 

 tree to lean heavily toward the church wall, so that damage 

 is threatened to the structure and orders have been given to 

 have it removed. 



What is really a manual of practical entomology has been 

 issued by the West Virginia Experiment Station as Bulletin No. 

 44. It explains in a popular, but accurate, way how to deter- 

 mine whether any loss or injury to crops of farm or garden is 

 caused by insects and how to detect the special insect which 

 causes it. The insects themselves are briefly described, and 

 the best defenses against them, so far as known, are plainly 

 stated. The bulletin can be used as an elementary guide to 

 the study of common insects and the character of their work, 

 and it will be useful for busy farmers and gardeners who want 

 a handbook of reference which contains plainly stated informa- 

 tion about the more important features of insect-life and its 

 relations to plant-life. The bulletin was prepared by Dr. A.D. 

 Hopkins and W. E. Rumsey. 



Delaware and Niagara grapes are less plentiful and less 

 evenly good than those of the other well-known varieties, and 

 the best bring twenty and twenty-five cents for a small basket. 

 Concords and Catawbas, fresh and sound, are now selling at 

 retail for ten cents for a basket weighing four pounds, and 

 eight-pound baskets of Concords of the same high quality may 

 be had for fifteen cents. These prices must mean not only 

 small margins for the wholesale and retail city dealers, but 

 very meagre profit to the cultivator. Kelsey plums, large, 

 firm and beautifully colored, are still seen in collections of 

 choice fruits, and command seventy-five cents a dozen. Hot- 

 house tomatoes, from the interior of this state, are selling for 

 fifty to sixty-five cents a pound. Sugar-cane, from Louisiana, 

 is seen in some of the fancy-fruit stores, the long stalks selling 

 for five cents each. 



We have received the first number of Florilegium Harlem- 

 ense, an illustrated work on cultivated bulbous plants, pub- 

 lished under the auspices of the council of the Algemeene 

 Vereeniging Voor Bloembollencultuur. The work is of quarto 

 size, and the flowers of natural dimensions, printed in colors 

 on a rather light brown paper. The first plate contains the 

 Single Hyacinth, La Grandesse, which, although it was distrib- 

 uted more than thirty years ago, is still the best trade variety 

 of this color. Plate No. 2 contains four Tulips, among which 

 is Keizerskroon, said to be the oldest early Tulip grown, and 

 under the name of Grand Due it was listed in catalogues 150 



years ago. The other Tulips are While Poltebakker, Vermil- 

 ion Brilliant and Proserpina. Plate No. 3 illustrates three 

 varieties of Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus : Major Maximus, 

 Bicolor John Horsfield and Moschatus albicans. The text is 

 written in French, English, German and Dutch. 



Another study of the destructive Potato scab has been made 

 at the Agricultural College of South Dakota by Thomas A. 

 Williams, botanist of the experiment station there, and the 

 report has been recently issued in a bulletin. When the seed 

 is treated with corrosive sublimate and planted in uninfested 

 land no scab was found, and when planted in infested land 

 the same treatment very materially reduced the trouble. 

 The weaker solution, where the corrosive sublimate is used 

 with the strength of about 1 to 1,000, is about as effective and 

 needs less care than when it is six times as strong. The best 

 practice is to immerse the seed before it is cut. The Bor- 

 deaux mixture and the so-called Eau Celeste seemed to be 

 effective against the fungus, but it decreased the yield more 

 or less. One point noted was that the thicker- skinned 

 and darker-colored varieties of potatoes seemed better able to 

 resist the attacks of the disease than other ones, and it was 

 once more demonstrated that potatoes should not be allowed 

 to remain in the wet ground long after ripening, 



Several new seedling Carnations are now offered by up-town 

 florists, notably Nero, large, clear rose-pink in color, and con- 

 spicuously attractive, and Nellie Patterson, with a variegation 

 more showy, perhaps, than even Helen Keller. The flowers are 

 a rich cream-yellow, the fringed petals delicately bordered and 

 regularly striped with bright pink. Both these novelties came 

 from C. Besold, Mineola, Long Island. Masses of beautifully 

 grown Chrysanthemums in florists' windows include among 

 yellow sorts H. L. Sunderbruch and a new seedling of decided 

 merit from Dailledouze Brothers, which they have named 

 Gold Standard. Flowers of the white Mrs. Henry Robinson 

 are altogether the largest and handsomest chrysanthemums 

 now in season, but none are more beautiful than Pink Ivory, 

 the petals deepening in color from the tips to a delightful rich 

 pink at their base. Large plants of heavily fruited Otaheite 

 Oranges are highly decorative features among the plants, and 

 luxuriantly flowered Ericas are seen in compactly grown plants 

 of E. praestans, with white flowers ; E. campanulata, tall and 

 slender in habit, with brilliant red, trumpet-shaped flowers, 

 E. hyemalis, pink-flowered ; and E. gracilis vernalis, bright 

 red globular flowers. 



In a paper read before the meeting of the Association for 

 Economic Entomologists at Buffalo, last summer, Professor 

 Hopkins gave an account of certain studies at the experiment 

 station in West Virginia, looking toward the prevention of 

 injury to shade and forest trees by insects. In one interesting 

 series of experiments different kinds of trees were cut twice 

 every month, year after year, in order to gather evidence 

 as to the proper time for felling timber so as to secure 

 the least possible damage from insect attacks. By observa- 

 tions with an insectary in which hundreds of specimens of 

 insects, representing many different species, were introduced, 

 it was found, among other things, that Hickory and Oak when 

 cut in the winter months is converted into powder by Lyctus 

 striatus, while the same wood cut during the summer months 

 is only slightly damaged. In the same way it is found that certain 

 species ot trees cut in July and August are entirely exempt 

 or but slightly damaged by wood-boring insects, while those 

 cut in late autumn or early spring are seriously injured. Pro- 

 fessor Hopkins found that a slight injury to the base of a tree 

 by fire offers a most favorable condition for insect attack, 

 which often results in the destruction of the most valuable 

 wood of a tree. The fire burns and kills the bark on one side 

 of the base, which might not be a serious matter of itself, 

 since subsequent growth would heal it over, but these slight 

 wounds are soon infested by various beetles and their larvas, 

 which by boring convert the inner dead wood into a dry pow- 

 der, or else their mines afford entrance for the fungus, so that 

 the next fire finds in these wounds a most favorable condition 

 to extend the injury. In this way frequent fires in the same 

 forest often burn entirely through the trunk of a large tree. 

 Fire wounds are almost invariably followed by a decay of the 

 heart-wood, which results in a hollow trunk. In almost every 

 wounded tree which was cut down and split open it was found 

 that the extension of the decay was due largely to insect larvae 

 which had entered from eggs deposited in the edges of the 

 fire wounds, and that brood after brood of these larvae, aided 

 by wood-infesting ants, had completely honeycombed the heart- 

 wood for a great distance above the wound, thus rendering it 

 worthless. The paper throughout is very interesting. 



