December 9, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



499 



touch to our autumn scenery. A garden of Chrysanthe- 

 mums has a decidedly foreign aspect, and yet my own out- 

 door collection of these flowers is giving, and will probably 

 continue to give, me great pleasure. Nevertheless, I some- 

 times question whether my bright borders do not create some 

 disturbance in the autumn landscape. My Chrysanthemums 

 bloom luxuriantly long after the trees are leafless and often 

 after the ground has been whitened with the earliest snow. 

 They have for company many shrubs that bear bright berries, 

 and for foil and background masses of evergreen bushes. 

 The effect is bright and cheerful in dark November days, when 

 cheerfulness and brightness are doubly prized. But it is unlike 

 anything else in nature ; the flowers look strange and out of 

 place with their setting of dead forest leaves and dark ever- 

 green foliage and naked Oaks. They are planted in an 

 out-of-the-way border, which is screened from the house by a 

 little rising ground, and so are not constantly asserting them- 

 selves to one who looks over the grounds from porch or win- 

 dow. We take frequent walks to them, however, and are 

 always glad to find them alive and shining amid the evidences 

 all about them that the year is dying. 



Of one thing I am sure, and that is that a great deal of care 

 must be used to arrange the plants to the best advantage. 

 Their cultivation in this climate presents no difficulties, but 

 their proper arrangement as to color demands study. On the 

 14th of November I saw a small garden where more than a 

 hundred and fifty varieties of Chrysanthemums were well 

 grown in the open air. Most of these were of the larger-flow- 

 ering type, though there were some Pompons and Anemones, 

 but reds, mauves, pinks, oranges, crimsons, whites and saffrons 

 were all in a jumble, without any attempt at artistic adjustment. 

 The effect was bizarre in the extreme and wearied the eyes, 

 until the observer longed to uproot them all and try to bring 

 some order out of the chaos by judicious grouping. Why 

 should we not be quite as much offended by a conjunction of 

 discordant colors in our gardens as the neat housekeeper is 

 by disorder and lack of harmony in her drawing-room ? 



A proper arrangement of Chrysanthemums is a most useful 

 exercise in producing harmonies of color. The pink varieties 

 are at one end of my border as far removed as possible from 

 the brick-dusty, reddish and orange-colored ones; yellows are 

 good in a mass by themselves, and whites may be judiciously 

 used to tone down and soften the whole effect. But these are 

 the simplest elementary rules in an art whose refinements are 

 of fascinating interest. I am sure that any reader of Garden 

 and Forest who is learned in the subject of colors and Chrys- 

 anthemums could gratify many flower lovers by recounting 

 experience in combinations for effect, with a list of good varie- 

 ties, new and old, for cultivation out-of-doors. 

 Rose Brake, w. Va. Danske Dandridge. 



Recent Publications. 



Economic Entomology : For the Farmer and Fruit Grower 

 and for use as a Text-book in Agricultural Schools and Col- 

 leges. Illustrated. By John B. Smith, Sc. D. Philadel- 

 phia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. 



The people for whom this book was prepared certainly 

 need precisely the kind of instruction which it contains. 

 The fruits and crops of orchards and fields are attacked 

 every year by insect pests, and unless the cultivator 

 knows how to rout these countless foes his year's labor 

 may be lost. Indeed, let him do what he will these depre- 

 dators will surely take a considerable fraction of one crop 

 or another in the course of every year, and it is not an 

 exaggeration to speak of the damage to the agricultural 

 products of the country as estimated in millions of dollars. 

 The entomologists in our experiment stations and colleges 

 have been doing a great deal of careful and practical work 

 in this field for several years past, and the literature which 

 is abundantly scattered about in leaflets and reports con- 

 tains about all that the farmer or fruit grower needs to 

 know on this subject. Professor Smith has selected from 

 all this material all that is essential for systematic instruc- 

 tion, and guided by his own experience as an investigator, 

 as a teacher, and as a practical worker in many campaigns, 

 he has made an admirable manual. A systematic treatise 

 on insects, in which their characteristic forms are classi- 

 fied and their habits described, occupies more than three 

 hundred pages of the book. This is preceded by about 

 fifty pages devoted to their physiology, and it is followed 



by fifty pages more specially devoted to insecticides and 

 various means of neutralizing their attacks. In this last 

 part not only the methods of prevention and cure are 

 explained, but reasons for every part of the processes are 

 plainly set forth. Practical rules are laid down with great 

 fullness, so that no one need err in the preparation of 

 poisonous and other compounds, while explicit directions 

 are given as to the method and time of application, to the 

 end that the remedies will have their best effect. The 

 chapter entitled Farm Practice to Prevent Insect Attack is 

 an especially valuable one. There is little need of sys- 

 tematic spraying with arsenic or hellebore when rubbish 

 and weeds are allowed to grow as harbors for fresh hordes 

 to attack the trees or crops as soon as one legion is de- 

 stroyed. Prevention is better than cure, and when we 

 read Dr. Smith's explanation of the way in which the 

 great portion of insects live through the winter and where 

 they hide, it is easy to see how a farm which is managed 

 in a slovenly way may be made a capital nursery for 

 insect pests for an entire neighborhood. How to destroy 

 these lurking places; how to cultivate so as to make life a 

 burden to our enemies ; what crop-rotation will make it 

 more difficult for them to gain a subsistence ; how to select 

 fertilizers which will be food for the plants and death for 

 their foes — all these problems and many more are dis- 

 cussed and settled with clearness and brevity. We believe 

 that if all farmers and fruit growers, and, indeed, all landed 

 proprietors, should adopt these simple preventive measures 

 a great many of the most destructive species could be per- 

 manently reduced or, at least, held in check without 

 further trouble. 



The illustrations are genuine helps to the text. Some of 

 them are original, and the remainder are taken from the 

 most trustworthy sources. Technical language is only 

 used where it is necessary, so that the book can be read 

 with understanding by any man of ordinary intelligence, 

 and it might have a fascinating interest for girls and boys 

 who have an inclination to the study of Natural History. 

 It is one of the books which could be appropriately placed 

 in the library of every district school in the country. 



The tenth volume of Professor Sargent's Silva of North 

 America was published on the 28th of November. It con- 

 tains figures and descriptions of the arborescent species of 

 Yucca which grow north of the Mexican boundary, the 

 arborescent Palms of the United States, the Cupressinea 

 and Taxacese, and the following genera of Conifers — 

 Juniperus, Cupressus (including Chamaecyparis), Thuya, 

 Libocedrus, Sequoia and Taxodium. Two additional vol- 

 umes will complete the work. The eleventh, now in 

 course of preparation, will be devoted entirely to the genus 

 Pinus, and in the twelfth and final volume will be described 

 the Spruces, Firs, Hemlocks, Larches and a few trees of 

 earlier orders which have been found since the publication 

 of this work was begun. 



Notes. 



The first hothouse asparagus of the season, from New Jer- 

 sey and Long Island, which shows severe forcing in slender 

 blanched stalks, costs $2.00 a bunch. 



Mr. C. G. Pringle has just returned from another botanical 

 journey in Mexico, where, during the past season, he has 

 secured about 20,000 herbarium specimens in the valley of 

 Mexico and in Cuernavaca. 



The first car-load of California Navel oranges was sold here 

 last week, when the season for "deciduous" fruits from that 

 state closed with sales of three car-loads of grapes. During 

 the season 1,137 car-loads of California fruits were sold at 

 auction in this city, 154 more than in 1895. 



Number 2 of Florilegium Harlemense contains pictures 

 and description of the single blue Hyacinth Grand Mattre, a 

 well-known variety wdiich is rather more desirable for borders 

 than for forcing; three of the early double Tulips, including 

 Raphael, with a blush-white (lower as large as a pseony, the 

 white Alba Maxima and the scarlet Vuurbaak, or Lighthouse ; 

 and three of the most distinct varieties of Polyanthus Narcissus. 



