5i° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 460. 



tions of the remaining two volumes are already completed, 

 their publication may be expected within a time reasonably 

 required for their progress through the press. Their appear- 

 ance will be impatiently awaited. 



Notes. 



According to The Gardeners' Chronicle, Harrison's Yellow 

 Rose has been blooming in November. This is said to be a 

 rare occurrence in England, and a second flowering of these 

 Roses is certainly a rare event here. 



At the Thanksgiving dinner of the American Society at the 

 Hotel Cecil, in London, a feature of the banquet was an enor- 

 mous pumpkin, weighing 175 pounds, sent to London by 

 Captain Kroman, of Schoharie County, New York. 



In this warm winter weather many shrubs are cheated into 

 showing their flowers as if it were spring. In this latitude the 

 flowers of Jasminum nudiflorum, which appear very early in 

 spring, are usually caught by the frosts and rarely have their 

 long wands covered with bright yellow blossoms as they do 

 farther south. The plant is hardy here, however, and grows 

 vigorously in Morningside Park, and many of the bushes 

 are now quite full of bloom. In sheltered places Japan Quinces 

 are also flowering. 



Professor McDougal gives some very good reasons in the 

 current number of Appleton's Popular Science Monthly for 

 the establishment of a botanical garden in the West Indies, so 

 that tropical plants could be studied without going to Buiten- 

 zorg or some other garden on the other side of the world. A 

 laboratory and garden in the West Indies could be reached 

 from any important city in our country in four or five days, 

 and it would be much more accessible for the European bota- 

 nist even than are those established among the antipodes. 

 Such a garden would be of direct benefit to a great number of 

 working botanists in America and furnish investigators and 

 graduate students of this country with unequaled facilities for 

 biological research. 



We hear occasional criticisms of the California Violet by 

 commercial growers, but, after all, there is something about a 

 single Violet that is most attractive. We lately received a box 

 of these flowers from Mr. A. Herrington, gardener to H. McK. 

 Twombley, Esq., and they certainly left nothing to be desired 

 in fragrance, or form or color. The flowers are bold, they are 

 poised on long strong stems, they keep well and are wonder- 

 fully rich in color and delightfully odorous. Mr. Herrington 

 writes that he expects to have these Violets all winter. The 

 plants from which the flowers were gathered were set out in 

 June and received open-field culture. They were kept to 

 single crowns, and were lifted into the benches in September. 

 They have become perfect rosettes with abundant foliage, 

 each plant nearly a foot in diameter. We can think of nothing 

 more satisfactory in the shape of a Violet than these flowers. 



A thoroughly useful Farmers' Bulletin of about twenty pages, 

 just issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, is 

 entitled Washed Soils. How to Prevent and Reclaim Them. 

 Along the banks of the Ohio and in many portions of the south 

 hundreds of fields have been washed and furrowed beyond 

 the possibility of profitable cultivation. How the destruction 

 of forests has caused these gullies, how to prevent them, and 

 how by cultivation, reforesting and covering up the ground 

 with grass this evil can be checked and cured is plainly set 

 forthJBthese pages. The illustrations are not artistic, but 

 they are helpful, and the methods of constructing hillside 

 ditches and terraces, the best preparation for forests, with 

 approved methods of planting and caring for them, are all 

 plainly set forth. The statements in this little tract are so 

 truthful, and the deductions so logical and convincing, that 

 every landowner who is not already familiar with them ought 

 to read and consider them. 



The English papers are giving a good deal of attention to 

 American apples since these have become such an important 

 feature of the English fruit market. The Gardeners' Magazine, 

 in describing the auction sales, which are held three times a 

 week at Liverpool, says that a single auctioneer sometimes 

 sells more than 15,000 barrels a day, and as there are half a 

 dozen salesmen, who each takes a turn of forty minutes, it is 

 plain that a great deal of fruit is disposed of in a day. Some- 

 times the sales are not completed until midnight. Buyers are 

 obliged to take twenty barrels at least on every accepted bid, 

 with the option of as many of a given brand as are desired. 



They are sold by samples of two barrels from every lot of 

 twenty, one of which is opened on the face end and the other 

 turned out in baskets, so that any dishonesty in packing can 

 be seen. Barrels which are called "slack" — those in which 

 the fruit rattles when it is shaken — need not be taken by the 

 buyer, as they bring from fifty cents to a dollar below the 

 ruling pricey. A correspondent of The Gardeners' Chronicle 

 writes that American shippers excel in grading and pack- 

 ing their fruit. He says that out of thousands of barrels of 

 one variety of apples every fruit looks as if it had been run into 

 the same mold, and this careful sizing does as much to sell 

 the fruit as the finish in color and clearness of skin, in which 

 particulars our fruit is so much superior to that grown in the 

 climate of England. That the sale of the British fruit could be 

 secured by appealing to British patriotism has proved to be a 

 delusion, and the Merchandise Marks Act, which compels all 

 American apples to be labeled as such, has only helped to ad- 

 vertise them. 



So light was the crop of Pecan nuts in Texas and Louisiana 

 that no new ones are in market. Last year's product, held over 

 in ice-houses, sells at fifteen cents a pound, retail. Hickory 

 nuts are also scarce, the crop in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 

 Connecticut and New York having failed. Ohio has furnished 

 the main supplies for our market ; new nuts sell for fifteen 

 cents, and those from last year for ten cents, a quart. Butter- 

 nuts, too, are far from plentiful, a few barrels only having come 

 from Greene County, of this state. These sell at eight cents a 

 quart. There has been a fair crop of black walnuts, which 

 bring the same price as butternuts. The first almonds from 

 France reached this country about the middle of November, 

 and the choice kind known as Princess Paper-shell sell for 

 twenty-five cents a pound. A similar almond from California, 

 of fine quality and somewhat larger, has been here since early 

 in November, and brings five cents a pound less than the 

 favorite French almond. The thicker-shelled Tarragona 

 almond, from Spain, has more recently come, and sells for 

 fifteen cents. The crop of English walnuts is very large, and the 

 nuts are of excellent quality this year. The first Grenoble 

 walnuts were in market just before Thanksgiving at fifteen 

 cents a pound. The Brazil nuts, which begin to come in 

 spring, are of comparatively poor quality this year, due, it is 

 said, to injury from late rains while being transported in open 

 canoes to the seaport. These sell for twelve cents a pound. 

 The lirst new filberts came from Sicily and Naples, and from 

 Barcelona, a fortnight ago, and bring fifteen cents a pound, 

 while English filberts, or cob nuts, in their husks, sell for 

 forty cents. The Chinese Lychee nuts, so-called, are thirty 

 cents a pound. No new Paradise or Caryocar nuts have ar- 

 rived this year, though some from other years are still seen in 

 the retail shops. 



An interesting bulletin prepared by Mr. L. F. Kinney, Horti- 

 culturist of the Rhode Island Experiment Station, treats of 

 Spinach with a description of the most approved methods of 

 culture at the present day, the best way to irrigate, the pro- 

 tection of plants against mildews and leaf-miners and various 

 other interesting points. In the matter of classification, four 

 types of true Spinach which have originated from the natural 

 species, Spinacea oleracea, are considered. The first of these 

 is the Norfolk or Bloomsdale variety, which makes a vase- 

 formed, thick-leaved plant, with leaves supported by stalks 

 instead of resting on the ground. This type, which appears 

 under half a dozen different names, is not popular among the 

 large growers in Rhode Island because it goes to seed early, 

 and yet it is unsurpassed in quality when harvested at the 

 right time. The Round-leaved Spinach is the second type, 

 and it makes a compact round plant with dark green, slow- 

 growing leaves formed close to the ground. The third type 

 is the Thick-leaved Spinach, which has the ends of the leaves 

 pointed. It grows to a large size very rapidly. The Prickly- 

 seed Spinach has leaves with long, slender stalks and narrow 

 blades, and is not planted in the north as much as it deserves. 

 The so-called New Zealand Spinach is botanically Tetragonia 

 expansa, which, when properly cooked, makes a good substi- 

 tute for Spinach, and can be grown during the hot summer 

 months when it is impracticable to grow the true Spinach. 

 The Mountain Spinach, or Garden Orache, is botanically Atri- 

 plex Hortensis, and none of its forms have much to recom- 

 mend it. Spinach has been cultivated for a thousand years, 

 but it was not grown in European gardens until the fifteenth or 

 sixteenth century, and the greatest progress in its cultivation 

 has been made within the last fifty years. The bulletin is 

 numbered 41, and contains much interesting historical and 

 cultural matter. 



