520 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 461. 



him new reasons for much established cultural practice, 

 and it will certainly set him to thinking seriously over many 

 problems which remain to be solved. 



Notes. 



The books on landscape-gardening collected by Henry Sar- 

 gent Codman and Philip Codman have been presented by 

 their parents, Mr. and Mrs. James M. Codman, of Brookline, 

 Massachusetts, to the Boston Public Library, where they will 

 be placed in a special alcove to be devoted hereafter to works 

 on this subject. The collection consists of some three hun- 

 dred and fifty volumes, among them many old works of 

 extreme rarity. 



Forced dandelion is now seen among the more tender 

 vegetables in a large assortment of holiday offerings and sells 

 for twenty cents a quart. Slender young onions, from 

 New Orleans, cost seven cents a bunch, and tiny radishes, 

 from near-by hothouses, the same price. Lettuce, from Bos- 

 ton, brings ten cents a head, and showy cucumbers, perfectly 

 grown, also from Massachusetts, readily command twenty 

 cents each. Smooth and evenly colored tomatoes from Penn- 

 sylvania hothouses cost forty cents a pound, and mushrooms 

 from Long Island sixty cents. 



According to the Journal of the Agricultural Bureau of South 

 Australia, Cork Oak trees of good quality have been grown in 

 that region, both soil and climate proving congenial. One 

 drawback to the more general cultivation of the tree is that it 

 has been difficult to get the acorns which come from Europe 

 to germinate, but now the trees originally planted in South 

 Australia are fruiting abundantly, so that there will be little 

 difficulty in obtaining seedlings. The trees planted in Mount 

 Lofty about forty years ago are growing vigorously and they 

 are old enough now to produce a crop of cork. 



Dr. Rothrock calls attention in Forest Leaves to the observa- 

 tion of Dr. Evermayer for the Bavarian Government, who 

 declares that the evaporation of moisture from a forest area, 

 including transpiration from the leaves, exceeds by fifty per 

 cent, the evaporation from a water surface in the open, and if, 

 therefore, we cut off great areas of forest it is not improbable 

 that the surrounding atmosphere is much less humid, and for 

 this reason the ground will dry out much more rapidly. This 

 will account to a certain extent for the killing quality of the 

 droughts in some recent years. A diminished rainfall alone 

 will hardly account for their seventy, but if we couple with 

 this the fact that evaporation from the ground is more rapid, 

 we have some additional reasons for the extreme dryness 

 which has prevailed. 



A correspondent inquires if it makes any particular difference 

 what staminate varieties of Strawberries are set among pistillate 

 plants in order to fertilize them. Whether the pollen parent 

 does anything to modify the size, flavor or color of the berry is a 

 question that has been very energetically discussed, but growers 

 pay little attention to the quality ot the fruit of the perfect-flow- 

 ered plants and a good deal to the question whether they are 

 strong growers and abundant producers of pollen. It is essential, 

 however, that the plants which produce this pollen should 

 blossom at the same time with the varieties which they ferti- 

 lize. For example, Mr. Paddock states in a recent bulletin of 

 the New York Experiment Station that Michel's Early would 

 not be a proper variety to plant with Bubach, because the first 

 blossoms of the latter will hardly be open before those of the 

 former are in full bloom or past their best. 



Among the plants which are to be sent out by the California 

 Experiment Station next year will be a few seedling Silk-Cotton 

 trees in small pots for trial in the warmer districts of that 

 state. The lustrous light fibre known as "silk-cotton" and 

 used in upholstery is a product of this tree, Eriodendron 

 anfractuosum, and if it can be grown in that state it would be 

 a valuable addition to the economic plants. Since the tree is 

 a native of the southern part of India, however, it cannot be 

 expected to flourish except in places which are entirely frost- 

 less. The Carob-tree, Ceratonia siliqua, has been raised from 

 seed in Alameda County and has already borne fruit. This 

 tree is about as hardy as the Orange and valuable, owing to its 

 drought-resisting qualities, for planting on dry hillsides as well 

 as on richer lands, where it produces excellent food for cows 

 and swine. It is a handsome tree, the true Algaroba or St. 

 John's Bread of the Mediterranean regions. A late bulletin of 

 the ExperimentStation at Berkeley announces that several pods 

 of the Carob-tree will be mailed to applicants for five cents. 



Nine cargoes of Oregon fir have recently been loaded at 

 Port Blakely, Washington, to be used in the construction of a 

 dry dock in Plymouth, England. According to the Timber 

 News, of Liverpool, the Creedmore carried 1,100,000 feet, the 

 Kennebec 1,500,000 feet, the John Briggs 1,430,000, and so on, 

 making a total of 11,000,000 feet. It must be a spacious dry 

 dock which will need so much timber and plank, for, as the 

 Northwestern Lumberman remarks, this will be enough to fill 

 up a big Chicago wholesale lumber-yard. Besides the small 

 lumber that has started on its long journey around Cape Horn, 

 there are more than 10,000 pieces of timber which range from 

 twelve to twenty-four inches square and from forty-five to 

 eighty-three feet long, and the Lumberman remarks that no- 

 where on the earth can such a lot of timber be found near 

 water where such large ships can be loaded. The deep waters 

 of Puget Sound enable ships to take these enormous cargoes 

 at the very mill wharves. 



Concord and Catawba grapes are still quite plentiful and sell 

 for fifteen and twenty cents for a basket holding four pounds of 

 the fruit. Trimmed bunches of Almeria or Malaga grapes cost 

 twenty-five to thirty-five cents a pound. The direct importation 

 of these Spanishgrapes is confined to October and November, 

 though a tew lots come by way of Liverpool in December. 

 This year the receipts in this city from Spain amounted to 

 139,339 barrels of about sixty pounds each, and prices were 

 remarkably even throughout the unusually short selling sea- 

 son of five weeks. One shipper realized an average ot $5.25 a 

 barrel on all the grapes forwarded, while an invoice ot 1,000 

 barrels netted the exporter $6.12^ a barrel. The highest price 

 reached during the season for an exceptionally fine lot was 

 $11.12/4 a barrel. Large-berried Gros Colman grapes are 

 coming from Liverpool in perfect condition, nine ot the im- 

 mense bunches in a box about fifteen inches square, suspended 

 from three slats and well held in place with cork-dust. A 

 pound of this showy fruit costs $1.75 to $2. 25. 



Never before have citrus fruits reached this city from so 

 many sections, and the range and variety is, consequently, 

 remarkable. A choice ot oranges may be had from Florida, 

 Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, California, Arizona, Mexico and 

 the Mediterranean. Grape-fruit is coming from Florida and 

 Jamaica, and shaddocks from the latter place, Grape-fruit 

 sells tor $1.00 to $2.00 a dozen, Florida oranges sixty to 

 seventy-five cents, and California Navels for the same price, 

 oranges from Jamaica costing slightly less. Mandarins, light- 

 colored and ot good size, with distinctive musky flavor, come 

 from Sicily and trom Florida, and sell for thirty to sixty cents a 

 dozen. Smaller Tangerines, of deep rich color, reach us from 

 the same state and trom Jamaica and California, and their 

 comparative scarcity here has induced large shipments 

 from Japan. This seedless fruit from Asia is considered of 

 better flavor than that from California, but not equal to the 

 Florida fruit, which commands sixty-five cents a dozen. 

 Valencia oranges are exceptionally good this season, and sell 

 as high as $5.50 a case at the wholesale auctions, the best 

 Messina oranges reaching $2.25. Lemons, from Spain and 

 Sicily, are ot good quality, plentiful and unusually cheap for 

 the holiday season, costing htteen to twenty-five cents a dozen. 

 The immense total quantity of oranges alone is indicated by 

 the fact that now, at tne beginning ot the season for Mediter- 

 ranean oranges, 32,700 cases ot Valencias have already been 

 received at this port, while up to December 171b 214,124 barrels 

 and 29,926 boxes of Jamaica oranges have arrived. 



We have lately received from Dr. Franceschi an interesting 

 note in regard to Mr. Kinton Stevens, an Englishman by birth, 

 who came to California more than twenty years ago, and began 

 planting at Montecito specimens of Palms and tropical trees 

 which have made his garden one of the most attractive and 

 interesting in southern California. Mr. Stevens died recently, 

 but his garden contains such treasures as two plants of Cocos 

 plumosa, thirty-five to forty feet high ; an Erythea armata, 

 which has bloomed for the first time in cultivation ; a Jubaea 

 spectabilis, twenty feet high, and flowering specimens of 

 various other Palms. Besides this, the garden displays Mango- 

 trees in fruit with Eugenia Brasiliensis and Monstera dehciosa, 

 which have also ripened fruit here for the first time in Cali- 

 fornia. He was entrusted by the Board of Park Commis- 

 sioners of San Francisco to collect Palms, Tree Ferns and 

 other interesting plants from Hawaii, in which he was very 

 successful, and he was a pioneer in planting Avocado Pears in 

 the state. Mr. Stevens was cut off in the midst of his useful- 

 ness, but his memory will live in the beautiful plants with 

 which he enriched the gardens of his adopted state. 



