82 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 260. 



difficulty which a novice or a child may not readily overcome. 

 Anvthing which prepares its flower-buds the year before, and 

 is then ready for early-spring blooming, is fitted for this simple 

 kind of forcing. 



To show how easy and effective the process is, the follow- 

 ing example is given. On January 3d, a few branches of 

 Forsythia suspensa were cut from an outdoor bush, put in a 

 vase containing water, and left on a table in my room. Water 

 was supplied as fast as it evaporated, but no other care was 

 given. In about a week the buds had begun to push, and 

 their scales were distinctly separated. From this time the 

 growth was rapid. On the nth inst. the yellow petals showed 

 plainly ; on the 17th a few flowers were wide open, and on the 

 22d there was a mass of yellow bloom almost as abundant and 

 with flowers as large and perfect as we see out-of-doors in 

 April or May. They will remain in good condition for ten 

 days or more if the air of the room does not get too hot 

 and dry. Later in the season the time required for forcing 

 is somewhat less, and in March, only a little before the 

 time'for natural flowering, eight or nine days is sufficient. The 

 Forsythia is specially well adapted for this purpose, since it is 

 a profuse bloomer, perfectly hardy, and, although not a native 

 shrub, is one which is deservedly becoming very common 

 and seems already as thoroughly at home here as in its native 

 China. I seldom let a winter pass without having at least one 

 such bouquet, and some years have repeated the process at 

 short intervals, since material is so abundant and so little 

 trouble is required. Other shrubs could be used in the same 

 way. 



Of slightly different character only is the forcing of such 

 native plants as the Bloodroot. Where they are abundant it is 

 generally not difficult to dig out a few of the large root-stocks 

 with the buds uninjured, and treat them the same as Hyacinths 

 or put at once into earth in flower-pots. They will flower in a 

 few weeks, and, although short-lived, the purity of their blos- 

 soms and the curiously shaped leaves which quickly follow 

 fully repay the trouble. 



Such simple practices have an added value in any household 

 where there are persons — young or old — who have an interest 

 in the life of plants as well as in the beauty of their flowers. 

 They suggest and provoke inquiry as to how plants live and 

 have their being ; and this flowering, which appears at first to 

 be entirely out of the course of nature, is only what we should 

 expect under the circumstances. The late winter, moreover, 

 is apt to be a trying time for all who are condemned to an in- 

 door life. Although the backbone of winter may be broken, 

 and, by the almanac, spring near at hand, yet we long for a 

 touch or a hint. We would have a sign. The dormant life in 

 many of our native plants can be quickened and forced in our 

 ordinary living-rooms, and thus make more real to us the 

 promise of the coming days. „^ , „ , , ^ 



State College, Pa. \ . W. A. Buckhoilt. 



Salix balsamifera. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In your account of Salix balsamifera, published 

 January i8th, you overlook the fact that this plant has been de- 

 tected at Mount Mansfield, Vermont. Soon after finding it in 

 the White Mountains, Mr. Pringle discovered one bush on a 

 shelf of the cliff on the north peak of Mount Mansfield, south 

 of the hotel, but in sight of it. It occurs also in several places 

 along the carriage-road, about a mile and a half from the 

 hotel. Last spring I transplanted several specimens into the 

 arboretum of the St. Louis Botanic Garden, and when I left 

 there, at the beginning of last spring, they appeared to be doing 



^^Chariotte, vt. F- H. Horsford. 



Second Crop of Potatoes. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I observe in the report of the Kansas Horticultural 

 Society that there was some surprise at the possibility of grow- 

 ing two crops of potatoes in the same season. This practice 

 of raising a second crop has long been common in the south. 

 Thesuperiority of these late-grown potatoes for spring planting 

 over potatoes brought from the north is now so well known to 

 planters that this year's supply will probably reach fancy 

 prices by planting-time, since the crop was short owing to 

 drought. Had the season been favorable the fall potato 

 crop would have been a large one, for the reason that the 

 breakdown in the price of the early crop left a great many 

 of them in the growers' hands, and, as a consequence, there 

 was a much larger acreage planted than usual. Last spring 

 there was quite a demand northward for these potatoes for 



planting, a demand that is likely to grow larger. Interest 

 in this second crop, therefore, as a profitable one for the 

 south, will doubtless increase, since all who planted them 

 northward, so far as I know, have been pleased with the 

 results. 

 Raleigh, n. c. W. F. Massey. 



How to Get a Blue Glass Sod. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In an address before the New Jersey Horticultural So- 

 ciety, on the " Formation of Lawns," which was published in 

 vol. v., page 618, Mr. George C. Woolson advocates the plan of 

 getting a perfectly pure sod of a fine variety of Rhode Island 

 Bent Grass, and then, breaking this up into separate plants, he 

 sets them out a few inches apart. His experiments have con- 

 vinced him that this is a better way of getting a good lawn 

 than the ordinary way of sowing seed. In the course of his 

 paper he adds, " I believe that farmers mightadopt this method 

 of putting down their fields to grass where labor is not too 

 high." This is a plan which I have recommended and tested. 

 Fifteen years ago I was seeding a twenty-five acre pasture-lot, 

 and as an experiment I grafted, as I called it, half an acre in 

 the following way, with Blue Grass sod : I broke the sod up 

 into pieces about two inches square and dropped them a yard 

 apart each way on the plowed surface and then pressed 

 them in by stepping on them. The first year these pieces 

 spread to the size of a dinner-plate and in a few years I had a 

 complete sod. I believe this would work well on a lawn, only 

 the pieces might be dropped a foot apart. I would sow the 

 ground with pure Timothy-seed at the same time I planted 

 the bits of sod, for this would give a fairly good stretch of 

 green at once, while the Blue Grass would crowd it out entirely 

 in two years. 



Oxford, o. 



Waldo F. Brown. 



Recent Publications. 



In Lynn Woods, with Pen and Camera. By Nathan Mortimer 

 Hawkes. Lynn, Mass : Thomas P. Nichols. 



This little book, with its charming illustrations of the noble 

 woods of Lynn, is full of interest to the lover of old New Eng- 

 land towns, with their early customs and socialistic experi- 

 ments, and is attractive to the lover of the woods from its 

 pleasing descriptions of the forest, its glens and slopes, its 

 rocks and brooks, and the overshadowing trees in interesting 

 variety. Its writer is learned in the legends of the region, and 

 has many a tale to tell which imagination might expand into 

 romance. The attraction of these woods and hills, which 

 were in the earliest days of the settlement the commons of 

 Lynn, is inexhaustible. 



The story, too, of how the woods were re-acquired for the 

 people is well worth telling, and the energy and enthusiasm 

 shown by Mr. Tracy and Mr. Chase, in impressing upon the 

 town the value of its antique possession, are an example to all 

 who take an interest in the preservation of forests. The Mas- 

 sachusetts people take a just pride in the Puritan settletnents, 

 which still preserve in the commonwealth the importance of 

 precedent. The great names associated with them are rever- 

 ently spoken, and if some are of but local fame they are still 

 hallowed in the memory of the towns which owed to them 

 their foundation and prosperity. These local names are pre- 

 served in the Lynn woods, attached to hills and sections of the 

 park, so that they shall be held in eternal remembrance by the 

 community; and it is pleasant to think that in that stirring 

 manufacturing town, given over to shoemaking and other 

 prosaic industries, originated the first systematic movement 

 in the state toward preserving the forests as a treasurer of 

 the water-supply, and as the guardian of their purity and 

 wholesomeness. 



Curiously enough, the deserted commons were less known 

 to the present generation than to the early settlers of Lynn, 

 unfil, in 1870, the city purchased Breed's pond as a water-sup- 

 ply. From that time onward a series of intelligent men, like 

 Mr. Edwin Walden, Mr. Cyrus M. Tracy and Mr. Philip A. 

 Chase, have labored to add more and more to the city's tract 

 of woodland, until at this time there are 1,600 acres of undis- 

 turbed forest, contiguous, not only to the city which owns 

 them, but to many neighboring towns, of inestimable service 

 to the rapidly growing population as a place of healthful resort. 

 Sixty-seven acres have been acquired by gift, but the rest has 

 become public property by purchase or by the right of emi- 

 nent domain. Lynn thus holds, not merely a newly planted 

 pleasure-ground, but a properly guarded woodland of real 

 antiquity. 



