84 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 260. 



productiveness. 'It seems to have acquired a fixity of char- 

 acter through a process of selection. 



Mr. John Thorpe, Chief of the Floricuitural Department at 

 tlie World's Fair, is making: extensive preparations for a show 

 of Pansies next spring. The seed has come up remarkably- 

 well, and it is said that something like a million plants will be 

 exhibited in May. In comprehensiveness and variety the ex- 

 hibition will probably excel anything that has ever before been 

 attempted. 



In the last bulletin from the Iowa Experiment Station it is 

 stated that several dwarf varieties of the June-berry have been 

 tried there during the past ten years, and three orfour of them, 

 which have been deemed worthy of a name on account of 

 bearing the largest and best fruits, are being sent out on trial. 

 In size and quality the berries are said to compare favorably 

 with the Large-bush Huckleberry. 



We have frequently spoken of the value of Imantophyllum 

 miniatum as a window-plant. It will endure more neglect 

 than almost any other plant, and its umbels of large showy 

 Howers of a bright orange-tinted vermilion will be freely pro- 

 duced all winter long. The plants increase in size from year 

 to year, and there are few others which can be depended on 

 to give as much pleasure for the same outlay of time and 

 trouble. 



An article on the IMalay Peninsula, published in the January 

 number of The Century Magazine, gives a picture of the Durian- 

 fruit, which is famous for its disgusting odor to all foreigners 

 when they first make its acquaintance, and for the unique and 

 delicious flavor to the same persons after they have learned to 

 appreciate it. In the illustration only the lower part of the 

 tree is seen, and the large, oval and pear-shaped fruits hang 

 from stems which come directly out of the trunk and larger 

 limbs. The tree itself attains a height of sixty or eighty feet, 

 with a spreading top, which gives it the general appearance of 

 an Elm. 



Many causes combine to operate unfavorably on the growth 

 of trees and shrubs in Holland. The numerous heavy winds in 

 the neighborhood of the sea, and more particularly the north- 

 west winds, destroy the tops of the high-growing trees, break 

 their branches, and by shaking their trunks loosen the roots 

 in the soil and blow the trees down. This is chiefly occasioned 

 by the little depth to which the roots can penetrate into the 

 ground, for as soon as they reach the water they are com- 

 pelled to take a lateral direction, inconsequence of which the 

 trees soon become sickly, or are suddenly loosened from the 

 soft humid soil by the wind. 



A novel idea for a park was that of King James V. of Scot- 

 land, who founded the palace of Holyrood about 1528, by build- 

 ing a house to reside in, with a circular turret at each angle. 

 To accommodate himself with a park. King James enclosed a 

 large tract of ground in the neighborhood of this place with a 

 stone-wall about three miles in circumference, which, as Mait- 

 land says, in his History of Edinburgh, " is nowhere to be 

 paralleled ; for, instead of trees and thickets for cover, which 

 other parks abound with, I could not, afterthe strictest search, 

 discover one tree therein : in lieu whereof, it is supplied with 

 huge rocks and vast declivities, which furnish the Edinburgh- 

 ers with the best of stones to pave their streets withal ; as do 

 the other parts of the said park yield good pasturage and mea- 

 dovi'-grounds, with considerable spots of arable land." Two 

 hundred years after, however, the level portion was covered 

 with magnificent Oaks. 



We are occasionally asked whether Orchids can be used as 

 house-plants, and our reply is that we have never seen them 

 used in that way to any great extent, although there is no rea- 

 son why certain varieties cannot be grown in the windows of 

 ordinary living-rooms. Mr. W. A. Manda says that there are 

 half a dozen Cypripediums which can be grown by any one 

 who knows how to grow a Geranium or a Palm, and among 

 those whose cultural requirements are the least exacting he 

 names Cypripedium insigne, C. Boxallii, C. villosum, C. barba- 

 tum, C. Harrisianum and C. Sedeni. Of other Orchids which 

 can be trusted to similar conditions he names Coelogyne cris- 

 tata, Odontoglossum Rossi, Phajus grandifolius, Dendrobium 

 nobile, Laelia anceps and Lycaste Skinneri. Tliere are white 

 forms of some of these last which are very beautiful, but they 

 would probably be too delicate for the window-garden. As a 

 general rule, the white varieties of these plants are rather 

 more tender than the types. 



From the premium list for 1893 of the Horticultural Society 

 of Wayne, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, it appears that the 



society was organized in July of last year and met with such 

 popular favor that in two months' time it had two hundred 

 members. At the autumn exhibition last year there were so 

 many visitors that a small admission fee paid all the expenses 

 incidental to the organization and left a small balance in the 

 treasury. The annual dues are only fifty cents, and competi- 

 tion is open to members only. At the spring exhibition prizes 

 are offered for Roses, Geraniums, Heliotropes, Freesias and 

 other plants grown in pots and to be competed for by children. 

 Among the requirements of this class are that the plants must 

 have been grown by the exhibitor personally and that they 

 must come in clean pots. Children's prizes are also offered at 

 the autumn exhibition, and special prizes are offered for the 

 best-kept school-house grounds within five miles of the Wayne 

 post-office, and for the best-kept grounds, irrespective of the 

 size of the lots. There is also to be a competition for collec- 

 tions of wild flowers under admirable rules which regulate the 

 mounting of the specimens, while careful and ample instruc- 

 tions for collecting and preparing these are added. Dr. W. P. 

 Wilson and Dr. J. C. Macfarlane, of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, have each consented to arrange a field-excursion with 

 those who intend to compete for these collections of mounted 

 specimens, when a practical demonstration will be given of 

 the best way of gathering plants and of making observations 

 upon them. On a day set, also, the collectors are invited to 

 visit the herbarium of the university and receive instruction 

 to enable them intelligently to begin the examination of the 

 local flora about their homes. It would be well for the inter- 

 ests of horticulture if a thousand societies, managed with the 

 same intelligence and vigor, should be established this year in 

 as many towns throughout the country. 



Bulletin No. 90 of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment 

 Station is on the subject of grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, 

 and in it Professor J. B. Smith, the entomologist of the station, 

 shows with great clearness that the serious injuries to cran- 

 berries, and. which have been charged upon grasshoppers, are 

 really occasioned by katydids. This injury is always of the 

 same character. The berry is eaten into from one side, the 

 pulp is rejected and the seeds only are taken. The berry 

 soon dries and shrivels up. Professor Smith, in an instructive 

 way and with abundant illustration, shows how much better 

 equipped for eating into fruits the katydid is than the grass- 

 hopper. The head of the katydid enables it to dig into the 

 fruit with a much less expenditure. of time and energy than is 

 possible for a grasshopper, while the mandibles of the former 

 enable it to do clean-cut work quite beyond the power of the 

 grasshopper. The digestive system of the katydid also is 

 much better adapted to reduce hard food like seeds than is 

 that of the grasshopper, which has a less powerful grinding 

 apparatus. Still further, by direct experiment with living in- 

 sects, the truth of this theory was corroborated. The habit of 

 eating seeds only gives the katydid a power to cause much 

 more injury than if the entire fruit was eaten, since the seeds 

 of three or four berries at a meal is easily within the capacity 

 of a single specimen, so that at one meal a day for three 

 weeks a single insect would destroy eighty berries, and no 

 doubt their powers are much greater than this. There is no 

 need here to give the details of the measures which are ad- 

 vised to be taken against this insect, although, in a brief way, 

 what is needed is: (i) A clean bog, that is, a bog free from 

 grasses, rushes, and shrubs. (2) The use of as much water 

 as is consistent with good culture, keeping the soil quite wet 

 in spring until it is thoroughly warm through. (3) A marginal 

 ditch, at least six feet wide. (4) The clearing of all vegetation 

 from the dams, particularly shrubbery, and, where it is pos- 

 sible, the burning over of a fairly wide margin about the bogs 

 after the brush has been destroyed. Every owner of a Cran- 

 berry-bog should at once procure this little treatise and study 

 it thoroughly. 



Catalogues Received. 



J. BoLGlANO & Son, 28 Calvert Street, Baltimore, Md. ; Vegetable, 

 Grass and Flower Seeds. — ^Joseph Breck & Sons, Boston, Mass.; 

 Vegetable, Grass and Flower Seeds, Small Fruits, Vines, Shrubs, 

 Shade, Ornamental and Fruit Trees. — CuRRlE Bros., Milwaukee, 

 Wis. ; Vegetable and Flower Seeds, Plants and Bulbs. — A. B. Jones, 

 Hartford, So. Dak. ; Success Barley. — J. T. Lovett Co., Little Silver, 

 N. J. ; Small Fruit l^lants, Fruit and Nut Trees, Garden Roots, Orna- 

 mental Shrubs and Trees. — Marvin & Brooke, Ithaca, Mich. ; Price 

 List of Strawberry Plants. — -L. L. Olds, Clinton, Wis. ; Seed Potatoes. 

 — OLIVER A. Smith, Clarkson, Mich. ; Iron Land Roller, Spraying 

 Pump.— J. C. Vaughan & Co., Chicago, 111., Vegetable and Flower 

 Seeds. 



