March 8, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



117 



sing^le and double Calendulas, Calliopsis, Centaurea cya- 

 nus, Chrysanthemum coronarium, Marguerite Carnations, 

 Marigolds, Mignonette, tall Nasturtiums, ten-week Stocks, 

 Pansies, Sweet Sultan, miniature Sunflowers and Zinnias. 

 As alternates, useful flowers are Sweet Alyssums, Torre- 

 nias, Acrocliniums, Rhodanthes and Gaillardias. Among 

 useful perennials, which will flower from seed during the 

 first season, are Snapdragons, Single Dahlias, Salvia splen- 

 dens and Gypsophila paniculata ; the latter is almost in- 

 dispensable for mixed bouquets. Fancy or taste would, 

 of course, modify this list. — Ed.] 



New Cypripediums. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Among the new hybrid Cypripediums in the United 

 States Nurseries at Short Hills, New Jersey, and of which 

 general mention was made in a recent number of Garden 

 AND Forest, are the following : 



Cvpripedium tonso-villosum. — This distinct, hybrid was 

 obtained by crossing C. tonsum with the pollen of C. villosum. 

 Leaves long, broad, light green, beautifully tessellated with a 

 darker green ; stem ten to twelve inches high and light green. 

 Flower large and bold, well proportioned ; dorsal sepal large, 

 pointed, reflexed at the top, ground color green-yellow, shaded 

 and lined with dark brown. Petals large and broad, yellowish 

 green, with a mid-line of dark brown color and shaded with a 

 similar color in the upper portion. The upper part of the 

 petals is similar to those of C. tonsum, having no hair along 

 the edge. Lip large and long, with a large opening, yellowish 

 green, shaded with light brown. 



Cvpripedium Leeanum ampliatum. — Among the many va- 

 rieties of C, Leeanum, the above hybrid, raised and flowered 

 lately, may be considered the gem. The flower is one- 

 third larger in all its parts than the type ; dorsal sepal broad, 

 with fine, large, purplish spots, as in C. insigne Chantini ; 

 petals broad, dark brown ; lip large, round, with a large open- 

 ing of a dark brown-purple color, almost black. 



Cvpripedium Sallierii pictum.— This is a very distinct type 

 of C. Sallierii, having for its parents C. villosum superbum 

 and C. insigne Chantini ; dorsal sepal yellow, shaded with 

 brown to about half of its surface, while the upper portion is 

 white, lined and shaded with old rose color. 



Cvpripedium vernixium punctatum. — A fine and distinct 

 variety having the dorsal sepal recurved at the top ; ground 

 color white in the upper part, yellowish green in the lower 

 part, and spotted all over with small brown-purple dots ; 

 petals long and drooping, spotted with large brown-purple 

 spots ; lip small, yellowish green, shaded and veined with 

 brown-purple. 



Short Hills, N.J. J oscph Manda, Jr. 



Flowers in Winter. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — -1 was interested in the article, " Flowers in Winter," in 

 yourissueof February 15th. 1 have forced Forsythia and also 

 Cherry blossoms in March. Two years ago 1 took up Crocuses 

 and Daffodils which had pushed their way to the surface too 

 early in the season, and they bloomed in a very short time in 

 the house. Some two or three weeks ago I found Hyacinths 

 appearing above ground in a sheltered place in the garden, 

 one of which 1 dug up and planted in a pot. This is now in 

 bloom in my window-garden, while those in the garden are 

 again hidden under the snow. 



Bath Beach, N. Y. A. M. Lott. 



Recent Publications. 



A Contribution to our Knowledge of Seedlings. By Sir John 

 Lubbock, Bart, M.P.. F.R.S., etc. Two volumes, with 684 

 figures in the text. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 



Sir John Lubbock has already discussed the various forms 

 of leaves and the causes to which the endless differences they 

 present can be ascribed ; and in the two stout volumes now 

 before us he has collected the results of his comprehensive 

 observations, carried on through many years, upon the forms 

 of cotyledons or seed-leaves, a subject which, strangely 

 enough, has never attracted the special attention of botanists, 

 although the fact is well known that they dilfer, often remarka- 

 bly, from later leaves on the same plant. The explanation of 

 this difference between the first and subsequent leaves has 

 never been satisfactorily explained, and it does not appear, in 

 spite of the vast amount of matter bearing upon the subject 



which Sir John Lubbock has here brought together, that he 

 has succeeded in forming a good working hypothesis for its 

 solution. Cotyledons, while they do not vary to such an extent 

 as leaves, differ considerably one from another. Some plants 

 with narrow cotyledons have broad ultimate leaves, while in 

 others narrow leaves succeed broad cotyledons. In some 

 families there are genera with broad and with narrow cotyle- 

 dons ; and this peculiarity appears occasionally in different 

 species of the same genus. Sometimes the two cotyledons are 

 unequal ; in others the two sides of each are unequal, as in the 

 Geranium. They are sessile or petiolate, and are sometimes 

 united together at the base ; they are usually entire, some- 

 times crenate or emarginate, or twolobed at the apex, as in 

 the California Eschscholtzia, usually leaf-like, but in many 

 plants like tlie Bean, Pea, Oak, etc., thick and fleshy. All these 

 forms, and many others, are discussed in the introduction, 

 while the main body of the book is devoted to a systematic ac- 

 count of the seedlings of an enormous number of plants in 

 many genera and families. The young plant of each species 

 is illustrated by a capital outline drawing from material fur- 

 nished, for the most part, from the propagating-houses of Kew, 

 where a larger variety of plants is grown than in any other one 

 place in the world, and without which such a work as this 

 would have been impossible. 



To the systematic botanist, whose business it is to describe 

 plants. Sir John Lubbock's new contribution to science will be 

 of invaluable service, while gardeners and others who study 

 and raise plants will find in it a mine of useful and interesting 

 information set forth in a clear and convenient form. 



A Text-Book of Tropical Agriculture. By H. A. Alford 

 Nicholls, M.D., F.L.S., etc. Macmillan & Co. : London and 

 New York. 1892. 



Tropical agriculture means a good deal more to the world 

 than untraveled persons living outside the tropics often realize. 

 It supplies a large portion of the human race with its great 

 food-staple, rice, and with many of its luxuries, to which it is 

 now so accustomed that they seem necessities, for it is in the 

 tropics that coffee, sugar, chocolate and most of the tobacco 

 used in the world are raised. The Tea-plant grows on their 

 borders, as does the Orange, the Lemon and all the citrus 

 fruits. The Banana and the Cocoanut only ripen their fruit in 

 the tropics, which is the home of the Pepper-plant, the Spice- 

 trees, the Ginger, the Vanilla, and of the plants from which 

 many of the most important drugs are derived. It is aston- 

 ishing, therefore, how little of practical value, suitable for 

 elementary instruction, has been written on this subject, and 

 the field was free for a good text-book. This Dr. Nicholls 

 seems to us to have produced. 



The history of his book shows that it has already proved 

 valuable. Sometime ago the government of Jamaica offered 

 a prize for the best text-book of tropical agriculture. The au- 

 thor of the present work obtained it. The manuscript, with 

 some additions, was published in 1891 by the Jamaica govern- 

 ment and has since been adopted Officially in other colonies. 

 The Text-Book of Tropical Agricitlture, as it now appears, is an 

 enlarged edition of this work. 



Agriculture, in its relations to tropical America, is of special 

 interest to us in this country because we are dependent upon 

 the West Indies and Central America for a constant and cheap 

 supply of tropical fruits, and everything that serves to stimu 

 late the intelligence ot West Indian planters and increase the 

 product of their plantations is of direct benefit to us as a nation. 



Under the press of European competition, sugar-raising has, 

 in many cases, been found unprofitable in the Antilles, and 

 planters have been obliged to put their land to a different use. 

 This cannpt be always accomplished at once, and in order to 

 aid in developing profitable farming under new conditions 

 several of the colonial governments have introduced the sub- 

 ject of scientific agriculture into the schools and colleges, and 

 for this purpose, and for the general reader interested in the 

 products of the soil, this book has been found to stand the test 

 of several years' use. The leading facts connected with soils, 

 plant-life, fertilizers, tillage, the rotation of crops, are clearly 

 and intelligently discussed in the first part, while the second 

 part is devoted to practical advice for the cultivation of a large 

 number of tropical plants. 



Great progress, no dotibt, has been made in some of the 

 West Indies in improving agriculture, but how far the plant- 

 ers will be able to "overcome the ditficulties of the labor ques- 

 tion and adapt themselves to new coriditions still remains to 

 be proved. If they succeed in obtaining cheap and reliable 

 labor there is no reason why the cultivation of these islands 

 and that of a large part of tropical America cannot gradually 

 be made more profitable, as the demand for tropical fruits 



