138 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 265. 



have been made better by the addition of more of what are 

 popularly known as spring flowers. Even in such a cold sea- 

 son as this many flowers of great delicacy and beauty are 

 blooming out-of-doors, and with the help of a cold frame col- 

 lections of most of the early-blooming spring varieties could 

 have been prepared. How interesting some of the common- 

 est old-fashioned plants appear in such a place was evinced by 

 the attention given to the collection of the tall, white, sweet- 

 scented Stocks which were disolayed by C. W. Cox, gardener 

 to H. Clay Kimball. 



Notes. 



Three counties in Florida, Brevard, Marion and Orange, 

 have nearly 2,000 acres of Lemon groves, containing more than 

 20,000 trees. 



In a garden near New York, last week, we saw Iris Histrio, 

 Iris histrioides and Iris Bakeriana, with their beautiful and 

 fragrant flowers all fully expanded and looking cheerful, in 

 spite of the fact that the mercury stood at twenty-four degrees, 

 Fahrenheit. 



A writer in the American Florist, in speaking of the prep- 

 aration of hot-beds, gives the timely suggestion that a mixture 

 of fresh spent hops from a brewery, and stable-manure in equal 

 proportions, not only produces heat longer than manure 

 alone, but the remains of the mixture, when thoroughly decom- 

 posed, make a most valuable ingredient for potting soil. 



Our readers have been told of the Chrysanthemums frozen 

 in cylinders of ice, which were sent last autumn from New 

 Zealand to a London flower-show. Now, it is said, a return 

 gift has been made ; several blossoms of English prize-win- 

 ners at this show have been similarly prepared and are now 

 on their way to New Zealand, where, it is hoped, they will 

 arrive in time for the autumnal flower-show at Wellington, 

 which, in that antipodean clime, is held in April. 



A great many persons have been disappointed at the be- 

 havior of Tuberous Begonias when they have been grown in 

 the open air. In a recent paper, however, before the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, Mr. John G. Barker, Superin- 

 tendent of Forest Hills Cemetery, spoke strongly in favor of 

 these plants for bedding purposes. He stated that he had 

 grown thousands of them in different parts of Forest Hills, in 

 small beds and in large ones, and in all cases they proved the 

 best flowering plants in the cemetery. 



Meehans' Monthly calls attention to the fact that the Ameri- 

 can Holly is one of the easiest of trees to transplant if it is 

 severely pruned at the time of moving, although it will rarely 

 live without this treatment. South of this latitude this is one 

 of the most beautiful and useful of broad-leaved evergreen 

 trees even when it produces no fruit. The tree is said some- 

 times to bear flowers of both sexes, but Mr. Meehan states 

 that he has never found a berry on one which stood a long 

 way from others, and that, in fact, a large proportion of both 

 the English and American Hollies are strictly dioecious. 



The last issue of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, parts 2 and 3 of vol. xv., contains several papers of 

 special interest. The Fuchsia, its history and cultivation, is 

 treated upon by Mr. G. Fry, one of the most successful breed- 

 ers and growers of garden Fuchsias. Begonias are exhaust- 

 ively dealt with in four papers : The History of the Genus in 

 Gardens, by Mr. Harry Veitch; the Fifty best Species of Begonia, 

 by W. Watson ; Tuberous Begonias by Mr. J. Laing, and winter- 

 flowering Begonias by Mr. H. Cannell. The papers read at 

 the Conference, on the Apricot in France, Plums for the Mar- 

 ket and Dessert Plums, by Monsieur F. Jamin, Mr. J. Smith 

 and Mr. T. F. Rivers, respectively, are valuable contributions 

 to the literature of fruit-culture ; the paper and report on 

 Michaelmas Daisies, by Mr. D. Dewar, are also reafly good 

 works. 



Official statistics show that 25,326 car-loads of green and 

 canned fruits were sent out of California last year. The in- 

 crease in the shipment of canned fruit is specially gratifying, 

 inasmuch as it helps to prevent a glut in the market in very 

 abundant years, and next year promises to be an abundant one, 

 especially in California orchards, where irrigation is necessary. 

 The winter's snowfall is largely above the average, and that 

 will insure an ample supply of water in all the streams that 

 feed the irrigating canals. How much of promise there is in 

 this assurance will be appreciated when it is remembered that 

 in almost all the districts where oranges, lemons and raisins 

 are produced regular irrigation is needed from April until 



November, and this is largely true also of the places where 

 peaches, apricots and grapes are produced in the greatest 

 abundance. 



Mr. William Baylor Hartland, in an interview published in 

 the County Cork Advertiser, states that among the neglected 

 industries of Ireland is fruit-growing, which is, no doubt, true. 

 One of his schemes is to plant several thousand acres of 

 Gooseberries for the American market. He prophesies that 

 by the time the bushes are in full bearing steamships will be 

 making five-day trips to New York, so that the berries picked 

 fresh in south Cork could be carried over in cool compart- 

 ments to New York, where they could be readily sold to 

 wealthy Americans who " do not well know what to do with 

 their money." Weshould be very glad to get some tirst-class 

 Irish gooseberries, and it must be confessed that hitherto those 

 we have raised at home cannot, as a rule, compare with the 

 British berries. We are learning, however, how to cure the 

 mildew, and perhaps by the time the steamers are making 

 five-day trips across the Atlantic we can grow berries good 

 enough to export to such connoisseurs as Mr. Hartland. 



The first monthly flower-show of the New York Florists* 

 Club proved that the club must seek more spacious quarters 

 or provide a smaller exhibition and one wliich will attract 

 fewer visitors. The throngs who came were well repaid for 

 the difficulty of pressing through the crowded rooms by the 

 beauty of such plants as the Azaleas, shown by J. M. Keller 

 and James Dean ; the collection of Anthuriums, a new Datura, 

 and a fine variety of Cypripedium Greyanum, by Pitcher & 

 Manda ; the superb Roses by Ernst Asmus, F. Moore, J. H. 

 Taylor and W. H. Young ; and the Carnations and Cyclamens 

 of C. H. Allen and John McGowan. Among other plants of 

 special interest was a variety of Genista racemosa, shown by 

 I. Forstermann, which had very distinct foliage and flowers, 

 larger than those of the type, borne in the greatest abundance ; 

 a pink form of Primula obconica, shown by William Tricker ; a 

 huge mass of the so-called Tulip Orchid, Cattleya citrina, 

 which Mr. Manda had suspended from the arch between the 

 two rooms; a fine White Heath, by James Dean ; and some hy- 

 brid Cinerarias, by Louis Schmutz. Besides the exhibitors 

 mentioned above, George Bennett, Peter McDonald, Siebrecht 

 & Wadley, G. Bergman, H. A. Francis, C. Pesenecker & Son 

 and Dailledouze Brothers received certificates for flowers ; 

 Thomas Griffin for mushrooms and tomatoes, and A. Hughes 

 & Co. for vases, jardinieres and pots. 



Dr. George Vasey, the head of the botanical division of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, has died in Wash- 

 ington after an illness of only three days. Dr. Vasey was born 

 in England on the 28th day of February, 1822, and was brought 

 by his parents to this country when a year old. The family 

 settled in New York, where the boy was educated in the com- 

 mon schools and then studied medicine, graduating from the 

 School of Medicine in 1848. He practiced his profession in 

 Illinois for twenty years, and from 1870 to 1872 was in charge 

 of the Museum of the Illinois Natural History Society. In 

 his early years he must have paid considerable attention to 

 botany, for in 1874 he was appointed botanist in the Department 

 of Agriculture, a position which he held continuously until his 

 death. For many years Dr. Vasey has devoted especial study 

 to the Grasses, and a number of important papers on this 

 family of plants from his pen have been published by the gov- 

 ernment of the United States. Among these may be men- 

 tioned the Grasses of the South, a report on certain Grasses 

 and Forage Plants for cultivation in the south and south-west ; 

 Grasses of the Arid Region, being a report of an investigation of 

 the Grasses of the arid district of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, 

 Nevada and Utah ; The Agriciiltural Grasses and Forage 

 Plants in the United States ; Illustrations of North American 

 Grasses, probably the inost important of all Dr. Vasey's pub- 

 lications. The first volume, entitled Grasses of the South- 

 west, was published 1890-91; the first part of the second volume. 

 Grasses of the Pacific Slope, last year ; the second part of this 

 volume is now in press. A Monograph of the Grasses of the 

 United States and British America, part i., was published in 

 1892. In 1876 Dr. Vasey published a. useful Catalogue of the 

 Forest Trees of the United States, explanatory of the collec- 

 tions of North American wood-specimens exhibited by the 

 government at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Un- 

 der his active administration Dr. Vasey has seen the national 

 herbarium enlarged from a modest beginning to its present 

 size, and through his activity and energy become one of the 

 greatest collections of North American plants. His death will 

 be felt by a multitude of correspondents to whom he was uni- 

 formly kind, obliging and helpful. 



