iS^) 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 266. 



Patterson, gardener to Mrs. C. F. AdatW§, tot Polyanthus and 

 greenhouse plants; J. Newman & Son for Roses; Martin H. 

 Gumming, A. H. Fewkes & Son and George B. Gill for seed- 

 ling Carnations. 



Notes. 



Mr. Frederick Vernon Coville, one of the staff of the botan- 

 ical department of the Department of Agriculture of the 

 United States, and recently associated with Mr. E. Hart Mer- 

 riam's Death Valley Expedition, has been appointed chief of 

 the botanical division of the department, in place of the late 

 Dr. George Vasey. 



Professor Bailey has tried various preparations of paper and 

 cloth as substitutes for glass in greenhouse roofs, but paper is 

 so easily torn and punctured that it is nearly useless, and the 

 cloth, even if it would last for two or three years, would soon 

 become darkened by dirt and mildew, so that in the end glass 

 roofs are not only better but cheaper. 



Professor A. S. Hitchcock contributes to the Transactions 

 of the Academy of Science, of St. Louis, an interesting paper 

 on the opening of the buds of some woody plants, illustrated 

 by a large number of figures showing the development of the 

 buds, the folding of the leaves, the appearance of the young 

 stipules, etc., in a number of native trees and shrubs, charac- 

 ters which have heretofore been too much neglected by the 

 students of American trees. 



Quoting recent accounts of the great development of the 

 culture of aquatic plants in America, the Illustrirte Garten- 

 zeitung, of Vienna, strongly recommends its readers to follow 

 our example, and says that the fact that the various species of 

 Nymphaeas and Nelumbiums would flourish in soine parts of 

 Austria is proved by the excellent condition of the plants of 

 Victoria regias in the royal gardens at Schonbriinn, where, last 

 autumn, the flowers were still unfolding at the beginning of 

 November. 



With regard to poisonous plants. Professor Brooks says : 

 " It will possibly surprise many to learn that there are thirty- 

 nine species of poisonous plants in the United States, either 

 indigenous or naturalized, all of which are mentioned in a 

 recent work on medicinal plants, as now or formerly consid- 

 ered valuable in the treatment of disease. Yet in descriptions 

 of patent medicines we read that 'it is entirely harmless, as it 

 contains only vegetable substances.' It should be known that 

 many of the most virulent poisons are of vegetable origin. 

 Morphine, strychnine, aconite and prussic acid may be cited 

 as examples of vegetable poisons." 



The first Havana watermelons are now offered in the New 

 York fruit-stores at two dollars each, and West India mangoes 

 are a dollar a dozen. Florida strawberries are more plentiful 

 and improved in quality, notwithstanding the effect of recent 

 heavy rains; thebestsellforseventy-fivecentsaquart. The sea- 

 son for southern oranges is on the wane, the best Florida navel 

 oranges selling for a dollar and a half a dozen, and the Califor- 

 nia fruit, which is later, at a dollar a dozen. The first new 

 Bermuda potatoes received last week sold readily at ten dol- 

 lars a barrel. Butter-beans brought as much as thirty-five 

 cents a quart, and new Florida celery two dollars a dozen stalks. 

 New southern cabbage and new Havana onions are two dol- 

 lars and a half a crate. 



Peach-trees, from their peculiar habit, need some pruning 

 every spring, and a writer in The Country Gentleman gives the 

 following general directions : The tree should be kept in a 

 compact shape, that is, the limbs should not be allowed to 

 run out into long poles, with tufts of leaves at the ends. The 

 one-year-old shoots should he cut back one-half or more of 

 their length, and, if pruning has been neglected for two or 

 three years, limbs nearly an inch in diameter may be cut off 

 at the base. Trees thus treated will be longer-lived and will 

 bear better fruit. A good way to prevent overbearing, which 

 not only gives poor fruit, but injures the tree, is to thin out 

 every alternate shoot which has a surplus of blossom-buds. 

 Peach-trees bear heavy pruning better than most other trees, 

 and they naturally recover soon from the operation. 



A new Rose, for which Mr. Jackson Dawson lately received 

 a silver medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 

 is a seedling of 1889. Its seed parent was Rosa rugosa, and 

 this was fertilized with the pollen of General Jacqueminot. The 

 iplant is of medium growth, perhaps hardly so robust as R. 

 rugosa, but rather more so than the pollen parent, and it bears 

 ireely flowers nearly as large as those of R. rugosa, single, 



of that plant. The color of the 

 hich does not fade, but keeps 

 The plant flowered for the first 

 r. Dawson received a first-class 

 of it. This year he exhibited 

 Mr. Dawson has named it Ar- 

 of the Arboretum with which 



and clustered after the fiiatlnef 

 flowers is a brilliant crimson w 

 bright until the flower closes 

 time in 1891. The next year M 

 certificate for some cut blooms 

 a plant which won the medal, 

 nold, in honor of the founder 

 he has been so long connected. 



At a recent meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural So- 

 ciety, Mr. L. W. Goodell, of Dwight, said the seeds of 

 Nymphseas should be sown in small pots in February or 

 March, in good soil, well pressed down. The seeds should be 

 placed on the surface and covered with an eighth of an inch 

 of sand. The pots should then be immersed in a pan contain- 

 ing water enough to cover them an inch, and the water kept 

 at a temperature of from seventy-five to eighty degrees until 

 the seeds germinate, a period varying from six to ten days. 

 Before the seedlings become crowded they should be trans- 

 planted into three-inch pots, and again into four-inch pots be- 

 fore planting out in June. The starting of seedlings can be 

 done in the dwelling-house, care being taken to maintain the 

 temperature and to move the plants to a sunny window during 

 the warm hours of the day. The young plants grow rapidly 

 under proper conditions, and they will bloom in one hundred 

 days from the time the seeds are sown. Some seedlings of N. 

 Zanzibarensis have flowered in sixty-five days, from seeds 

 started in June. 



The Tree-planting and Fountain Society of Brooklyn, under 

 the leadership of the president, Mr. A. Augustus Low, is actively 

 engaged in arousing intelligent interest in the planting and 

 care of street-trees in that city. Articles containing practical 

 suggesdons on the subject are being publislied in the daily 

 press, and a set of circulars for general distribution is in prep- 

 aration. These will give lists of the best street-trees and 

 the most approved methods of planting and caring for them. 

 Neighborhood clubs have been formed, comprised of property- 

 owners interested in improving their neighborhoods, and ar- 

 rangements made with reliable nurserymen to furnish well- 

 grown trees, shrubs and vines for the use of the society and for 

 sale to citizens. A list of competent pruners in various sections of 

 the city is kept on file in the rooms of the society, 44 Court Street, 

 where the secretary, Mr. L. Collins, is in attendance every 

 afternoon to give information and advice. The annual fund 

 of $500, provided by the late president, Mr. Samuel B. Duryea, 

 will be used in improving and beautifying different sections of 

 the city. 



The various species of Solidago, although many of them 

 are quite distinct from the botanist's standpoint, have never 

 received distinguishing popular names, but are all included 

 under tfie general name of Golden Rod. In Professor Hal- 

 sted's Check List of American Weeds, ten species are included, 

 although the genus as a whole does not seem to be intrusive as 

 weeds. In a bulletin of the Cornell University Experiment 

 Station, Professor Prentiss names four species which have 

 attracted attention as weeds which give some trouble in the 

 central counfies of New York. These are Solidago nemoraUs, 

 which drives out grasses in upland orchards, where the soil 

 is cold and sterile ; S. rugosa, which is less likely to be found 

 on poor soil ; the tall and stately S. Canadensis, which is com- 

 mon on field-borders, though less likely than the others to 

 overrun the soil completely, although it is very persistent 

 when established ; S. lanceolata, which belongs more espe- 

 cially to moist meadow-lands and the banks of streams, and is 

 more likely than any other species to become troublesome, 

 owing to the fact that its power of propagation by under- 

 ground stems is greater than that of the other species. 



Dr. Laurence Johnson, who died in New York on the 18th 

 instant, had devoted especial attention to the medical proper- 

 ties of North American plants and was the recognized au- 

 thority in this country in this department of science. His 

 Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States, in two 

 handsomely illustrated volumes, is the standard work on the 

 subject. Dr. Johnson, who was born in Wayne County, in this 

 state, in 1845, was, atthe timeof death, a member of the Board 

 of Managers of the New York Physicians' Mutual Aid Associa- 

 tion, of the New York Society for the Relief of Widows and 

 Orphans of Medical Men, of the Medical Society of the State of 

 New York, of the New York Academy of Medicine, of which 

 at one time he had been the librarian and at the time of his 

 death was a trustee, and a lecturer on medical botany in the 

 University of the City of New York. 



