2=;o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 276, 



this point the trunk measures more than six feet in circum- 

 ference. 



In Belgium there are two liorticultural schools, founded by 

 the government, one at Ghent.with an average number of forty- 

 four pupils, and the other at Vilvorde, with almost as many. 



The Pennsylvania Legislature, which has just adjourned, 

 passed an act creating a State Forestry Commission, whose 

 duty it shall be to examine and report upon the condihon of 

 the various water-sheds of the state and to suggest some policy 

 of general application to the whole state looking toward the 

 preservation of the forests and the prevention of floods and 

 droughts, which have been particularly destructive and costly 

 in recent years. 



The effort to convert Wheatland, the home of ex-President 

 Buchanan, into a park for the city of Lancaster, has not been 

 successful, owing very largely to political feeling, which does 

 not seem to have died out. Mrs. Harriet Lane Johnson, the 

 niece of James Buchanan and mistress of the White House 

 while he was President, made a very liberal offer to the city 

 council of Lancaster a year ago, and as Wheatland is on the 

 outskirts of a rich and growing city many of the citizens were 

 heartily in favor of the project. The indifference of the coun- 

 cilmen is to be greatly regretted. 



Horticultural Hall, in Philadelphia, the home of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Horticultural Society, and the scene of some of the most 

 brilliant and instructive flower-shows ever held in this country, 

 has been burned for the second time. The most valuable pa- 

 pers of the society were protected in a fire-proof safe, and 

 although the greater portion of the library was rescued, many 

 of the books were damaged by water. The Florists' Club, 

 whose rooms were in the basement of the hall, suffered loss 

 to the extent of $1,750, againstan insurance of $1,000. Nothing 

 has been definitely decided yet as to rebuilding the hall, but 

 from the known energy and liberality of the officers and mem- 

 bers of the society, it is probable fha't a larger and more beau- 

 tiful building will soon be erected on the ruins of the old one. 



During the winter of 1891-2 crosses were made at the Maine 

 Experiment Station between the Ignotum Tomato, a large and 

 valuable market variety, and the Peach Tomato, which is very 

 productive of fruit of excellent quality, but small and soft. 

 Seedlings from this cross produced fruit which was smaller 

 than that of Ignotum, but yielded much more abundandy. 

 Among other crosses a true hybrid was secured between the 

 Lorillard, a well-known variety of moderate productiveness, and 

 the Currant Tomato, which belongs to a distinct species. The 

 fruit from this cross is very attractive in appearance, while the 

 influence of the Currant is shown in increased productiveness. 

 Professor Munson believes that crossing between small- 

 fruited plants of very prolific habit and larger-fruited ones is 

 altogether a promising way of securing valuable variefies. 



Very large pineapples, known as Florida garden pines, are 

 now bringing one dollar apiece in New York markets, while 

 the smaller Ripley pineapple, from the same state, not quite 

 as juicy, but the richest of all in flavor, sells for thirty cents. 

 Black Tartarian cherries, from California, are sixty cents a 

 ■ pound, and cherries from the south forty cents. Wild goose 

 plums, from the south, are twenty cents a dozen ; Florida 

 peaches are a dollar a dozen ; blackberries and raspberries, 

 from North Carolina, are twenty-five cents a quart, and 

 huckleberries of inferior quality, from the same place, are 

 eighteen cents. The best hot-house tomatoes bring fifty cents 

 a pound, while tomatoes from Georgia truck-farms are worth 

 twenty cents a quart. A few oranges, a second crop of sum- 

 mer fruit, from Florida, are sold at sixty cents a dozen ; water- 

 melons are coming in good supply from Havana, and they 

 bring one dollar each ; Muscat grapes, from Newport green- 

 houses, are two dollars a pound. Large, fully ripened and de- 

 licious strawberries, from Delaware, have been worth only ten 

 cents, and a crop of unusual abundance and good quality in 

 southern New Jersey is now coming in. 



Next to the Pearl-bush (Exochorda grandiflora), with its bold 

 masses of dazzling white flowers, the most interesting shrubs 

 in Central Park during the past week have been its relatives, 

 the Spirjeas. The earlier ones, like Spiraea Thunbergii, S. pru- 

 nifolia, and the more rare S. cana and S. alpina, which have 

 flowers on very short lateral branches, have all passed their 

 bloom. S. Cantoniensis, however, more commonly known 

 among nurserymen as S. Reevesiana, and some of the others 

 which produce flowers on longer leafy branches of the current 

 year are still in full beauty. S. Cantoniensis is liable in this 

 latitude to have the tips of its branches, and sometimes the 

 older wood, killed in the winter, but both the double-flowered 



and single-flowered varieties are exceedingly beautiful. S. 

 trilobata is a low and spreading shrub, not more than two or 

 three feet high, and one of the very best to connect the taller 

 shrubs of a border with the grass. Van Houtte's Spirsa, 

 which is supposed to be a form or hybrid of S. trilobata, is a 

 free-growing shrub which attains the height of eight feet or 

 more and an equal breadth. Its flowers are of the purest 

 white, its habit is of the best, and altogether it is one of the 

 very best of hardy garden-shrubs. 



The Japanese Snowball, Viburnum plicatum, is just now in 

 full bloom, and most people consider it the best of the 

 Snowballs. It bears an immense number of flowers, and in 

 the autumn its foliage turns to a rich bronze color, which is 

 unlike that of any other shrub. At the Meehan Nurseries, in 

 Germantown, we recently saw a strain of this species which is 

 called Rotundifolium, in which the flowers are larger than those 

 of the type and better in every way. They are much used by 

 florists for cut flowers. Viburnum macrocephalum has such 

 "large cymes of flowers that they resemble those of Hydrangea 

 Hortensis. The old-fashioned Snowball, Viburnum Opulus 

 sterilis, however, is the most graceful of all of them, since its 

 flowers are borne at the extremities of the branches, which 

 bear down with their weight, giving the whole tree a peculiarly 

 graceful and fountain-like appearance. Its foliage, however, 

 is very liable to attacks of aphides, which do much to mar its 

 summer beauty. Tlie wild form of Viburnum Opulus, the 

 Cranberry-tree, is less commonly planted than the Snowballs, 

 but it is an attractive plant, and, in addition to its other good 

 qualities, it bears highly ornamental fruit which hangs in bright 

 scarlet upon the naked branches nearly all winter. 



The Governor of Pennsylvania has signed the act which pro- 

 vides for the acquirement by the state of the land embraced in 

 the camp-ground of the Continental Army at Valley Forge and 

 the maintenance of this territory as a public park. A recent 

 survey, made at the request of Mr. Francis M. Brooke, Presi- 

 dent of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, by engineers 

 of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, shows that the still 

 existing entrenchments, constructed in tlie winter of 1777-78, 

 are 4,625 feet in length and from three to five feet in height. 

 There are also two earthen redoubts. These earthworks are 

 on the brow of a high hill facing the south, the position being 

 protected on the east by the Schuylkill River, and toward the 

 north by the Valley Creek. The land which will be converted 

 into a state park does not include the house occupied by Wash- 

 ington as headquarters and the land immediately adjacent, 

 which were acquired by an association, and restored shortly 

 after the centennial celebration of the evacuation of the camp. 

 It was on this occasion that the late Henry Armitt Brown de- 

 livered the oration, which, through the school readers, has 

 made the story of Valley Forge familiar to the youth of the 

 country. After fifty years of unsuccessful effort the preserva- 

 tion of the Valley Forge camp-ground is at last ensured, largely 

 because of the untiring attention given to the matter by Mr. 

 Brooke. 



A novelty in the way of bulletins has just come to us from 

 the Vermont Experiment Station. It is printed on stiff boards 

 furnished with tin guards, to protect the corners, and a loop of 

 brass wire, by which it can be hung up. The upper half of the 

 card, which is fourteen inches long by nine inches wide, eon- 

 tains a photograph which shows graphically the striking differ- 

 ence between two parts of a Potato-field, one of which had 

 been sprayed with the Bordeaux mixture, while the other had 

 been left without spraying. Below this picture is the legend, 

 in bold type, "Potato blight and rot can be prevented." Then 

 follows the statement that the sprayed rows of the field illus- 

 trated yielded 322 bushels of marketable potatoes to the acre, 

 and the unsprayed rows yielded 102 bushels, showing a gain of 

 more than 200 bushels to the acre entirely due to spraying. 

 Instructions for making the Bordeaux mixture are then given, 

 with the advice to add Paris green for potato-bugs if it is 

 needed. Plain directions as to the proper time and manner of 

 making the applications are then given, and farmers are in- 

 vited to write for detailed information on any point about which 

 they are uncertain, and they are advised that diseased leaves 

 may be sent in a letter, and will be examined free of charge. 

 One of these card bulletins has been sent to some person at 

 each post-office in Vermont, with the request that it be hung- 

 up in some conspicuous place, like a store, hotel or the post- 

 office. Altogether, this seems to be an effective way of adver- 

 tising the experiment station and its work ; of bringing farmers 

 and gardeners into actual and pracfical association with it ; of 

 familiarizing them with the kind of assistance it is able to ren- 

 der, and of encouraging them in the habit of making prompt 

 application for such aid when it is needed. 



