272 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 279. 



oftheeducational value of the Fair is thus lost. In most of the 

 horticultural displays there is no official record of the varie- 

 ties on exhibition, and unless the exhibitor chances to have 

 made a list for his ovi^n convenience the student v\'ill be 

 obliged to decipher a small wooden or paper tag on each 

 plant or fruit to find out what the collection comprises. 

 The official catalogue of the horticultural department, too, 

 is complained of as inaccurate, incomplete and insufficient. 

 It is to be hoped that shortcomings in this direction will be 

 corrected as far as possible. Experts in various branches 

 of horticulture need no assistance in determining varieties, 

 and yet the information which can be given in good de- 

 scriptive lists is worth much to them. To the ordinary vis- 

 itor, however, especially to one who is just beginning to 

 take an interest in plants, fruits and flowers, the lack of 

 full and accurate catalogues and distinct labels is most dis- 

 couraging. 



Mastic. 



MASTIC, as is well known, is the gum which exudes from 

 the stem of a small tree of the family to which our 

 Sumachs belong — Pistacia Lentiscus. The island of Scio has 

 for centuries produced nearly the whole of the mastic of com- 

 merce, and from a manuscript report prepared by the United 

 States Consul at Smyrna, which has been communicated to us, 

 we gather the following information in regard to the cultiva- 

 tion of the tree and its product : 



The temperature of the island of Scio varies from the mini- 

 mum of thirty-two degrees to a maximum of ninety degrees, 

 the average being seventy degrees, Fahrenheit, with an aver- 

 age rainfall of about twenty-six inches. The thermometer 

 rarely falls below thirty-two degrees, Fahrenheit, and frost is 

 almost unknown, rarely occurring more than once in every 

 forty or fifty years. The trees are only successful and produc- 

 tive when they are planted on high land, the sides of hills, etc., 

 and the plantations have proved profitable in twenty-one of 

 the sixty-six villages where they have been made. They 

 thrive in soil naturally rich, experiments with different fer- 

 tilizers having failed to produce much result, although barn- 

 yard manure is still extensively used in some parts of the 

 island. 



The trees are propagated in the following manner : Branches 

 threeor four feet long, and well supplied with buds, are broken 

 from old trees, and are planted in carefully prepared soil nearly 

 to the depth of their full length, and then banked up in the 

 same way that Celery-plants are banked ; the soil is occasion- 

 ally watered during the first month until a sufficient number 

 of roots have been developed to support the young plant, 

 which is allowed to grow where the branch was put in the 

 ground, transplanting being considered impossible. The 

 planting is usually done between the isth of November and 

 Christmas. The branches are set ten to twelve feet apart, and, 

 once rooted, grow rapidly, and soon attain in good soil a height 

 of twelve to fourteen feet. In poor soil they are stunted, rarely 

 growing more than six feet high, and are not productive. The 

 largest yield of the best quality of gum is obtained from trees 

 grown on hill-sides with southern and eastern exposures. 



The crop is gathered between the end of May and the end 

 of September, the flow of gum being obtained by means of 

 several incisions made at intervals during the season in the 

 bark of the main trunk and branches ; these are made length- 

 wise with small sharp knives, care being taken not to penetrate 

 beneath the bark. 



The gum exudes and trickles down to the ground previously 

 prepared about the tree by cleaning and beating with heavy 

 mallets and by covering it with a coat of chalky earth, spread 

 to furnish a hard surface for the gum to fall on. That part of 

 the gum that remains attached to the bark is removed by hand. 

 When rain falls at the time the gum is flowing much of it is 

 ruined from the primitive method adopted in collecting the 

 crop. From time to time during the season the gum is swept 

 up from the bed of chalk, and, after being thoroughly washed, 

 is picked over by hand to free it from any foreign substance ; 

 it is then sorted into different qualities and is ready for sale. 

 The trees continue to be producfive unfil they are twenty or 

 thirty years old, according to the care they receive and the 

 character of the soil in which they grow. The annual yield of 

 a tree varies from one and a half to seven and a half pounds, 

 according to its size and age, the average being between five 

 and six pounds. 



The aggregate yield of gum from the island amounts to 5,400 

 cubic hundredweight, produced by 115,000 to 130,000 trees, 



although the amount of the crop depends much upon the heat 

 of the summer. The average cost of production is from four- 

 teen to twenty cents a pound, and the average market value at 

 the plantation twenty-eight to forty cents per pound, according 

 to quality. 



According to the Pharmacographia of Fltickiger & Hanbury, 

 mastic is not now believed to possess any important thera- 

 peutic virtues, and as a medicine is scarcely used, and in the 

 making of varnish, for which it was once much employed, less 

 costly resins are now usually substituted. The best quality is 

 sent to Turkey and to Trieste, Vienna and Marseilles, and in 

 small quantities to England. The inferior quality is manufac- 

 tured in the east into raki and other cordials. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — VIII. 



CATALPABIGNONIOIDES and C.speciosa are largely plant- 

 ed throughout the same range as Ailantus. While they are 

 handsome and healthful ornamental trees, yet it is evident that 

 neither of the Catalpas is well adapted to the wants of for- 

 estry. Their trunks are too soon lost in the large coarse 

 branches, as is usual in broad-leaved trees. The differences 

 in their characters are very slight. It might even be suggested 

 that a point in science was strained in the elevation of C. 

 speciosa to specific rank. 



Opuntia Engelmanni is probably the commonest Cactus in 

 Texas. It sometimes covers several square rods of ground, 

 and it attains a height of three to five feet. The plant itself is 

 generally known by its Mexican name, Nopal. Its fruit is 

 tuna. A clergyman who had traveled in Mexico informed me 

 that a cider was often made there of the expressed juice of 

 Tunas, which he said was pleasant to the taste. In years of 

 drought the expanded branches, leaves as they are generally 

 called, form an important forage for stock. Deer and ante- 

 lopes by a stroke of the foot break off the cruel spines from 

 the branches, which they eat. Ranchmen burn off the spines. 

 O. leptocaulis, a slender shrubby species, is also very abun- 

 dant. It sometimes rises to a height of six to eight feet when 

 it finds rocks, bushes or fences to lean upon. It bears small 

 pale yellow flowers. The red juicy fruit is small, too. The 

 species may be easily known by the long white spines. A few 

 years ago the farmers of southern Kansas were deceived into 

 buying thousands of cuttings of this plant, which were 

 planted out for hedges. The result was as unsatisfactory as in 

 the case of the farmers of western New York, who a few years 

 earlier invested largely in cuttings of White Willow for the 

 same purpose. 



Eastern Apios tuberosa is also here, and as far south as Vic- 

 toria. If we had nothing better to eat than the small tubers 

 which it bears we might subsist upon them. The plant is a 

 smooth handsome climber, and well worthy of cultivation for 

 its beauty and the strong and pleasant perfume of its dark pur- 

 ple flowers. Passitlora incarnata, the handsomest of our 

 native Passion-flowers, is too common to be duly appreciated, 

 and it is seldom seen in gardens. It abounds almost every- 

 where, along railroads and in vacant grounds. Its large yel- 

 low truit, maypaps, is pleasantly acid and edible. 



Juglans rupestris, well characterized by its little fruit, begins 

 to appear along the Colorado River. Near its eastern limit it 

 is a mere shrub or a very small tree. Larger individuals grow 

 along the Rio Grande. It is said to become a large tree in 

 Mexico, extending westward to .California. On low bushes 

 near the Nueces River I found the small nuts in great abun- 

 dance, and not larger than Concord grapes. 



Helianthus argophyllus is a most remarkable Sunflower ; its 

 large leaves, resembling in form those of our common spe- 

 cies, are silver, whitened by a soft, silky tomentum. I saw the 

 species at Halletsville and near Goliad. H. Maximilianus appears 

 to be the most abundant Sunflower of central Texas. So far as 

 known, the first-named species appears to be exclusively Texan. 



Leucophyllum Texanum, Cinisa of Mexicans, common in 

 western Texas, I did not see near Austin, but I was told by 

 apparently good authority that it was there among the hills. 

 Its farthest eastern stafion, as I have observed, was on the low 

 shelly bluffs of Nueces Bay, near Corpus Christi. That station 

 is a little west of the ninety-seventh meridian. No native 

 Texan shrub is more worthy of the general cultivation which 

 it receives far eastward of its native range. The generic name 

 of this plant, as well as the Mexican one, alludes to the 

 whitened appearance of its leaves, produced by the dense 

 hoary pubescence which covers them. This species attains a 

 height of four to ten feet. Its handsome flowers are light pur- 

 ple in color. Farther westward Texas has another Leucophyl- 

 lum, smaller and with whiter leaves. 7- ,t n? z. 



Kansas City, Kansas. E. N. Flank. 



