309 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 281. 



Clothilde Soupert, shown by Vaughan, and Ulrich Briinner, 

 shown by Craig-. The latter is only semi-double, and the bud 

 is very attractive. 



With the exception of the plants of Nanz & Neuner and the 

 ClothildeSoupert, by Vaughan, all the hardy Roses are budded. 

 This fact proves that nearly all dealers prefer such stock for 

 strong growth and quick results ; and if the plants are set 

 deep enough, so that the bud is three inches below the sur- 

 face, it is commonly agreed that budded plants are superior to 

 others for outdoor planting. The standard Roses are a sur- 

 prise to many Americans. The Rose is budded foiu" or five 

 feet high upon a straight slender stock, which is stripped en- 

 tirely of its leaves after the bud begins to grow. In the speci- 

 mens on exhibition the bud is two seasons old, forming a 

 compact little bush or bunch on the apparently dry cane. 

 These plants are set in rows or otherformal fashion, and most 

 of them are tied to strong green stakes. These tree or stand- 

 ard Roses are much used in Europe for planting in the cen- 

 tres of foliage or bulb beds, or for use as supports to Ipomoeas 

 or other climbing plants. Any variety of Rose may be worked 

 or budded in this manner. In France and Germany, yearling 

 standard buds sell for twenty-five to fifty cents apiece. Because 

 of the difficulty of protecting them in winter they have never 

 become popular in this country; and it should also be said 

 that the American taste tends toward more naturalistic 

 methods of treatment. Mannetti stocks are sometimes used 

 for these standards, but seedlings of the Rosa canina are 

 oftenest employed, both in Germany and France. 

 Chicago, 111. L. H. Bailey. 



Notes. 



A booth was opened on the Fourth of July in the Woman's 

 Building of the Columbian Exposition, where American 

 citizens can enjoy the harmless amusement of voting for a 

 national flower. 



Mr. Waldo F. Brown writes to the Ohio Farmer that there 

 are beds of Asparagus in his neighborhood which have been 

 planted some fifty years, and are still in vigorous and profita- 

 ble bearing. The plants are set in rows four feet apart and 

 stand four feet apart in the row. 



Every year we call attention to the Prairie Rose, Rosa seti- 

 gera, as one of our most beautiful climbing plants, as it is the 

 only American Rose with climbing stems ; and every year cor- 

 respondents who read what is said of this Rose write to in- 

 quire where the plants can be bought, for even yet compara- 

 tively few nurserymen have them to sell. 



V. Lemoine & Fils send us photographs of a plant in 

 flower of Deutzia parviflora, a species mentioned in a recent 

 issue of these notes, growing in their nursery at Nancy, and in 

 a personal letter write that, in their judgment, it is the hand- 

 somest and most elegant of the cultivated Deutzias, and that 

 it has proved hardier in Nancy than D. crenata, which was 

 killed to the level of the ground during the last winter. At 

 Nancy, D. parviflora is the earliest member of the genus to 

 flower, and has been found to force easily and successfully. 



We have received from Mr. Joseph Meehan, of Germantown, 

 some branches of Hovenia dulcis, bearing several axillary and 

 terminal panicles of its small creamy white and very fragrant 

 flowers. The heart-shaped serrate leaves are alternate, thick 

 in texture, glossy above, and many of them are from six to 

 seven inches long and four inches wide. Mr. Meehan writes 

 that the tree from which these sprays were taken is now 

 twenty-five feet high, and it is flowering for the third succes- 

 sive year. Hovenia dulcis bloomed in the neighborhood of 

 Philadelphia as long as ten years ago, but it is by no means 

 common in cultivation, and it has not yet proved able to en- 

 dure the winters at the Arnold Arboretum. 



One of the most beautiful American shrubs now in flower is 

 Stuartia pentagyna ; its large creamy white flowers, three or 

 four inches across, with scalloped margins resembling those 

 of some Camellias, to which, indeed, the Stuartia is related. 

 Perhaps the slow growth of this plant while it is young has dis- 

 couraged planters ; at all events, it is so rarely found in gar- 

 dens that it has never received a common English name. 

 When fully established, however, so that its beauties are de- 

 veloped, this Stuartia is one of the most pleasing of all liardy 

 shrubs which flower in summer, audit should be omitted from 

 no carefully selected collection. It appreciates liberal treatment, 

 and when set in good loam mixed with peat and enriched 

 occasionally with a dressing of old and well-pulverized manure 

 it will always repay such attention. 



Professor Maynard, of the Massachusetts Agricultural Col- 

 lege, announces by postal-card, that a giant Century Plant in 



the greenhouse at Amherst is now in full bloom. It is a spec- 

 imen of the striped variety of Agave Americana, and it is said 

 to be probably the largest plant of its kind under glass in 

 America. This specimen originated at the old Ames home- 

 stead in Chicopee, Massachusetts, about 1825, and was pre- 

 sented to Mrs. Hitchcock, the wife of President Edward Hitch- 

 cock, of Amherst College, by Mrs. James T. Ames, in 1838. It 

 was used as a lawn plant for about thirty years when it was 

 given to the college. Since then it has been grown on a mound 

 of prepared soil some fifteen feet by fifteen at the base, eight 

 by eight at the top and five feet high. The flower-stalk is 

 eighteen feet high, with a panicle containing over 3,000 buds 

 and flowers, and the whole plant is estimated to weigh about 

 a ton. The flowers are greenish yellow, two inches long by 

 one inch broad, with six bright yellow stamens exserted some 

 two inches beyond the floral envelope. 



Professor Massey writes that the North Carolina Experi- 

 ment Station " now has a grapery planted with the choicest 

 of the Vinifera varieties of Grapes, such as Black and Golden 

 Hamburg, Muscats and others. The crop this year is mag- 

 nificent. The house is entirely a cold grapery, but in tliis 

 latitude we are of the opinion that cold-grapery Grapes can be 

 made to pay, though most northern growers have come to the 

 conclusion that they are unprofitable on account of the com- 

 petition of the California crop. But here a cold grapery can 

 be allowed to start safely by the first of March and the crop 

 can be put on the market before the California grapes arrive. 

 Tills season is our first full crop, and we will ship the fruit soon 

 to test the matter. Our grapery was built for a two-fold pur- 

 pose — the testing of the profit of growing these grapes under 

 glass and the production of hybrid grapes of a late ripening 

 character to fill up the gap that always comes here between 

 the cutting of our early grapes and the ripening of Scupper- 

 nongs. The grapes commonly grown north ripen here from 

 early July to late August, and then, until Scuppernongs begin 

 in late September, we have no grapes. We hope to get a 

 Grape to fill this gap better than the Herbermont does." 



A correspondefit of the Country Genlleman, writing from 

 Norfolk, states that 20,000 barrels of potatoes are now shipped 

 daily to northern cities from the truck-farms within twenty 

 milesof Norfolk, and that they bring from $3.25 to$3,so a barrel. 

 From May ist to July loth the truck-farmers in that section 

 have received from northern markets about $50,000 a day, or 

 $3,500,000 in all, for berries, peas, beans, cabbage, cucumbers, 

 squash, potatoes, etc. Before the first of May a steady, though 

 smaller, amount of farm-produce was constantly shipped, and, 

 in fact, shipments never cease entirely for any length of time. 

 The land cleared of truck-crops at the middle of July is put 

 into Millet, Cow Peas, Corn, Turnips and Crab-grass Hay, 

 which cuts from one to one and a half tons an acre. This Grass 

 is an annual which comes up every year in July and covers the 

 ground for the rest of the season. Perhaps the money re- 

 ceived during a year for the crops grown within twenty miles 

 of Norfolk will exceed the sum of $5,000,000, and yet both the 

 farmers and merchants of this region complain of hard times. 

 "If such returns do not make people prosperous, what shall 

 we say," inquires the writer, " of those sections of the coun- 

 try in which only one crop a year is raised, and where the re- 

 turns for this crop are divided between producers and the 

 ' long-haul ' charges of the railroads ?" 



The oak-leaved Hydrangea, H. quercifolia, is still in flower, 

 and deserves mention as the most showy of our native Hy- 

 drangeas and one of the best of its genus. On the banks of 

 streams in Georgia and northern Florida it is sometimes fif- 

 teen to eighteen feet high, with a habit almost tree-like, al- 

 though in the latitude of New York the best plants are rarely 

 more than six feet high. Its flowers come in large thyrsoid 

 panicles, with spreading branches which carry a few clusters 

 of perfect flowers, and at the extremities a large sterile flower, 

 dull white at first and turning reddish before it fades. In its 

 flowering it resembles the Japanese Hydrangea paniculata, 

 which is too rarely seen, although its variety, Grandiflora, with 

 enormous panicles ol; sterile flowers, is now one of the com- 

 monest shrubs in American gardens. The oak-leaved Hy- 

 drangea is not hardy much farther north than the latitude of 

 New York, but where it will flourish it is a good shrub all the 

 year round, audits deep plum-colored foliage in autumn is sin- 

 gularly attractive. Another native Hydrangea, H. Radiata, 

 which is common in the Carolina mountains, is particularly 

 beautiful for the snow-white down which covers the under sides 

 of its leaves. It is a perfectly hardy plant and deserves more gen- 

 eral cultivation. Our most northern species is H. arborescens. 

 It flowers rather earlier than the others, but is altogether less 

 attractive. 



