July 26, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



319 



destruction of over fifteen millions of caterpillars, between two 

 and three hundred eggs being usually found in a belt. 



This pest had been increasing at such a rate that the wild 

 Cherry-trees by the road-sides were often encased from top 

 to bottom in a continuous web, filled with worms, while Ap- 

 ple-orchards were wholly destroyed. As the worm makes its 

 appearance at the season when the farmer is most busy, it is 

 very difficult for him to withdraw his men from other work 

 long enough to clear the trees of the nests, so that from year 

 to year they have been more neglected. It was sometimes 

 found more profitable for farmers to cut down their trees al- 

 together than to take the trouble to rid them of the insects. 

 Even the forest-trees, especially the Birch, began to suffer, 

 and the cultivated Cherry-trees fell a prey to the invaders. 



The result of the children's work has been very noticeable. 

 Though upon the large old trees, where it is difficult to detect 

 even the webs among the closely interlaced branches, many 

 nests escaped. The lower branches of trees, and the shrub- 

 beries along the highways, as well as the young Cherry-shoots 

 in wild pastures, have been so freed from them, and the aspect 

 of the road-sides showed marked improvement. It has been 

 estimated that if all the eggs had hatched and the caterpillars 

 allowed to mature they would have made a pile measuring 

 about twelve cords and placed side by side would have cov- 

 ered an acre and a half of ground. The children of the neigh- 

 borhood are glad of an opportunity to earn a trifle, and the 

 ambition to win a few dollars bounty in addition to the regular 

 fee, spurs tliem to rivalry in making a large collection. There 

 were five who gathered over three thousand, and seven who 

 showed between two and three thousand, while fifteen gathered 

 over a thousand apiece, showing Kow energetic they had been 

 in this novel hunt. 

 Hingham, Mass. 



M. C. 7?. 



The Columbian Exposition. 

 The Seed Exhibits in the Agricultural Building. 



THE seed exhibits are divided between the Horticultural 

 and Agricultural Buildings. In the latter, the field-seeds 

 are supposed to be shown to the greater or less exclusion of 

 garden or horficultural seeds. The exhibits of individual firms 

 are not many, being comprised mainly in about seven entries. 

 Nearly every state exhibit displays a variety of seeds and grains, 

 but these are shown as purely agricultural products rather than 

 as seed-merchants' supplies. The exhibits in the Horticultural 

 and Agricultural Buildings possess a decided similarity in gen- 

 eral design, comprising heavy seeds in bags with a glass pane 

 inserted in the top, small seeds placed in fancy bottles or deep 

 glass trays, and collections of casts, of variefies or types of 

 vegetables. The embellishments are usually produced by 

 colored hangers, as banners, chromos and decorations of 

 grains or grasses. As a whole, there is nothing unusually 

 novel or striking in them, and they impress the visitor quite as 

 much with their bulk or arrangement as with any useful facts 

 which they may be supposed to teach. 



Unquestionably the best seedsman's display, from an educa- 

 tional standpoint, is that of Vilmorin-Andrieux & Co., of Paris, 

 in the French section of the Agricultural Building. It is dif- 

 ferent in character from all other seed exhibits in the fact diat 

 it makes no great display of mere bulk, but looks more like a 

 section in a well-ordered botanical museum. The space de- 

 voted to this exhibit is something hke twenty-five by seventy 

 feet, enclosed by a wall or partition about ten feet high, lined 

 with deep red cloth. These walls are hung with panels of 

 wheat, illustrations of the farms and buildings of the firm, 

 specimen charts showing the sugar yield of beets, and the 

 starch yield of potatoes, and other features calculated to fasten 

 the attention of intelligent visitors. One side or counter of the 

 apartment is occupied by fourteen glass cases which contain 

 models or casts of many representative types of vegetables and 

 strawberries. Disposed at intervals upon the floor are swing- 

 frames and albums of lithographs of various plants, and the 

 centre is occupied by a modest table of vegetable and flower 

 seeds. Everything is labeled with scrupulous neatness and ac- 

 curacy, and one feels that the exhibit will bear careful study. 



Save a small collection of photograps in the alcoves of the 

 Experiment Stations' exhibits, in the same building, here seems 

 to be the only attempt at the Fair to show any of the results of 

 hybridization. The name of Vilmorin has long been connected 

 with experiments in the crossing of Wheats, and some of the 

 graphic results are here shown in small sheaves mounted 

 upon tastefully framed green felt. The casts of which there 

 are several hundred, represent the average or normal forms 

 of vegetables rather than unusual or gigantic specimens, and 



they are the best models of garden vegetables to be seen in 

 the Exposition. They are made of a hard composition and 

 will bear handling. It is evident, in tiie character of the mod- 

 els and their arrangements in the cases, that their first value 

 is a scientfic one in showing the variation of plants and fixing 

 upon a conventional standard or type for thechieflinesof devel- 

 opment, rather than a mere display of what the firm may have 

 to sell. The visitor will miss some of the common American 

 vegetable types from the collection, particularly all forms of 

 Maize, and of the large fruits which we designate as pump- 

 kins ; but he will notice others which are comparatively new 

 to him, as the winter muskmelons, various broad beans, the 

 long or ridge cucumbers, mammoth blanched asparagus, and 

 an excellent display of sugar-beets. A couple of the specimen 

 charts are unique. One comprises six glass tubes about an 

 inch in diameter and five feet long, containing proportionate 

 amounts of "sugar in the juice" and refined sugar in the six 

 leading sugar-beets. The greatest yield of refined sugar is 

 something over sixty hundred-weight per acre in the French, 

 while the lowest is only fifty-four himdred-weight in the'Gray 

 top. Between these are, in order, Green-top, Brabant, Vil- 

 morin's Improved, Klein Wanzleben and Early Red Skin. A 

 similar method of exhibition shows the starch-yield from ten 

 varieties of potatoes, the figures running, per acre, as follows : 

 Giant Blue, 76.7 cwt. ; Imperator, 63.2 ; Giant Nonpareil, 48.6 ; 

 Reading Giant, 42.6; Juno, 41.9; Aspasia, 37.5; American 

 Wonder, 36.9 ; Red-skinned Flour-ball, 30.4 ; White Elephant, 

 28.2 ; Reading Russet, 26.7. Altogether, the exhibit is just 

 such an one as a teacher of economic botany or horticulture 

 might be supposed to collect for museum purposes. 



This style of exhibit is what one expects if he knows the his- 

 tory of the firm which has made it. Vilmorin-Andrieux & Co. 

 is probably the best example of a firm which combines in suc- 

 cessful proportions the scientific and commercial impulses, 

 and it is the only seed firm whose opinions upon scientific 

 questions are accepted by professional botanists. It has been 

 identified with botany from its inception. The exact founda- 

 tion of the firm is unknown, but it is certain that in 1745 Pierre 

 Andrieux was botanist and seedsman to Louis XV., and was in 

 business on the Quai de la Megisserie, in Paris, the same thor- 

 oughfare upon which the present firm is located. Phillipe 

 Victoire Leveque de Vilmorin, the youngest son of a noble- 

 man who was reduced in circumstances through the wars, 

 came to Paris to seek his fortune, intending to practice medi- 

 cine. He fell in with the botanist Duchesne, however, and be- 

 came acquainted with Andrieux, and he gave up medicine for 

 botany. In 1774 he married the daughter of Andrieux, and 

 upon the death of the latter, in 1781, the firm became known 

 as Vilmorin-Andrieux. ' It acquired a nafional reputation 

 under this first Vilmorin, and its influence and business rela- 

 tions have increased from that day to this. The elder Vilmo- 

 rin died in 1804, previous to which time his son, Pierre Phil- 

 lipe Andr^, became a partner in the business. This son 

 established comparative field tests of plants, and he intro- 

 duced many of the trees and shrubs collected in North America 

 by his friend, the eminent botanist Michaux. He established 

 an arboretum, rich in American Oaks, which, after his death 

 in 1862, the French Government made the foundation of a 

 national school of forestry. He retired from business as early 

 as 1845, and left the house in the hands of his eldest son, 

 Louis Leveque de Vilmorin. Louis gave much attention to the 

 subject of heredity in plants, and his writings in this direc- 

 tion are still well known to scientists. His name is also 

 identified with the amelioration of the Sugar-beet. He 

 died in i860, at the age of 44, and his widow assumed a great 

 part of the management of the business. The house is now 

 in the hands of the two sons of Louis, Henri L. and Maurice 

 L. de Vilmorin, the latter of whom is secretary of the French 

 horticultural division of the Columbian Exposition. A young 

 son of Henri has lately appeared before the public in the ex- 

 cellent little book, T/u Flowers of Paris. The botanical and 

 horticultural publications of the Vilmorins are numerous and 

 they form a prominent feature in the exhibit at the Fair. 



Other seed exhibitors in the Agricultural Building are Peter 

 Henderson & Co., Albert Dickinson & Co., of Chicago, Samuel 

 Wilson, Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania, James Riley, Thomas- 

 town, Indiana, The Whitney-Noyes Seed Co., and E. W. Conk- 

 lin & Son, both of Binghamton, New York. These are almost 

 exclusively field seeds, except that of Henderson, in which are 

 shown models of the larger or coarser vegetables, as turnips, 

 squashes, mangels and the like. Henderson & Co. also show 

 a good line of tree seeds. A novel feature of this display is a 

 collection of botanical specimens of the grasses and sedges 

 used by Henderson in his lawn grass mixtures. 

 Chicago, HI. L. H. Bailey. 



