320 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 283. 



Notes. 



Professor Wittmack, Of (he Agricultural Museum of Berlin, 

 has arrived in Chicago, where he will act as judge in Flori- 

 culture at the Exposition. 



Thinning fruit is necessary if we want to have a product of 

 the first quality. Wherever a vine or a tree has set too much 

 there is no danger of beginning to thin out too early, and there 

 is little danger of removing too much, for very often fully one- 

 half, or even more, of the original setting should be removed. 



Arkansas is now making one of the most attractive displays 

 in the Horticultural Building, at the World's Fair, in an ex- 

 hibit of new apples. These fruits are uniformly highly col- 

 ored, free from blemishes, and of large size. Many of them 

 are singularly beautiful, especially Early Margaret, Red June, 

 Black June and Sops of Wine. These come from the country 

 about Fort Smith. 



Among the shrubs of the Pea family which flower in mid- 

 summer, Cytisus nigricans deserves mention. It has long, 

 slender, erect racemes of yellow flowers which rise from the 

 extremities of the branches. The shrub itself is of a neat dwarf 

 habit, hardly more than two feet high. It has been cultivated 

 for a hundred years in Europe, of which it is a native, and al- 

 though it is entirely hardy it is not often seen in our gardens. 



Many of the Kolreuteria-trees in this section suffered last 

 winter from some cause. In many cases large limbs have 

 failed to put forth any leaves, and they seem to have died back 

 to the trunk We have just observed one of the trees which 

 suffered seriously in this way, and the portions of the tree 

 not thus affected seem perfectly healthy and have produced 

 flowers in great abundance and the flowers are unusually rich 

 in color. 



Professor Trelease, who is Chairman of the Committee on 

 Nomenclature of the Society of American Florists, desires to 

 be informed concerning the misapplication of plant names in 

 the trade during the past year. Persons who are interested in 

 securing a stable nomenclature of decorative plants are re- 

 quested to send him a list of the synonyms which they have 

 observed, indicating the places where these names were in- 

 correctly used and the circumstances of the case, if there was 

 an evident intention to deceive. 



The only exhibitors' fruits saved from the burning of the 

 Cold Storage Building at the World's Fair were about five bar- 

 rels of winter apples, belonging to New York, which were dug 

 from the ruins three or four days after the fire. These apples 

 were put on exhibition, and they now occupy about 350 plates 

 on the tables formerly used for the lemon display of Riverside 

 County, California. They are still in presentable condition, 

 and include Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, Enghsh Russet, Gold- 

 en Russet and Campfield. California has received oranges 

 from the Pacific coast to supply her loss in the fire. 



No one would name the New Jersey Tea, Ceanothus Amer- 

 icanus, in a list of choice shrubs for decorative planting, and 

 yet just now, while its fight and airy spikes of white flowers 

 are borne abundantly at the end of the leafy shoots, it is by no 

 means an unattractive plant. It is comparatively dwarf and 

 from one to three feet high, and it would be a good plant for 

 the border of large shrubberies. It seems to endure any 

 amount of drought also, and, therefore, it might be planted to 

 advantage on dry banks. It is often found in road-side thickets, 

 which are brightened by its bloom at a season when few other 

 native shrubs are in flower. 



The country banks in California are so pressed for coin that 

 they refuse to make the customary advances either on wheat 

 or fruit, and the result is that grain in many places is going to 

 waste because the ranchmen have not money to pay for har- 

 vesting ; the case is still worse with growers of fruit, because 

 there is no market for it in the orchard. The canneries are all 

 idle since the banks have failed to make the usual advances, 

 so that only a small part of the fruit crop is being dried by 

 women and children. It would seem as if capitalists could be 

 found in California to take advantage of this opportunity to 

 loan money at remunerative rates for ninetydays, and at the same 

 time save the crops of many small farmers and fruit-growers. 



We recently noticed on the grounds of Mr. Charles A. Dana, 

 at Dosoris, a very effective border made eniirely of a white- 

 flowered form of Plumbago Capensis. The rich green foliage 

 and abundant flowers made a very attractive combination. The 

 plants might easily be lifted and wintered over in a cellar or 

 under a greenhouse-bench, but Mr. Falconer says that is more 

 convenient to fift two or three plants for stock and propagate 



fresh plants every year. Another fine white-flowering border- 

 plant at the same place was Browallia Roezli, with flowers 

 much larger and more abundant than those of B. elata, which 

 is more commonly planted. B. Roezli is an erect, compact 

 plant with glossy leaves, and flowers either blue or white with 

 a yellow tube. 



In the July issue of the Botanical Magazine the plant known 

 in gardens as Eulalia Japonica is properly referred to the genus 

 Miscanthus, although, unfortunately, the oldest specific name, 

 Japonicum of Thunberg, is not retained, and the plant is desig- 

 nated by the much later name of Sinensis. Miscanthus is a 

 small genus closely related to the Sugar-cane, Saccharum, 

 from which it differs in the stem of the raceme, not being ar- 

 ticulated, and becoming disjointed at the base of the pedicels 

 of the flowers. In Japan, Miscanthus, or Eulalia, covers im- 

 mense territories on the low treeless foot-hills of the southern 

 islands and great moors in Yezo. In summer the whole coun- 

 try seems nodding with the silky white panicles of flowers and 

 fruit, and in autumn the foliage, which turns fiery red, colors 

 the landscape. 



The dwarf Buckeye, tEscuIus parviflora, is now flowering, 

 and an old established plant is always a striking object. The 

 lower branches of this shrub extend out in every direction 

 from the plant, and lying closely to the ground they take root 

 after a time. In a few years the shrub will cover a circle of 

 twenty or thirty feet in diameter, and in form it will be almost 

 a perfect section of a sphere eight or ten feet high at the 

 centre. Over this mound of fohage thickly rise flower spikes 

 from fifteen to eighteen inches long. The individual flowers 

 are creamy white, and as the stamens protrude some inches 

 beyond the corolla the whole spike has a peculiarly light and 

 feathery aspect. The spike is covered with open flowers from 

 the bottom to the top at the same time, and fresh flowers are 

 opening continually throughout its whole length for several 

 days. These flowers are fragrant and must contain a great 

 deal of nectar as they are constantly sought for by the bees. 

 The plant is a native of Highlands of Georgia and South Caro- 

 lina, but it is perfectly hardy in New England. 



California figs of fair quality are still abundant here on the 

 street fruit-stands. West India mangoes are ten cents each, 

 and Alligator pears twenty-five cents. Sugar-loaf and Straw- 

 berry pineapples from Havana are abundant, and bananas of 

 good quality are imported in such quantities that they have 

 sold on the streets for ten cents a dozen. Cherries of unri- 

 valed appearance and quality are still coming from California 

 with Hale's Early and Alexander peaches, which are by no 

 means as good, however, as the southern fruit. Burbank and 

 Abundance are still the most popular of the California plums, 

 and are of excellent quality and remarkable beauty. The best 

 peaches are now coming from Georgia, and bring $2.50 a bas- 

 ket. Sweet Bough and Astrakhan apples, from tlie Hudson 

 River Valley, are selling at $2.00 a barrel. Delaware grapes, 

 from Georgia, bring ten cents a pound by the basket ; Cham- 

 pion, three cents a pound, and Moore's Early, from South 

 Carolina, ten cents a pound. Shawangunk Mountain huckle- 

 berries are worth twelve cents a quart; good southern musk- 

 melons bring $2.25 a barrel, while the very best melons, which 

 come in baskets, bring much higher prices. 



The heat and drought, which has prevailed all over England 

 during the greater part of the present year, are having a ruin- 

 ous effect on vegetation of all kinds, and there is a complete 

 failure in the hay crop, vegetables are scarce and poor, and 

 fruit is suffering. Mr. Pettigrew, gardener of Cardiff" Castle, in 

 South Wales, states in a private letter that the rainfall there in 

 March was only .35 inches, and in April .25 inches. In May it 

 was 2.49 inches, but the ground was so hot that it soon evap- 

 orated. The rainfall in June was .60 inches. Fruit-trees are 

 covered with the red spider, and the apples are dropping from 

 the trees by the bushel. The Pear-trees are not so badly in- 

 fested with the spider as the Apple-trees, but the leaves are 

 burned black by the sun and crumble into dust with the least 

 pressure of the hand. The trees trained on the walls have 

 suffered the most. Peach-trees outside have lost most of their 

 leaves and there will be no fruit. Some of the trees will prob- 

 ably be killed outright. Broad Beans and Scarlet Runners are 

 covered with black aphis and withered up. The leaves of 

 many large Elms and Hollies on the castle-grounds are with- 

 ered and brown. Thousands of forest-trees, planted on the 

 hills last autumn, are dead, and some have died which were 

 planted three years since and had made six feet of growth. 

 The vines in the vineyard never looked better. The leaves 

 are green and the canes are loaded with Grapes ; the bunches 

 almost as forward now as they are in September in ordinary 

 years. 



