August i6, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



341 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article :— Horticulture at the World's Fair 341 



An Observation on Fruit Decays Professor Byron D. Halsted. 342 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan.— XIX. (With figure.) C. S. S. 342 



FoRBiGN Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 344 



Cultural Department : — Small Fruits in Indiana J. Troop. 346 



Notes on Raspberries ^. A. Crozier. 347 



The Water-g;arden 7- N. Gerard. 347 



Liparis liliifolia Wm. F. Bassett. 347 



Vegetable Notes T.D.H. -iifi 



The Forest: — Suggestions from the White Pine Forests of Minnesota, 



H. B. Ayres. 348 



The Columbian Exposition :— The Plant-effects in the Horticultural Building. 



(With figure.) Professor L. H. Bailey. 349 



Notes 35° 



Illustrations :— Alnus Japonica, Fig. 53 345 



Ground plan showing the arrangement of plants in the Horticultural 



Building at the Columbian Exposition, Fig. 54 349 



Horticulture at the World's Fair. 



THE Horticultural Department of the Columbian Ex- 

 position has completed the first part in its history. 

 The first-fruits of last year's crop are practically ex- 

 hausted and the products of the current season are rapidly 

 taking their places. The outdoor ornamentation has been 

 largely of early shrubs and perennials, or plants, like Pan- 

 sies, of last year's sowing, and now the plants of this sea- 

 son's growth are coming forward rapidly. It is an oppor- 

 tune time, therefore, to review, in a very general way, 

 what has thus far been accomplished in the way of horti- 

 culture at Chicago. All criticism must be made in a spirit 

 of sympathy, for, besides the insufticient time allowed for 

 such a stupendous undertaking, an almost endless series 

 of difficulties beset the managers. The horticulturists of 

 the country, as a body, were slow to begin the work of 

 collecting material and of interesting all the communities 

 concerned Very often the state legislatures failed to make 

 appropriations until the funds were too late to be of service. 

 There was not adequate time for arousing a strong public 

 sentiment, and some states, which are capable of making 

 excellent exhibitions, are practically unrepresented at the 

 Fair because of lack of funds. Local, society and political 

 jealousies have too often interfered with the expeditious 

 securing of funds, and have perverted them to improper 

 use when once appropriated. All this has given rise to 

 the one most discouraging feature of the Fair — the fact that 

 the displays have not been representative of the country 

 as a whole. In fruits, a few states and provinces, notably 

 California, New York, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, IMis- 

 souri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, IlHnois, Maine, and Ontario, 

 have made creditable displays, but these states do not rep- 

 resent the pomology of North America ; and as for foreign 

 countries, only New South Wales and Italy have made any 

 attempt to show fruits. The most lamentable failure in the 

 pomological department was the almost entire absence of 

 exhibits from the southern states in the early months of the 

 Fair. A few states have done well, but the country as a 



whole has fallen far short of what was to have been ex- 

 pected of it. 



All this is equally true of individual fruits. Visitors cer- 

 tainly had reason to expect a complete representation of 

 those important fruits which have been developed within 

 two generations from our native species. But not only 

 have the raspberries, blackberries, native gooseberries, and 

 even strawberries, been sporadic in their representation, 

 but there has been no definite effort whatever to show our 

 native plums. Some table should have been devoted, the 

 season through, to showing these attractive fruits in all 

 their variety, and from all parts of the country, but an 

 occasional variety which now and then happens to come 

 in, is the only thing to remind the visitor that plums grow- 

 wild in America. A vigorous and well-directed corre- 

 spondence on the part of the Superintendent of Pomology 

 could have shown these fruits and others in profusion and 

 perfection. The visitor is now impressed with the feeling 

 that certain states are capable of making great exhibits ; 

 but it would have been better if he had been impressed 

 with the relative importance of the various fruits in our 

 national economy, and with their peculiarities and varia- 

 tions. In other words, we beHeve that the proper basis for 

 a comprehensive pomological display is fruit, and not 

 states. Perhaps it would be difficult to interest the public 

 without appealing to state pride, but it would have been 

 easy to have secured sufficient overplus of special fruits to 

 have made supplementary exhibits for the purpose of show- 

 ing the whole progress and evolution and distribution of 

 any one species. 



The viticultural displays are among the most decorative 

 in the Horticultural Department ; but, unfortunately, there 

 is little of genuine horticulture in them. They are made 

 up almost wholly of wines and brandies, with a flavor of 

 mineral waters, subjects which belong to manufacture 

 and mining rather than to horticulture. Perhaps it would be 

 well to divide grape interests into two parts, as is done by 

 the Italians and others — viticulture, or grape-growing, and 

 viniculture, or wine-making. There is certainly little more 

 reason for including the manufacture of spirits under grape- 

 culture than to group beer-making with hop-culture. All 

 this, however, is a fault of the original classification, and it 

 must be said that, in its way, the viticultural display is one 

 of the best at the Exposition. Vegetables, save from On- 

 tario and New York, have not been shown to any extent, and 

 there is little promise of a representative display later on. 



Among ornamental plants there are many very large 

 and meritorious collections, and here, for the most part, 

 state lines are dropped, and the exhibits are made by firms. 

 An exception to this fact is observed in the Horticul- 

 tural Building, where New York and Pennsylvania appear 

 to contend for the questionable honor of having filled the 

 great dome space w-ith an unfortunate jumble of plants. 

 There are many good individual plants and individual ex- 

 hibits, but their arrangement is too often utterly bad. The 

 mound under the dome, which is said to represent a moun- 

 tain, has been the target of sarcasm from every competent 

 and unprejudiced critic at the Fair, but the interior arrange- 

 ment of the island and the disposition of the plants about 

 the Horticultural Building are not less open to objec- 

 tion. The broad landscape features of the Exposition are 

 incomparably good, but such details as fell to the Bureau 

 of Floriculture are often wrought in the stiff and conven- 

 tional forms which, unfortunately, are still called landscape- 

 gardening by a great body of our people. 



It is not our purpose to discourage any one who contem- 

 plates a visit to the Horticultural Department. He will be 

 amazed and bewildered with the great variety and extent 

 of the exhibits, and he will wonder how it could have been 

 consummated within the given time. But the careful vis- 

 itor must, after all, admit that this wealth of products is 

 only such as one must expect from a country of great re- 

 sources, and after he discovers that much of this bewil- 

 dering variety is nothing more than poor arrangement, he 

 will come aw^ay unsatisfied, if not humiliated. Much of 



