342 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 286. 



this can be corrected in the larger and fuller displays which 

 are now coming on, but neither from the point of view of 

 art nor of horticulture does the Exposition in every respect 

 represent American resources. Foreign countries are 

 well represented in a few lines in unperishable com- 

 modities, and in many ornamental plants, such as Rho- 

 dodendrons, Azaleas and Roses, but in fruits and veg- 

 etables, in any form, pictorial or otherwise, they are con- 

 spicuously absent. It is, therefore, scarcely just to call 

 this exposition a world's display of horticulture. This was 

 the opportunity of the century to give to the American peo- 

 ple a great object-lesson in horticulture which might have 

 made itself felt from one end of the country to the other. 

 The managers of the Exposition did not rise to the oppor- 

 tunity, and, while an attempt has been made to show our re- 

 sources, the educational effect of the horticultural exhibits 

 cannot be gr-eat or at all commensurate with their cost. 



In the bulletin it was recommended to lay the axe at the foot 

 of the tree, but in the light of more recent observations it may 

 be that the only action necessary is to remove the branch 

 which bears the early summer fruit, for in this the decay be- 

 gins its season's work, and from which it reaches out in all 

 directions to cause destruction. r-, rr 7 j 



Rutgers College. By r Oil D. Hals ted.- 



An Observation on Fruit Decays. 

 T AST season I made a study of Quince-rots, the results of 

 •*— ' which were published in Bulletin No. 91 of the New Jersey 

 Experiment Station. In the course of this bulletin it was 

 stated that "a large Apple-tree stands in the orchard, sur- 

 rounded on three sides by Quince-trees. The fruit, not the 

 best, is permitted to drop and accumulate upon the ground in 

 midsummer, it being an early autumn sort. These fallen ap- 

 ples were this season badly infested with the Sphseropsis, and 

 the same was often the case with the fruit upon the tree. It 

 was a noticeable fact that the Quince-trees that were close to 

 this tree, some of them almost underit, were the most severely 

 attacked. While there was no actual transfer of the infection 

 by artificial means to demonstrate the fact, I am quite willing 

 to hold the opinion that the Quince-fruit received the germs of 

 the decay from the apples that were rotting by the bushel only 

 a few feet away. That the decay should begin at the blossom- 

 end is not unexpected, for there the spores, and the water 

 causing them to germinate, would naturally lodge. The grow- 

 ing filaments of the spores would there find an easier entrance 

 than elsewhere, because of the adhering floral parts. Nearby, 

 and with branches interlocking, stands a Pear-tree, and the 

 fruit was quite badly infested with the Sphaeropsis. Similar 

 trees further away from the Apple-tree were less troubled with 

 the decay, whicli only strengthens the opinion that all three 

 kinds of fruit are naturally susceptible to the same infection, 

 and the germs pass from one to the other through the air or 

 by means of the various insects that visit the fruits, especially 

 those with broken surfaces due to partial decay. The inocula- 

 tions that were made in the laboratory seem confirmed by ob- 

 servations in the orchard. If the assumption holds, and it 

 appears to be a sound one, it follows that the Apple-tree is a 

 source of Sphaeropsis infection for the quince and pear. The 

 Apple bears comparatively worthless fruit, and the Quinces are 

 the most valuable of all in this instance." 



Yesterday (July 17th) a visit was again made to this orchard, 

 and while no decay vias manifested among the quinces and 

 pears, a fact was obtained that confirms the view held at the 

 close of the investigation last season. The Apple-tree is now 

 loaded with fruit, and, for the most part, it is green and free 

 from anv rot; but upon one side is a good-sized limb, a graft 

 of the Red Astrachan variety, also loaded with fruit, a large 

 percentage of which is undergoing a decay. Over a hundred 

 apples could have been gathered from the ground under this 

 branch that were more or less decayed, many of them entirely 

 rotten. Some of these fruits were brought to the laboratory 

 and microscopically examined, the Sphaeropsis being found 

 on the specimens as was expected. 



It will be seen that by this observation the enemy is traced 

 back one step further. Last season the source of the quince 

 and pear infection was tracked to a single tree, the fruit of 

 which was an early autumn sort. Now, in the middle of July, 

 the black-rot is confined to one branch of the tree bearing early 

 summer fruit, where the decay is rampant, and, without 

 question, is the particular place of exodus of the decay for the 

 surrounding trees. The trouble is assisted by the shaded po- 

 sition held by the Astrachan limb, it being a low one, and over- 

 topped by higher branches of the same and other trees. The 

 fruit is poor, partly because of the shade and the decay, and it 

 is left to accumulate upon the moist earth, where the fungus 

 propagates extensively and develops myriads of spores. There- 

 fore the conditions favor, naturally, the rapid multiplication of 

 the enemy which later makes sad inroads upon the quince and 

 pear fruit of the orchard. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — XIX. 



IN nut-bearing trees the forests of Japan are poor in com- 

 parison with those of eastern North America. The 

 Hickory, if it ever existed in the ante-glacial forests of Asia, 

 has entirely disappeared from them, and the Walnut family 

 is now represented in Japan by three genera — Juglans, 

 Pterocarya and Platycarya ; the last two belong exclu- 

 sively to the Old World. In Japan, Juglans is represented 

 by Juglans Sieboldiana, a common forest-tree in Yezo and 

 in the mountain-regions of the other islands. As a timber- 

 tree it is much less important than either of the two eastern 

 American Walnuts, as specimens more than fifty feet high 

 are uncommon ; it is a wide-branched tree, resembling our 

 Butternut in habit and in the color of its pale furrowed bark, 

 as it does in the pubescent covering of the young branches, 

 the lower surface of the leaves and the fruit. The nuts are 

 arratiged in long racemes, and resemble those of the Asiatic, 

 or, as it is familiarly called in commerce, the English Wal- 

 nut (Juglans regia), rather than our American walnuts, 

 which are deeply sculptured into narrow ridges, while the 

 surface of the Japanese nut is smooth, or sometimes more 

 or less pitted ; it is pointed at the apex with thickened wing- 

 like sutures, and is often an inch and a half long and about 

 an inch broad, although it varies considerably both in size 

 and shape ; in flavor the kernel resembles that of the Eng- 

 lish walnut. The walnut is evidently an important article 

 of food in Japan, as the nuts are exposed for sale in great 

 quantities in the markets of all the northern towns. Juglans 

 Sieboldiana is perfectly hardy here in New England, where 

 it ripens its fruit; it is hardly worth growing, however, as 

 an ornamental tree, as the Black Walnut surpasses it in size 

 and beauty. It will produce fruit in regions of greater 

 winter cold than the English Walnut can support, and as a 

 fruit-tree it may find a place in northern orchards, although 

 the abundance and cheapness of English walnuts seem to 

 forbid its cultivation as a source of profit. 



I am unable to throw any light upon the curious Juglans 

 cordiformis of Maximowicz, distinguished by its flattened, 

 long-pointed and more or less heart-shaped nuts. The tree 

 which produces these peculiar nuts is not recognized by the 

 Japanese botanists, who consider them an extreme variety of 

 their common walnut. I looked in vain for nuts of this 

 form in the markets of Hakodate, where they were first 

 seen by the Russian naval officer Albrecht ; afterward, how- 

 ever, I found them offered for sale by the Nurserymen's 

 Association of Yokohama, and was told that they were col- 

 lected on the sides of Fugi-san. A plant raised from one 

 of these heart-shaped nuts has been growing for a number 

 of years in the Arnold Arboretum, and last year it bore 

 fruit. In habit and in foliage it is not distinguishable from 

 plants of the same age of Juglans Sieboldiana. Juglans 

 regia, although included in most works on the flora of Japan, 

 does not seem to be a native of the empire; it is occa- 

 sionally cultivated in the neighborhood of temples and as 

 a fruit-tree, but we saw no evidence of its being anywhere 

 indigenous, and it is probable that it was introduced from 

 northern China, where one form of this tree apparently 

 grows naturally. 



Pterocarya, the curious genus with leaves like those of a 

 Hickory, and long slender spikes of small hard nut-like 

 fruits surrounded by foliaceous bracts, appears in Japan 

 with one species ; a second inhabits China, and a third, the 

 type of the genus, the Caucasus. The Japanese Pterocarya 

 rhoifolia is a large and important timber-tree. We first met 

 with it in the lower margin of the Hemlock-forest about 

 Lake Umoto, in the Nikko Mountains, where it grows to 

 no greiat size ; and it was not until we ascended Mount 



