38o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 289. 



rieties, about twenty-five plants of each. This corner proves 

 to be a windy location, and most of Forgeot's plants have suf- 

 fered from the late storms ; and Lemoine's, which are tied to 

 cords, have also been injured. Yet both collections passed 

 the height of their bloom before the inclement weather ap- 

 peared, and they have attracted much attention. Probably few 

 people, even among flower-lovers, are aware of the great 

 variety and beauty of Lemoine's types of Gladioli, 

 ci.icago, III. L. H. Bailey. 



Notes. 



Arkansas still continues to show a remarlcable collection of 

 apples at the Columbian Exposition. The specimens are very 

 large, well colored and free from insect and fungous injuries. 

 They come from the northern part of the state, which cer- 

 tainly possesses great capabilities in apple-growing. 



A beautiful example of wood-carving is exhibited by the 

 Government of India in the Forestry Building in Chicago. 

 The king, his courtiers and many other figures are represented 

 in teakwood, the production being an exact copy of a door in 

 the Rajah's palace in Mandalay, the capital of Upper Burmah. 



A recent number of tlie Boston Globe states that Dr. Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes has made a practice for some years of taking 

 the girth of the large Elms and other trees which he has seen 

 in his daily drives. He has, however, only found four trees 

 with a girth greater than fifteen feet. The tape has usually 

 been applied at a point about five feet above the soil, the 

 place selected for measuring, as Dr. Holmes states, being the 

 smallest circle of the trunk between the swell of the roots and 

 the swell of the branches. 



Monsieur Andr6 describes in a recent issue of the Revue 

 Horticole a new hybrid Clematis, produced by a French horti- 

 culturist at Lyons by fertilizing Clematis Pitcher!, of our trans- 

 Mississippi region, with the pollen of the Texan C. coccinea. 

 A beautifully executed colored figure displays a flowering 

 branch of this new hybrid, which has preserved the vigor and 

 the numerous stems of the strong-growing C. Pitcheri, and the 

 brilliant color of the flowers of C. coccinea. It may be de- 

 scribed as an early-flowering C. Pitcheri with the scarlet 

 flowers of C. coccinea. 



The California papers are describing a new Plum which 

 Luther Burbank has temporarily named Perfection and which 

 he produced by crossing the Japanese Satsuma upon the Kel- 

 sey. The fruit is almost exactly the shape of an inverted pear, 

 that is, with the stem attached-to what corresponds to the blos- 

 som end of a pear. The amber-colored flesii is juicy and 

 translucent, with a striking and agreeable flavor, the pit small 

 and shapely ; the color deepens from a deep uniform cherry- 

 red to a rich claret as the fruit ripens, and when fully matured 

 it is still in firm shipping condifion. 



The German department at the World's Fair shows two Can- 

 nas, in its collection on the wooded island, which appear to 

 be new to America. One is Germania, a plant of the Madame 

 Crozy type, with very large, bright light red flowers faintly 

 margined with gold and having a yellow throat. Kaiser Wil- 

 helm II. is a taller plant, with flowers of clear red. Both are 

 shown by William Pfitzer, of Stuttgart, who has also sent for 

 exhibition a painting of a new Canna which he calls Konigin 

 Charlotte. The picture shows an enormous truss of the 

 Madame Crozy type, but with a broader band of gold and five 

 very large and well-developed petals. 



Mrs. Hinton, who has been a student of Japanese garden- 

 art for the past six years, has recently arrived at Chicago, and 

 observes that the so-called Japanese garden on the wooded 

 island has nothing Japanese about it. This is the garden which 

 it was proposed to give to the city of Chicago, along with the 

 Hooden temple. The garden in the Horticultural Building, 

 Mrs. Hinton pronounces excellent, except that it should have 

 had more Matsus, or dwarf Pines. Many such Pines were 

 sent for the garden, but were ost through the inclement 

 weather of last winter. A number of fine specimens were 

 sent from the gardens of the Imperial University at Tokio. 



The most noticeable plants at Pitcher & Manda's nursery 

 last week were especially well-grown and flowered specimens 

 of Aristolochia elegans and Bougainvillea glabra. These were 

 planted out in the back border of one of the Chrysanthemum- 

 liouses, where they had evidently found agreeable quarters. 

 Aristolochia elegans is the handsomest flowered member of the 

 family ; its quaintly mottled flowers, with dark, lustrous, brown 

 eyes, were borne in the greatest profusion, and would be appre- 

 ciated in the choicest collection of climbers. Being free from 



the usual offensive odor of the family, it is a capital subject 

 for cutting and choice decorations, the light green clean foliage 

 adding another charm. Bougainvillea glabra is a common 

 plant in greenhouses, but it is seldom seen in as good condi- 

 tion as grown here, where the loosely trained vine was covered 

 with clusters of the bright rosy bracts as large as those which 

 hang from the porches of some of the houses in Bermuda. 

 Neither of these vines had had the rest usually deemed neces- 

 sary in their cultivafion. 



In the first volume of Garden and Forest, Mr. Pringle 

 wrote a note in praise of the Milla biflora as he saw its white 

 stars spangling the prairie on the high plains of the Mexican 

 Cordilleras. This note was called to mind last week by the 

 long stretches of this flower which were blooming, in beds 

 nearly a quarter of a mile long, on the grounds of Mr. John 

 Lewis Childs, Floral Park, Long Island. The snow-white and 

 fragrant flowers, two inches across, with their grassy foliage 

 and wiry stems, were blooming beautifully out-of-doors, audit 

 is no wonder that some florists use them abundantly for cut 

 flowers in summer in the New York market. Near them, in 

 still greater profusion, were the orange-scarlet and bell-shaped, 

 squill-like flowers of Bessera elegans. Not so abundant, but 

 very attractive, were the solitary flowers of the white and the 

 rosy Zephyranthes, which belong to the Amaryllidse. They 

 were very bright and effective, and all were particularly striking 

 at this time just after the cyclone had swept over the ground 

 and prostrated acres of taller plants, like the new hybrid 

 Gladioli, for which this place is famous. Most of the Lilies 

 stood up very well under the storm, and some of the annual 

 Phloxes and Coreopsis especially looked, uncommonly bright. 



California plums, in large variety, have been selling for less 

 than the home-grown fruit, but the supply has been dimin- 

 ished during the past week, the prevailing prices not paying the 

 shippers. Varieties not noticed before are Hungarian, Jeffer- 

 son and WaUing, while an unidentified small green plum of deli- 

 cious flavor is selling for thirty-five cents a dozen under the name 

 of Simoni. GreenGages are coming from the Hudson River dis- 

 trict, large blue plums from western New York at forty cents for a 

 twelve-pound basket, and Maryland and Delaware damsons are 

 six cents a quart. There are but few choice peaches from 

 Delaware and New Jersey, and these sell for thirty-five cents a 

 dozen, or two dollars a basket. The main supply consists of 

 windfalls, and picked fruit in good condition but inferior in 

 size. California peaches sell at a dollar and twenty-five cents 

 for a box containing seventy ^peaches, or fifty to sixty cents a 

 dozen. Clairgeau pears are coming in from California. The 

 first importations of green ginger-root and of the new crop of 

 oranges, from Jamaica, are now being offered. New celery 

 from Michigan has been in the markets since the middle of 

 August. The abundance of tropical fruits is shown by the 

 fact that such fruits as mangoes, alligator pears and Japanese 

 persimmons have become common on the sidewalk stands, 

 while nectarines sell as low as ten cents a dozen, the best 

 bringing twenty-five cents a dozen. 



In the last catalogue of Ellwanger & Barry the directions 

 given for cultivating Strawberries may be summarized as fol- 

 lows : The Strawberry may be successfully grown in any soil 

 adapted to the growth of ordinary field or garden crops. The 

 ground should be thoroughly drained if wet, then trenched 

 or plowed, at least eighteen inches deep, and properly en- 

 riched as for any garden crop. For family use, plants may 

 stand fifteen inches apart each way, and hill-culture is prefera- 

 ble. To obtain fine, large, high-flavored fruit, pinch off the 

 runners as fast as they appear, repeating the operation as often 

 as may be necessary during the summer and early autumn. 

 Every runner thus removed produces a new crown, and in the 

 fall the plants will have formed large bushes or stools, on 

 which the finest strawberries may be expected the following 

 season. In the mean time the ground among the plants should 

 be frequently stirred. Where the winters are severe, with lit- 

 tle snow for protection, a slight covering of leaves or litter, or 

 the branches of evergreens, will be of great service. This cov- 

 ering should not be placed over the plants until after the ground 

 is frozen, usually from the middle of November till the ist of 

 December in this locality. Fatal errors are often made by 

 mulching too heavily and too early. Care must also be taken 

 to remove the covering in the spring, just as soon as the plants 

 begin to grow. Before the fruit begins to ripen, mulch the 

 ground around the plants with short hay or straw or anything 

 of that sort. This will keep the fruit clean, prevent the ground 

 from baking, and lengthen the fruiting season. A bed man- 

 aged in this way will give two full crops, and should then be 

 plowed down, a new one in the mean time having been pre- 

 pared to take its place. 



