420 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 293. 



of varieties, particularly in his crosses with the Post Oak Grape 

 of the south-west, Vitis Lincecumii. Mr. Munson considers 

 that the outcome of these unions will afford the best grapes of 

 the future ; and various experts who have tested the grapes 

 which he has sent to Chicago are ready to concur in the 

 opinion. No other single individual is making a stronger im- 

 pression upon American horticulture. 



Chicago, III. 



L. H. B. 



Notes. 



In a personal letter to the editor of this journal from a coni- 

 petent observer in Carlton, Minnesota, it is stated that the stif- 

 ling smoke from forest fires there obscures the sun at midday 

 and impedes traffic on the lake just as the densest fogs do. 



The Century for October has for its frontispiece an admira- 

 ble portrait of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, and the most 

 interesting article in the number is a sketch by MrSi Schuyler 

 Van Rensselaer of the life of this artist, with a critical estimate 

 of the value of his work and its influence upon landscape-gar- 

 dening in America. 



We have received a schedule of the Fall Chrysanthemum 

 Show, which is to be held under the auspices of the New York 

 Florists' Club at the Industrial Building, in this city, from the 

 6th to the 13th of November. The exhibition will include 

 Orchids, Roses and other flowers as well as Chrysanthemums, 

 and a special effort is being made to have a large trade ex- 

 hibit. Six thousand five hundred dollars are offered as pre- 

 miums, and as the building affords abundant space, there is no 

 reason why the exhibition should not equal or excel those 

 which have hitherto been held in Madison Square Garden. 



From a note in the last number of our excellent contempo- 

 rary, Le Journal des Orchidees, we learn that the family of 

 the late Louis van Houtte is to retire from the management of 

 the great horticultural establishment which made the name of 

 Van Houtte known throughout the world, and did more, per- 

 haps, in its day than any other to make Ghent one of the greatest 

 horticultural centres. The elder Van Houtte, beginning 

 life as a botanical traveler himself, was exceptionally active 

 and enterprising in introducing new plants, especially from 

 tropical countries, which he afterward published in the Flore 

 des Serres, one of the most useful publications of its class, 

 which, unfortunately, died with its founder. 



Miss Ahce E. Stevens and Miss Josephine A. Clark, of Wash- 

 ino-ton, if sufficient encouragement can be obtained, propose 

 tolssue to subscribers two card-catalogue indices, one of bo- 

 tanical plates with a bibliography, including references not 

 given in Pritzel's Iconum Botanicarum Index, and the other 

 of genera, species and names of plants published since 1885. 

 The names of American species will be issued first as of more 

 immediate value to American botanists. The price per thou- 

 sand cards has been fixed at the moderate sum of $15, and if 

 ten subscribers are assured early in October it is proposed to 

 issue a thousand cards of each index by the end of that month. 

 Miss Clark's address is 941 S. Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. 



It is well known that plants are subject to bacterial diseases. 

 The bacteria which affects the bulbs and leaves of Hyacinths 

 and the one which causes the fire-blight of the Pear are the 

 most familiar instances. It is not generally known, however, 

 that the microbes which produce disease in man can live and 

 multiply in plants. Many experiments, however, have proved 

 that the" typhoid bacillus and many others will live in different 

 plants. When the germ which causes anthrax was innocu- 

 lated into the leaves of the Agapanthus, these bacilli grew into 

 lono- threads and produced spores not only at the point of in- 

 noculation, but within the healthy cells of the soft part of the 

 leaf. After living for forty-two days in the plant, animals were 

 innoculated with germs taken from the plant, and they proved 

 to be as virulent in causing disease as ever. These microbes 

 which cause disease in man or animals, and which will live 

 also in plants, so far as has been tested, do not cause any dis- 

 ease of the plants, and yet the fact that the germs of diphtheria 

 or small-pox or other diseases may be hving and multiplying 

 in the plants about us, perhaps in the plants which we eat, 

 suggests unpleasant reflections. 



In a late number of the Atnerican Florist Mr. John N. May 

 describes his method of destroying the aphis or green fly in 

 his Rose-houses by using the vapor of tobacco-juice. He has 

 a small steam boiler of about five-horse power from which an 

 inch and a quarter pipe runs through the centre of the shed, 

 with a half-inch pipe branching into each glass-house. These 

 pipes in the houses a hundred feet long have each two outlets 

 of half-inch valves or double-threaded air-cocks, on which a 

 coupling is screwed, to which is attached a piece of steam 



hose some two feet long. At the end of the hose a piece of 

 quarter-inch pipe about a foot long is fastened. When the 

 house needs vaporizing, from one to two quarts of tobacco- 

 juice are put intoalargetub through a hole in the wooden cover 

 of which the quarter-inch pipe is thrust until it almost touches 

 the bottom. With twenty pounds of steam in the boiler the 

 house can be filled with vapor in twelve or fifteen minutes. 

 Two good applications will destroy every aphis in the house, 

 and will not injure the most tender foliage or the most deli- 

 cate flower. The reason for having two openings in a pipe is 

 that a large house can be filled so much more quickly than 

 from a single pipe, and a quick application is much more effi- 

 cacious than a slow one. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle quotes from a paper by Professor 

 Terrien de Lacouprie, in which he states that the first knowl- 

 edge of the Quince dates from 700 B. C, when it was intro- 

 duced from Media into Greece. Soon after there is evidence 

 of its existence in China. The Greeks attributed various vir- 

 tues to it, and some authors have considered that the apple 

 disputed between Here, Aphrodite and Athene was a quince. 

 By the Hindus and the Mahometans all over the east, the 

 quince is still highly valued, and in China fruits of a large size 

 are brought to Pekin from Shantung. The first appearance of 

 the quince in Chinese literature is, according to the Professor, 

 in an ode dated about 660 B. C, where it is mentioned as form- 

 ing a complimentary present. Here it is called Mah-Kua, or 

 Tree Gourd, a name also given to the Papaw, but which was 

 introduced many centuries after. The history of the quince is 

 traced for twelve centuries, and its importation by the South 

 Sea traders to the emporia of the south coast of Shantung. It 

 must not, however, be forgotten that quince-like fruits are 

 native to China. Thus, Pyrus japonica in one or other of its 

 forms is found, according to Hemsley, both in the north and 

 south-west of China ; while under the name Pyrus Cathay- 

 ensis, Hemsley, a species is noted, called the "Chinese 

 Quince," by Dr. Henry, and found by that botanist in central 

 China — this is the CydoniaChinensis of Thouin, and is figured 

 in Bot. Reg., t. 905. Loureiro is said to have confounded this 

 with the common Quince. The Pyrus Sinensis of Lindley (^(?/. 

 Reg., t. 1248) is a different plant. 



The heavy frosts give warning that the eastern peach-crop 

 is nearly harvested, and much of the fruit offered is smafl and 

 of inferior quality. This keeps prices down and very excellent 

 peaches from New Jersey have been selling for $1.00 a basket. 

 California fruit is still abundant, and fifty-nine car-loads were 

 sold in this city last week. The principal peaches received 

 from that state now are the Salway, a large cream-yellow free- 

 stone peach of English origin, with deep yellow flesh ; 

 George's Late Cling, a large white-fleshed peach of California 

 origin, yellow, with bright red stripes and splashes ; and the 

 Strawberry peach, which originated in New Jersey. These 

 western peaches were in large supply and sold slowly, but 

 Bartlett pears were quickly bought at prices double those of 

 the previous week. Boxes containing sixty-two Barfletts of 

 large size sold at $2.25 wholesale, and Acmes brought the same 

 price. California figs of excellent quality are now quite com- 

 mon and they sell for fancy prices. The first new crop of 

 stem-cut oranges from Florida were received last week. This 

 fruit, which is picked entirely green, as it has to be arti- 

 ficially ripened is tart and lacks the full rich flavor of ma- 

 ture oranges ripened after Christmas. Five hundred boxes 

 of them, however, were shipped to Liverpool. Shipments 

 have been prohibited . from many Mediterranean ports 

 where cholera is epidemic, so that the supply of new-crop 

 dates, Smyrna figs, Sultana raisins, citron peel, walnuts, fil- 

 berts, lemons and oranges is cut off from a large secdon of 

 that coast. The prospect is that some of these products will be 

 scarce and dear. Although the so-called Japanese persimmons 

 are seen much more frequently than in former years on the 

 fruit-stands, buyers generally have not learned their value, 

 and, therefore, the demand has not kept up with the supply. 

 Occasionally a box containing a hundred persimmons came to 

 this market a few years ago and sold to the fancy fruit-dealers at 

 six, eight and even nine dollars, but now the same boxes sell 

 slowly at $1.50 or $2.00. Much of the fruit is over-ripe when 

 it arrives, and for this reason as well as for the over-supply, it 

 is left on the dock. A large yellow variety, somewhat conical in 

 shape, is the one most frequently seen here, while in Philadel- 

 phia a smaller, round, bright red variety is most common. 

 There is little doubt but that the Kaki can be cultivated here in 

 the Atlantic states, since it flourishes in Japan in a climate 

 quite as rigorous as that of New England. The fruit is des- 

 tined ultimately to hold a prominent place in our market, as 

 it is handsome, luscious and healthful. 



