496 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 301. 



University made several tests in mulching, vmder the direction 

 of Professor Bailey, last winter. The winter was very severe, 

 and after the ground had been frozen deeply and well-settled 

 snow lay a foot deep in the open iields, coarse manure and 

 litter was placed about Apples, Raspberries, Currants, Grapes 

 and other fruit-plants. Half a wagon-load was placed about 

 each tree, and the snow was covered thickly for a distance of 

 more than three feet in every direction. Small fruits were 

 mulched heavily to the middle of the rows, or three and a half 

 feet in each direction. A heavy wagon-load of mulch was 

 used on about ten feet of the row. On the last of March, 

 although the frost had left the field ten days before, the earth 

 under the mulch was still solidly frozen, and there were from 

 six to eight inches of snow remaining, and yet on the 13th of 

 April, while there was still frost and snow under the Goose- 

 berry mulches, the treated and untreated plants seemed to be 

 starting absolutely together, and this, too, when the buds on 

 the lower part of the bushes under the mulch were entirely 

 dormant. These mulched plants maintained their forward- 

 ness and produced leaves, fiowers and fruit at the same time 

 with the contiguous plants which were not treated at all, and 

 the same thing was true of Crandall Currants, Juneberries, 

 Roses, Grapes and all the orchard trees. The Blackberries, Rasp- 

 berries and Victoria Currants seemed to be a day or two later 

 in starting, but they soon caught up, and there was no differ- 

 ence in the season of bloom or of maturing the fruit. 



With Strawberries the case was different. They were mulched 

 in the spring, after the ground had been thawed out and 

 the plants were entirely covered to the depth of three 

 inches. A month and a half later the mulch was removed, 

 when the untreated plants were in full leaf and about ready to 

 bloom. The plants under mulch were then just breaking into 

 leaf and the growth was weak and bleached, although they were 

 endeavoring to push through the covering to the light and air. 

 After the mulch was forked away from the plants they grad- 

 ually assumed a normal color and bloomed on the first of 

 June, or from ten days to two weeks later than the others. The 

 fruiting was delayed about a week, although the plants never 

 recovered entirely and the yield was somewhat lighter. Of 

 course, the difference in the behavior of Strawberry-plants was 

 owing to the fact that the entire tops were covered, and not the 

 roots only. But it is evident that if fruit is retarded in this way 

 the mulching must be done cautiously, for if sufficient cover- 

 ing is applied to delay the vegetation very long the young 

 growth is apt to be injured. Nevertheless, thiscan sometimes 

 be practiced with good effect, and in this bulletin the experi- 

 ence of nearly a score of well-known fruit-growers is given, 

 nearly all of whom have been able to retard or prolong the 

 strawberry season for from two days to two weeks by mulching. 



The most successful pracfice seems to have been that of 

 Mr. R. M. Kellogg, of Ionia, Michigan. He selects a situation 

 on a northern slope, chooses a late variety, and does not mulch 

 until midwinter when the ground is frozen deeply. Then be- 

 tween the rows he places a heavy coat of coarse manure and 

 treads it down compactly, taking care, however, not to let it 

 lie directly on the plants. Immediately over the plants he puts 

 a rather thin layer of chaff and over this a coat of clean straw, 

 which may be six or eight inches deep. This is allowed to 

 remain until the fruit of the other plants is almost matured, 

 when enough of the straw is raked off to see the plants and 

 give them opportunity to push up through. Sometimes growth 

 will have been started and the foliage may be bleached, but 

 no injury has ever resulted. Mr. Kellogg has often found the 

 ground frozen hard when unmulched plants were in full 

 bloom. In this way he has raised some of his largest 

 and his latest pickings have been more than two 

 after the varieties so treated were all gone. 



New York. ■'^ • 



crops, 

 weeks 



The European Eryngiums. 



OUR European Sea Hollies are quite different in habit from 

 your American kinds, whose linear leaves and robust 

 stalks, bearing more or less small white flower-heads, give 

 them an appearance altogether distinct from ours. They be- 

 long to the family of Umbelliferce ; all are perennials, with 

 coriaceous, toothed, cut or lobed leaves and bluish bracted 

 flowers closely sessile in dense heads, the heads being sur- 

 rounded with an involucre more or less deeply and finely cut, 

 and becoming generally blue before, during and after the 

 flowering time. These involucres are the most conspicuous 

 part of the plant, and many people mistake them for the 

 flower-petals, just as they do in the case of the Edelweiss. The 

 stems of the upper part of the plants generally become blue, 

 like tlie involucre, at the same time, and are among the hand- 



somest objects in all the plant world. They are generally 

 scariose, so that they can be preserved for the winter like the 

 everlasting flowers, and are of great use for winter and mar- 

 ket bouquets. In the Jardin Alpin d'Acclimatation, in Geneva, 

 we now cultivate fourteen different kinds of hardy Eryngiums, 

 all belonging to the "Blue Thistle " group, so called on ac- 

 count of the color and of the spiny character of the plants. 



Eryngium alpinum is a very rare species found on chains of 

 the Alps in Switzerland, Savoy and Tyrol. It is a neat and cu- 

 rious plant, two or three feet high, with heart-shaped leaves, 

 not cut at all, and borne on long petioles. It bears one to 

 three heads of flowers and a marvelously cut involucre, very 

 finely incised and of the deepest blue. The upper leaves and 

 the superior part of the stems are of the same color, and hold 

 that curious bluish tint when cut and preserved for the win- 

 ter. , The flower-heads are large, and the involucre measures 

 more than four inches in diameter. The flowers appear from 

 June till August. A good deep soil and a partially shaded 

 situation suit it best. It is reproduced only from seed. It is 

 one of the best of alpine plants either for the herbaceous bor- 

 der or for the rockery. It has been said that E. alpinum grows 

 upon the Rocky Mountains, but neither in Bossier's herbarium, 

 De CandoUe's nor Delenert's, nor yet in Asa Gray's books do I 

 find any mention of this fact. Until some American reader 

 corrects me, I shall assume that this plant is not itself 

 American. 



In the Pyrenees the genus Eryngium is represented by 

 quite another species, E. Bourgati. The plant is hardly a foot 

 high, has very deeply incised and divided, rough and spinescent 

 leaves of a bluish or whitish green, and very strongly nerved. 

 The flower-heads are not so large as those of E. alpinum, and 

 are whitish ; the involucre is of quite another character, and 

 formed of spinescent, narrow and very hard leaflets, bearing a 

 thorn at their summit, and becoming pale blue at flowering 

 time, which is June till August. It endures well the hottest sun. 



The highest summits of Sierra Nevada and Morena, in 

 Spain, give us another very interesting Eryngium, called E. 

 glaciale. It grows upon barren summits between 7,000 and 

 g.ooo feet in altitude, and is very rare in gardens. It has a 

 dwarf habit, not more than eight inches high, and bears from 

 one to three flower-heads, surrounded with an involucre of 

 the same character as that of E. Bourgafi. The leaves have 

 long petioles, are whitish nerved, spiny and deeply cut. Its 

 flowering season is June and July, and it needs a rockery with 

 a sunny aspect. The stems and involucre become bluish from 

 May to the end of July. It can be increased only from seed. 



The chains of the Apennines and of the southern Alps, in 

 Tyrol and Croafia, give us the fine E. amethystinum. Its 

 leaves, with whitish nerves, are very deeply cut, long and 

 linear-lanceolate. The flower-heads, borne on stems two feet 

 long, are surrounded by an involucre with five to six leaflets, 

 which are spinescent, linear-lanceolate and of a deep ame- 

 thystine-blue. The flower-heads are not so large as those of 

 the preceding species, but they are very numerous and form 

 a corymb. The stems, involucre and leaves in the summer- 

 time are all quite blue. 



If we go into Turkey over the Balkans, or into Greece, we 

 find the interesting E. Creticum. The growth of this plant is 

 quite distinct, as the stems at half their height suddenly divide 

 into many branches, so as to form an umbrella-shaped top. 

 The branches are of the deepest blue, and the very numerous 

 little heads are set in spiny blue involucres. This plant needs 

 full sun and dry sandy soil. In the Caucasian mountain- 

 meadows we find the elegant E. giganteum, which is some- 

 what analogous to E. alpinum, but differs from it in its leaves, 

 which are more ovate and elongated, and in the involucre, 

 which is not cut, but toothed only, spinescent and of a very 

 hard and leathery texture. 



In the Taurus and Libanus ranges we find E. falcatum with 

 ovate, entire, radical and often trilobate leaves and a stem 

 three and a half feet high, bearing numberless small heads of 

 flowers with spinescent little involucres, which are blue from 

 June to September. It grows freely in any sunny place. E. ple- 

 num grows in Siberia and the Ural Mountains, and differs from 

 E. falcatum by having its radical leaves cordate, with long 

 petioles, and never trilobate, and having also the bracts of the 

 involucre narrower and longer. In Asia Minor there are three 

 important Eryngiums — E. Olivierianum, a tall-growing spe- 

 cies with very hard leathery involucres ; E. coeruleum, which 

 extends to the alpine heights of the Himalayas, and E. multi- 

 fidum, nearly allied to E. amethystinum. There are three 

 other European kinds which are worth cultivating, although 

 their stems do not turn blue. These are E. maritimum, a 

 glaucous species, growing by the sea-shore ; E. spino-alba, of 

 the Cevennes Mountains, and E. vulgare. 



