5IO 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 302. 



The same amount of manual work is required, and the effort 

 will be made to give as much theoretical instruction as possi- 

 ble in the various subjects prescribed, the aim being-, pri- 

 marily, to make practical gardeners rather than botanists or 

 scientific specialists. 



From Messrs. EUwanger & Barry we have received a box of 

 the magnificent Anjou pears, for which this firm is famous, 

 and which grow to perfection in Rochester. No less an au- 

 thority than the late Marshall P. Wilder used to call the Anjou 

 the best all-round market pear in existence. 



Experiments in grafting the Chrysanthemum on stocks of 

 Anthemis frutescens have been highly successful in Europe 

 ao-ain this year. A specimen of the variety Val d'Andorre, ex- 

 hTbited at Brussels on the 12th of November, measured nine 

 feet in diameter and bore 783 flowers. Other grafted varieties 

 did not make such large bushes, but bore numerous flowers 

 of great size and of unusually deep colors. Why do not some 

 of our American experts try their hand at this work for next 

 year's exhibitions ? 



Among various plans for ripening the green tomatoes which 

 are usually found on the plants when frost kills them, we note 

 the advice in the Florists' Exchange, to spade up a piece of 

 ground which is protected on the north side, then pull up the 

 plants with the fruits, spread them over the newly spaded 

 ground and cover them with straw, leaves, corn-stalks or any- 

 thino- which is most convenient, to keep them warm at night. 

 Thelieat of the earth will ripen the fruits perfectly. The fruit 

 does not wilt, and the flavor wiU be as good as if it ripened in 

 the sun. 



Pleading for an increased number of public playgrounds for 

 city children, Lord Meath says, in a recent number of ^& Nine- 

 teenth Ce7tttiry, " London alone has, since the formation of the 

 Metropolitan Public Gardens Association in 1882, increased her 

 open spaces by 157, containing 4,998 acres, while the entire 

 number of public parks and gardens within easy reach of the 

 inhabitants of the metropolis is 271, containing 17,876 acres, 

 which include 6,380 acres acquired and maintained by the 

 Corporation of the City of London. We may roughly say that 

 the cities and towns of the United ICingdom, including the 

 metropolis, possess some 500 open spaces over 40.000 acres in 

 extent." 



A correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle states that 

 fungus-hunters have never known such a general failure of 

 the crop as there had been in the English woodlands this year. 

 Epping Forest was scoured in September for hours without 

 finding twenty different species of Agarics, while the number 

 of individuals of each species was equally small. In favorable 

 years from eighty to one hundred species would have been 

 recorded in the same period of time, and yet in many locali- 

 ties there has been a remarkable profusion of common mush- 

 rooms. Tons have been offered for sale at nominal prices, 

 and in London they have ruled lower than ever before, where 

 they have actually sold at twopence a pound. 



The foreign horticultural papers speak with some admira- 

 tion of the American Chrysanthemums which have been 

 shown at the autumn exhibitions in Great Britain. In the 

 term American, however, they not only include seed- 

 lings raised in this country, but importations which have 

 reached Europe by way of America. One writer, speaking of 

 the competition between the Chrysanthemums raised in 

 France and those raised in America, states that the best of the 

 new introductions have come from this side of the Atlantic, 

 and, with the exception of the new flowers sent out by M. 

 Ernest Calvat, the genuine novelties of American growers far 

 surpass those of all other French growers put together. 



Mr. Arthur P. Hayne, writing to The Pacific Rural Press, 

 states that while investigating the fungi which cause various 

 kinds of rot in the grapes of California, he found one which 

 may prove a genuine advantage. This is Botrytis cinera, 

 which is essenfial to the production of the very best Chateau 

 Yquem Sauterne as well as the Rhine wines of Johannisberg. 

 Grapes which are covered with this mold, and are seemingly 

 rotten, are sold for as much as $1,000 a ton. The fungus is 

 not altogether a blessing, for when it attacks black or red 

 grapes it robs them of their color and destroys the tannin 

 which is necessary to make clarets. Besides this, it concen- 

 trates the sugar until it becomes impossible to make a dry 

 wine. It is only on white grapes that it is beneficial, and it 

 must be carefully studied and experimented with in California 

 before its true character there can be discovered. In wet cold 

 years it may develop before the grape is ripe, and cause it to 



rot before it matures, or it may develop to such an extent on 

 the stem as to cause the loss of the entire bunch. But when 

 it appears late on a white variety it merely decomposes the 

 skin of the berry, allowing the oxygen of the air to act slowly 

 on the juice and produce certain complex acids which are es- 

 sential to those peculiar flavors found only in the best vint- 

 ages of the white-wine region in Europe. 



As many as eight steamer-loads of bananas came into this 

 port during last week, and this large supply has had the 

 effect of making the wholesale price at auction as low as 

 twenty cents a bunch, while smaller bunches, known as 

 "docks," have sold for the nominal price of ten cents. The 

 California fruit season here is now ended, the last car-loads 

 consistingof Cornichon, Emperor and Flame Tokay grapes ; 

 choice lots of the latter during the past few days brought as 

 high as seventeen cents a pound by the crate. About nine 

 hundred car-loads of California fruit have been sold in this 

 city during the past six months. Prices are said to have aver- 

 aged fully $300 less a car than last year, a result brought about 

 by injury to the fruit through slow railroad service, as well as 

 by the abundant supply and the prevailing hard times. Catawba 

 and Concord grapes are still plentiful at twenty cents for 

 a five-pound basket, and Niagaras sell at the same price, 

 with Isabellas a trifle cheaper. Florida oranges of fair quality 

 and size range from twenty to forty cents a dozen, and the 

 best Navel fruit is a dollar a dozen. Mandarins are offered at 

 fifty cents a- dozen, while Tangerines are ten cents higher for 

 selected fruit, and smallersizes sell at eighteen cents a dozen on 

 the street-stands. Two large cargoes of Sicily lemons have 

 been put on the market within a week, and sales of the coarser 

 Malaga fruit have consequently declined. Some select Majori 

 lemons are selling at the usual high prices which this choice 

 grade of fruit readily brings. Dainty little Lady apples are thirty 

 cents a dozen. A large variety of the English filbert, known as the 

 Kent cob-nut, is now sold in the husk at seventy-five cents a 

 pound. These improved nuts are comparatively rare in this 

 market, and in former seasons they have commanded as much 

 as a dollar and a half a pound. 



In desert vegetation leaves are modified to economize a 

 scanty water-supply, while in tropical forests, where there are 

 daily thunder-showers and where the sun's rays can scarcely 

 penetrate the thick foliage, the retention of moisture on the 

 leaf would interfere with transpiration, and transpiration is 

 connected with the rise of water in the stem to supply food to 

 the assimilating organs. Mr. E. Stahl has been making a study 

 of leaf-forms in relation to the rainfall, chiefly in the Botanic 

 Gardens of Buitenzorg, and he states that while a great leaf- 

 surface partly provides for this function there are distinct 

 methods by which plants are helped to dispose as speedily as 

 possible of their superabundant water-supply. One of these 

 is the adoption of the sleeping position by leaves, such as 

 those of the Sensiflve Plant, so that when the horizontal leaves 

 bend upward the rain-drops run off by the base of the leaf. 

 Most frequently, however, excessive moisture is drained off 

 by long points to the leaves. These points occur on the lobes 

 of divided leaves, but are most remarkable on long ovate 

 leaves, such as those of Ficus religiosa. In some plants the 

 prolonged midrib has the form of a wide channel, but gen- 

 erally it is that of a tapering and narrow point, slightly curved 

 at the end. As the water trickles down the inchned narrow 

 points it passes from the upper to the under surface before 

 dropping from the leaf, and the bent tip accelerates this action. 

 Stahl tested this theory by experiments and found that the 

 leaves of Justicia picta, which he carefully rounded, retained 

 moisture for an hour, while those with the dropping points 

 left on were dry in twenty minutes or less. This rapid removal 

 of water from the leaf lightens its weight, helps transpiration 

 and cleanses the surface. In verification of this we are re- 

 minded that after a shower the pointed leaves of the Ash, 

 Willow, etc., have had the dust quite washed off, while rounded 

 leaves like those of the Oak are still dirty. In China and Japan, 

 where there is great heat and humidity, these long points to 

 the leaves are a striking feature in the vegetation, while plants 

 native to the drier regions, along the shore or up in the moun- 

 tains, have rounded or crenate leaves. In (he eastern United 

 States, where great heat alternates with heavy thunder-showers, 

 these sharp-pointed leaves are more abundant than in central 

 Europe, where the summer is drier and colder, and even 

 within the limits of the same genus the American species have 

 longer-pointed leaves than their European relatives, and not 

 only on trees, but on smaller herbs generally, those with long 

 tapering pointed leaves grow by preference in the shady woods 

 or along the banks of rivers. 



