520 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 303. 



Notes. 



Monsieur George Mantin, who is said to be one of the most 

 successful cultivators of Orchids in Europe, his collection at 

 Olivet, in France, being particularly rich in the terrestrial spe- 

 cies of temperate regions, is about to publish a Diciionnaire 

 General des Orchidees, in which he proposes to include all the 

 species now known, with their synonyms and geographical 

 distribution, together with brief cultural notes. 



An Ohio correspondent of Insect Life writes that he has 

 made some successful experiments in fighting the rose- 

 chafer with carbolic acid. He used one gallon of crude acid 

 to one hundred gallons of water, and sprayed fruit-trees and 

 Grape-vines where the rose-bugs were troublesome. At the 

 time of the application the Grapes were in flower, but neither 

 the fruit nor foliage of vines or trees was injured, while the 

 crop of grapes and cherries was saved. Professor Riley sug- 

 gests that further experiments be made in this direction, as the 

 rose-bug is one of the most persistent and irrepressible of in- 

 sect pests. 



A California paper mentions as a peculiarity of the Orange 

 Cling Peach, a variety which has been quite abundant in this 

 city during the past season, that the trees form a second crop 

 with almost unfailing regularity. While the first peaches are 

 coloring, blossoms appear, and in due time a second crop 

 forms and ripens. The fruit of this second crop is of good 

 color, grain and flavor, but it is always misshapen, and looks 

 quite unlike a peach. It never has a pit, but in its place is a dark 

 centre, which is no harder than the pulp of the fruit. These 

 peaches, though often set very thick on the trees, are always 

 small, rarely exceeding a boy's marble in size. 



Probably the most unique exhibit in the nursery area at the Co- 

 lumbian Exposition was one made by the Orange J udd Farmer, 

 contrasting the common weedy fence-row and a modern well- 

 kept one. The unkempt row showed a typical worm or rail- 

 fence, with the corners filled with 125 different kinds of weedy 

 growths, and in front was a small area with named clumps of 

 the various farm weeds. This fence-row was a most picturesque 

 affair and had a certain undesigned artistic value wholly aside 

 from its direct economic purpose. The model fence-row 

 showed sections of wire and board fence, with a closely mown 

 strip of sod beneath, which projected only a foot beyond the 

 fence upon either side. 



About sixty car-loads of New York state grapes were re- 

 ceived here over the various railroads during last week. These 

 are mostly Catawbas, but there are still some Concords, and 

 also a few Delawares, now quite out of season, which have 

 been successfully held in cold storage in the vineyard districts. 

 A single car-load of California grapes, direct from the western 

 coast, was sold on Monday morning, a week after the last Cali- 

 fornia fruit was supposed to have arrived. Flame Tokay, Cor- 

 nichon, Verdel, Ferrera, Morocco and Muscat grapes made 

 up 985 half-crates. The fruit was in good condifion, and 

 brought as much as $3.65 a half-crate at wholesale on the dock, 

 or about eighteen cents a pound. As California grapes keep in 

 cold storage from three to six weeks, and considerable quan- 

 fities are being held in this city, we may expect to have sup- 

 plies of this fruit well into the winter. 



It is now three hundred years since Sir Walter Raleigh lived 

 in Ireland, but, according to Sir John Pope Hennesy, many 

 traces of his residence there can still be seen. The richly per- 

 fumed yellow wall-flowers that he brought to Ireland from the 

 Azores, and the Affane Cherry are still found where he first 

 planted them, by the Blackwater. Some Cedars he brought to 

 Cork are to this day growing at a place called Tivoli. The four 

 venerable Yew-trees, whose branches have grown and inter- 

 mingled into a sort of summer-house thatch, are pointed out 

 as having sheltered Raleigh when he first smoked tobacco in 

 his Youghal garden. In that garden he also planted Tobacco. 

 A few stepsfurther on, where the town-wall of the thirteenth 

 century bounds the garden of the warden's house, is the 

 famous spot where the first Irish Potato was planted by him. 

 In that garden he gave the tubers to the ancestor of the present 

 Lord Southwell, by whom they were spread throughout the 

 province of Munster. 



Messrs. Siebrecht & Wadley are now selling flowers of the 

 new Rose which they have named Bella Siebrecht, and 

 which is attracting much attenfion by its beauty and 

 fragrance. The color is deep rose-pink, the foliage is good, 

 and it is said to be a free bloomer. The cut flowers keep well, 

 and these, with La France and Meteor, bring, at retail, four 

 dollars a dozen, and Madame Cusin and Catherine Mermet 

 from two to three dollars a dozen. Choice American Beauty 



roses sell at nine to twelve dollars a dozen. Chrysanthemums 

 are now quite passed out of market, and violets are the most 

 popular of all cut flowers. Cut flowers of the popular Cypri- 

 pedium insigne and C. Spicereanum sell for fifty cents 

 each, and of Cattleya Percivaliana and C. Trianee at fifty cents 

 to a dollar apiece. Among the Laelias seen in the retail stores 

 are L. autumnalis and L. anceps and varieties. Sprays of Onci- 

 dium varicosum and O. tigrinum are one to two dollars each. 

 A popular plant this season is the Otaheite Orange, well-fruited 

 specimens of which command from four to six dollars. 



The Agricultural Gazette, of New South Wales, has an in- 

 teresting article on Grevillea robusta, small plants of which are 

 now largely used for the winter decoration of conservatories, 

 as well as in sub-tropical groups on lawns in summer, where 

 its Fern-like foliage is quite effective. Under the name of the 

 Silky Oak it is highly prized as a timber-tree, not only in Aus- 

 tralia, of which it is a nadve, but in Ceylon and other tropical 

 countries, where it has been introduced. It grows to a height 

 of about eighty feet, with a trunk diameter of two and a half 

 to three feet, and it increases with almost as great rapidity as 

 the various kinds of Eucalyptus. The timber is pale, ranging 

 from cream to a flesh color, but it darkens with age, and has a 

 beautiful mottled grain characteristic of most of the wood of 

 the Proteacese. It is elastic, durable, splits readily, and is used 

 largely for staves of wine-casks. When in bloom the tree pre- 

 sents a beautiful spectacle, with its orange-colored blossoms 

 well set off by the light feathery foliage. The flowers abound 

 in nectar, and it is an excellent bee-plant. It is being largely 

 planted in Algeria, and in Jamaica a seedling has grown in 

 seven years to a height of forty feet, with a girth of more than 

 three feet one foot from the ground, and has flowered abun- 

 dantly. 



In the announcement of the annual meedng of the Amer- 

 ican Forestry Association, which is to be held in Washington 

 on the 15th of December, among the grounds for encourage- 

 ment, it is noted, that the President of the Association is now 

 the Secretary of Agriculture ; that one of its former secretaries is 

 in charge of the public timber-lands at the General Land Office; 

 that the chairman of the Public Lands Committee in the House 

 of Representatives is fully persuaded of the necessity of a new 

 forest-legislation in the direction proposed by the Association ; 

 and that the lumber-trade journals are recognizing the fact that 

 the interests of the lumbermen are identical with those of the 

 public. With the notice of the meeting is enclosed an appeal 

 by Mr. Fernow to the members of the Association to urge upon 

 their representatives in Congress the passage of the bill intro- 

 duced by Mr. McRae, of Arkansas, and already reported favor- 

 ably upon by the Committee on Public Lands. This is the bill 

 which was approved by Secretary Smith in his report to 

 the President, and it secures protecfion for the forest-reser- 

 vations, which now comprise nearly eighteen millions of acres, 

 by the employment of the army, which has already done effec- 

 tive work in the Yellowstone Park and the Yosemite Reserva- 

 tion. It also empowers the Secretary of the Interior to make 

 such rules and establish such a service as will ensure the ob- 

 jects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy, 

 to utilize the timber of commercial value, and to preserve the 

 forest-cover from destruction. It also empowers the Secretary 

 to have cut and to sell timber on non-reserved lands under the 

 same regulations which are made for the forest-reservations, 

 provided that it shall be first shown that such cutting will not 

 be injurious to the public interests, and the proceeds from 

 such sales are to form a special fund to be expended in the 

 care and management of the reservations. This bill does not 

 satisfy the ultimate requirements of a well-organized forest 

 department, but it gives a legal status to and ensures the per- 

 manence of the principle of forest-reservafions, and it sub- 

 stitutes a regulated use of public timber for the present system 

 of allowing the pubhc domain to be plundered without hin- 

 drance. 



The English papers announce the death, in his sixty-seventh 

 year, of Mr. John Waterer, of Bagshot. Mr. Waterer was a 

 member of a family which for generations has been conspicu- 

 ous in English hordculture, chiefly for their successful culd- 

 vation of Rhododendrons, Azaleas and other peat-loving 

 plants. Mr. John Waterer followed in the lines of the family 

 tradition ; and in his nursery, which was one of the best-man- 

 aged in England, some of the most showy and beautiful-flow- 

 ered hybrid Rhododendrons in cultivation have originated, 

 although, unfortunately, some of the most attractive of these 

 are not hardy in our climate. A collection of his plants on the 

 wooded island in Jackson Park, Chicago, attracted much atten- 

 tion last spring. 



