540 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 305. 



of work, like'the one which Dr. Gray laid out for himself 

 in early manhood, are only accomplished by men who have 

 the power to concentrate themselves and to avoid the pit- 

 falls which ambition, society or the desire to help others 

 open in their path. 



To these handsome volumes Mrs. Gray has joined three 

 portraits of her husband, one showmg the thoughtful and 

 studious young man of thirty-one, the second taken thirty 

 years ago when he was at the very height of his powers — 

 a strong face, with remarkably intelligent eyes and the 

 head of a great naturalist, the third in old age with the 

 astute kindly smile and full gray beard — the Asa Gray that 

 those of his associates now living best remember. There 

 are views, too, of the botanist at his study-table, of 

 his house in Cambridge as it appeared when he first occu- 

 pied it in 1842, and of the garden over which he so long 

 presided, with its range of buildings in which are deposited 

 the priceless herbarium and library gathered by the greatest 

 systematist and the most distinguished man of science 

 America has produced. 



Notes. 



The first weekly journal devoted to horticulture which was 

 ever published in France has been started under the title of 

 Le Petit Jardin, under the directorship of Monsieur H. Mar- 

 tinet. It is rather remarkable that so important an industry as 

 horticulture in France has had no weekly paper in its interest, 

 while about a dozen weekly journals in England, devoted ex- 

 clusively to horticulture, all seem to be in a flourishing 

 condition. 



A neat little pamphlet, consisting of reprints of two papers 

 by Professor Herbert Osborn, one entided " Fruit and Forest- 

 tree Insects," and the other, "Some Iowa Farm Insects," has 

 just come to hand. Within its sixty-seven closely printed and 

 well-illustrated pages will be found very clear accounts of 

 the life-histories of the insects which are most annoying to 

 fruit-growers, farmers and gardeners, together with the most 

 approved means of fighting them, so that really the pamphlet 

 is a valuable handbook for every cultivator, not only in Iowa, 

 but elsewhere in the country. Good popular literature of this 

 sort is becoming so abundant that the time ought soon to ar- 

 rive when the losses to agriculture and horticulture from de- 

 structive insects throughout the country will be materially 

 lessened. 



The December number of the Orchid Review concXwd&s the 

 first volume of that interesting publication. This new monthly 

 has adhered strictly to the purpose announced in its first num- 

 ber, and the volume makes a complete and accurate record of 

 what has been accomplished during the year in the way of the 

 discovery and introduction of new Orchids and the production 

 of others by hybridization, with good descriptions and figures 

 of many of them, besides notes on interesting collections and 

 cultural directions by experienced writers. The most valuable 

 feature of Volume I. is, perhaps, the series of arficles which 

 have brought down the history of Orchid hybridization to the 

 beginning of the year 1893. Nearly four hundred distinct 

 hybrids have been traced and recorded here, and they belong 

 to all the principal genera in cultivation. The December num- 

 ber of the Review contains a striking colored plate of the new 

 Cypripedium Charlesworthii, the introduction of which has been 

 probably the most interesting event of the year in the Orchid 

 world. The plate shows a flower with a dorsal sepal of deep 

 rose-purple, somewhat marbled toward the apex. The stami- 

 node is another very distinct feature, being ivory-white. Its 

 nearest ally seems to be a Cypripedium Spicerianum, and it is 

 likely to become quite as popular as that plant, although the 

 two are very different in many respects. It will not only be 

 valuable for decoration, but it ought to be a prize for the hy- 

 bridist, since it has a color which has always been sought after, 

 and when crossed with other richly colored forms the influ- 

 ence of this bright sepal will almost certainly be seen in the 

 most striking features of its offspring. 



The vegetable market is hardly less well supplied in variety 

 now than during the summer season, and very frequently 

 the same kind of vegetables fresh from southern fields, from 

 northern hot-houses and held back in cold-storage from north- 

 ern gardens, are found in market at the same time. During 

 Christmas week Brussels sprouts, from Florida, sold for 

 twenty cents a quart ; egg-plants, from the same state, vfrere 



y 



twenty-five cents each, string beans twenty cents, and tomatoes 

 forty cents a quart. Northern tomatoes, grown under glass, 

 sold for fifty cents a pound, and hot-house asparagus, furnished 

 upon order to dealers in choice vegetables, was two dollars a 

 bunch. Havana okra brought fifty cents a hundred, and large 

 peppers from Cuba a dollar a dozen. Southern cucumbers 

 were five cents, and those from Boston hot-houses fifteen cents 

 each. Jerusalem artichokes sold for fifteen cents a quart, and 

 new beets and peas could be had at reasonable prices. Chicory, 

 from New Orleans, w^as sixty cents a dozen. New lettuce, raised 

 under glass, and sold at seventy-five cents a dozen heads, was 

 not more fresh and crisp-looking than that which had been 

 held in cold-storage for two months. Philadelphia mushrooms 

 were a dollar a pound, and New Jersey sweet-potatoes sixty 

 cents a peck. The supply of fruits is almost as varied. Sev- 

 eral kinds of California grapes are still plentiful and cheap, and 

 five-pound baskets of Concord and Catawba grapes bring only 

 fifteen cents. Large pineapples cost but twenty-five cents, 

 and Coe's Late Red plums, still in good condition, are offered 

 at a dollar for five pounds. Strawberries are yet a luxury, none 

 having come in from the south, and they command any price, 

 from two to three dollars, for a tiny basket holding a dozen 

 berries. 



The venture of unusually large shipments of Christmas-trees 

 in a season of excepfionally hard times was disastrous to not a 

 few of the thirty large dealers who cut and send trees to this 

 city from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, the Berk- 

 skire Hills, and some regions in the Adirondacks. While the 

 wholesale price of a bundle of trees last year was a dollar to a 

 dollar and twenty-five cents, the best prices this season were 

 only a quarter of that amount, and many wagon-loads were 

 disposed of at fifty cents to a dollar a load. Thousands of trees 

 remained unsold and had to be carted away at considerable 

 expense to the dealers, some of whom lost a thousand dollars 

 in cash outlay. The work of cutting begins in October, and 

 trees in open lots are selected as more stocky and symmetrical 

 than those in woodlands. These are then sized, the branches 

 closely wrapped with twine to economize space, and tied in bun- 

 dles of from one to eight trees, according to size. During the 

 last week of November and the first week in December they 

 are shipped, and as many as one hundred and forty car-loads, 

 say four hundred thousand trees, were offered at wholesale in 

 New York and near-by cities during the fortnight before 

 Christmas. The Balsam Fir is the most popular tree here, its 

 leaves persisting longer than those of the Black Spruce, which 

 is the tree most frequently seen in the Philadelphia and New- 

 ark markets. Hemlock, owing to the flexible and drooping 

 quality of its branchlets, is not salable as a Christmas-tree, but 

 large quantities of the twigs are used in the manufacture of 

 so-caUed "fancy green," comprising stars, wreaths and other 

 designs. Besides Hemlock, tiie leaves of Holly, Boxwood and 

 Kalmia, Ground Pine and other Club-Mosses, mosses from 

 tree-trunks, the fruits of Juniper, Black Alder, Bitter-sweet and 

 Holly, which are unusually scarce this year, dried grasses and 

 various so-called everlastings, are made into " rope" and set 

 figures. Most of this manufactured green continues to come 

 from Monmouth County, although the Lycopodium and raw 

 material generally has been brought, since its extermination 

 in that part of New Jersey, from New England and the Adiron- 

 dacks. This year roping was sold as low as a dollar a hun- 

 dred yards at wholesale, although when made of Kalmia-leaves 

 it was much more expensive. Stars could be bought for a 

 dollar a dozen on the steamer which brings these supplies 

 daily from Keyport, New Jersey, and wreaths and triangles were 

 forty and fifty cents a dozen. It is a noteworthy fact that the 

 small pieces, as wreaths, sold better than they did last year, 

 which seems to show an increase in the amount of cheaper 

 decoration, while the roping, which is only used in churches 

 and other large places, sold, as the trees did, at ruinous 

 prices. 



Mr. E. D. Dodwell, noted as the leading English authority on 

 Carnations, has lately died at Oxford at the age of seventy-five 

 years. For nearly half a century he devoted himself to the 

 cultivation and improvement of Carnations, and especially of 

 Picotees. He helped to organize Carnation societies in various 

 parts of England, and for the last twenty-two years the exhibi- 

 tions of the Carnation and Picotee Union have been held in his 

 garden at Oxford. His work on the Carnation and Picotee was 

 first published in 1886, and has reached several edifions, the 

 last of which was revised about two years ago. It is the stand- 

 ard work on the subject, and since Mr. Dodwell possessed 

 considerable literary skill and a vigorous style, it is agreea- 

 ble reading as well as a useful work. 



