January i, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



11 



The Cultivation of Chrysanthemums. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Do the best growers of Chrysanthemums agree as to 

 whether it is better to set out the plants in the spring and pot 

 again in September, or to continue the plants right on through 

 the summer in pots ? 



Why do Chrysanthemums in my greenhouse have a much 

 lighter shade than the same varieties out-of-doors or in some 

 one else's greenhouse ? I notice that the Shakespeare, which 

 has considerable pink in its color out-of-doors, is a pure white 

 in the greenhouse with me. 



Plainheld, N.J. c. D. W. 



[The practice of the best cultivators is not uniform and 

 fine flowers can be had in either way. The essential point 

 is constant care, so that the plants never suffer from too 

 much water, and on the other hand are never allowed to 

 become dry, nor starved, nor to receive a check in any way. 

 During summer growth the plants may require closer atten- 

 tion if they are in pots ; but after all the danger of a check 

 from transplanting is more serious, and most amateurs find it 

 almost impossible to have first-rate, solid flowers by plant- 

 ing in the open ground and lifting in the fall. Plants in 

 the open ground should be potted at the end of August, 

 and a week before they are lifted the roots which extend 

 beyond the dimensions of the pot should be cut off. 



Inferior or lighter colors in the flowers may come from 

 starvation, from too much heat, from allowing too many 

 flowers to remain on a plant, or more generally from insuffi- 

 cient light. In any greenhouse, flowers of a pink or lilac 

 shade will be lighter than they are in the open air. — Ed.] 



A Mild December. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — Flowers are opening on Spircea Thunbergii and Erica 

 carnea, and buds are ready to burst on Lonicera fragrantis- 

 sima, L. Standishii and many other shrubs. On Christmas 

 the thermometer stood at sixty-six degrees in the shade, and 

 a few more days of this weather would force most of our 

 early flowering shrubs into bloom. I hardly dare think of the 

 danger which a sudden change to a zero temperature might 

 cause in the case of many plants, and yet just such a change 

 is likely to happen any day. „ , _, 



Arnold Arboretum. Jackson DaWSOn. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Since the 1st of December we have had an unbroken 

 succession of sunny days and frostless nights. The frost in 

 the last days of November nippecf the tops of the Scarlet 

 Geraniums, but they have made new shoots several inches 

 long. The Verbenas are still in full beauty ; Violets are per- 

 fuming the air in all the city yards ; Roman Hyacinths have 

 been in bloom outside for over a week ; Lonicera fragran- 

 tissima, which usually blooms on the naked wood in spring, 

 has not yet lost its green summer foliage, but is full of flow- 

 ers ; Jasminum midifloritm is covered with bloom ; Spiraa 

 prunifolia is in full bloom ; Vinca minor is coverd with blue 

 flowers, and Solanum Capsicastrum carries its load of scarlet 

 fruits with no sign of injury. 



Raleigh, N. C., December 25th. W, F. MtlSSey. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Yesterday while passing through the fields I noticed 

 the following plants in flower : Taraxacum Dens-Ieonis, 

 Maruta Cotula, Capsella Bursa-pastoris, Polygonum aviculare, 

 var. erectum, Stellaria media, Cerastium vulgatum, Poa annua. 



Excepting the first, these all grow on low moist ground, 

 and within a few feet of each other. Besides these, I found 

 Malva Rotundifolia well budded, and the trailing Arbutus 

 and Hepatica triloba with buds almost ready to open. 



Youngstown, o., December igtli. R. H. Illgraham. 



Periodical Literature. 



Mr. Edward L. Greene prints in his Pittonia, under date of 

 December ioth, of which advance sheets have reached us, an 

 interesting paper on the North American Neillia, which he 

 retains in Neillia, published by Don in 1825, discarding the later 

 Physocarpa of Rafinesque, adopted by Maximowicz, the last 

 author to study critically the Spiraea:. Mr. Greene points out 

 that the leaves upon vigorous shoots are rarely found in her- 



bariums, although they often afford valuable characters, being 

 really the normal or typical leaves, while the flowering and 

 fruiting branches usually collected are in reality nothing more 

 than leafy peduncles, on which the leaves are greatly reduced 

 generally in size and often altered in shape, a fact which is equally 

 applicable to the true Spiraeas. Mr. Greene increases the num- 

 ber of American species of Neillia from two to four. The Pa- 

 cific Coast plant, first described by Pursh as Spiraa capitata, 

 which has been included by most botanists with the eastern A 7 . 

 opulifolia, is now considered a species under the name of 

 N. capitata, the shape of the slenderly and obliquely pyriform 

 seed being depended on to distinguish it. It is a widely dis- 

 tributed shrub west of the Sierras and Cascade Mountains, 

 growing sometimes to a height of twenty-five feet, and ex- 

 tremely variable in the character of its pubescence. Neillia 

 Torreyi becomes N. monagyna, this being the earliest specific 

 name applied by Torrey to the species then thought to belong 

 to Spiraea. The figure (the only one) published in Garden 

 and Forest, ii., p. 5, is overlooked. 



A fourth species, N. malvacea, discovered by Mr. Greene 

 on the northern shore of Lake Pend d'Oreille, in northern 

 Idaho, is here first described in a section created to receive 

 it, and characterized by "carpels not inflated, included in the 

 calyx, erect and straight at apex, indehiscent." The leaves are 

 digitately five-veined, and often broadest above the middle. 

 To this species Mr. Greene suggests that many specimens 

 from Nevada, Utah and Montana referred to N. monagyna 

 really belong. 



Recent Publications. 



Aspects of the Earth j A Popular Account of Some Familiar 

 Geological Phenotnena. By N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology 

 in Harvard University. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scrib- 

 ner's Sons. 1889. $4. 



A real service has been done the public by the issue in book 

 form of the clear, trustworthy and interesting essays on vari- 

 ous groups of terrestrial phenomena which Mr. Shaler first 

 printed in Scribner' ' s Magazine. They now form a connected 

 treatise of much greater utility than its title suggests; for not 

 only the present aspect but the past history of the earth is 

 made plain, and from the data thus supplied prophecies are 

 drawn which every man who owns an acre of ground or has a 

 hand in legislation should study as guides for immediate 

 action. 



"The Stability of the Earth," " Volcanoes," "Caverns and 

 Cavern Life," "The Instability of the Atmosphere," "The For- 

 ests of North America" and " The Origin and Nature of Soils " 

 are successively discussed, man's relation to the world, thus 

 explained, not being for a moment lost to sight. The practical 

 character of the book is, indeed, its most distinctive merit. 

 The chief fact it leaves impressed on the mind is the im- 

 measurable importance of our forests from an economic and 

 sanitarY as well as scientific point of view. This could not 

 have been more truthfully or lucidly set forth, nor could there 

 have been a better moment for such an explanation. It ought 

 to prove an efficient antidote to certain mistaken theories with 

 regard to deforestation that have recently been promulgated, 

 as it shows not merely how our water supply, but how our 

 soils, vegetation and atmospheric conditions must be affected 

 by the destruction of our forests. If it wins the popularity that 

 seems in store for it, a great increase of national conscientious- 

 ness as regards forest legislation ought to be the result. Many 

 of the points it emphasizes have often been brought forward 

 in these columns ; but as marshaled and commented upon by 

 Mr. Shaler they will make a fresh impression even upon the 

 most earnest and loyal of our readers. 



Perhaps the most interesting chapter, because the most 

 novel (it is the only one that has not appeared in Scribner 's 

 Magazine), will be the final one, on " Soils." Even those who 

 know how likely the world is to be deprived within a calculable 

 space of time of its carboniferous and metallic deposits and of 

 its arboreal garment, seldom realize that it is in danger of 

 losing the greater part of that layer of disintegrated rock and 

 decomposed vegetable matter which we call soil. Fancy a 

 world deprived of arable ground and we sec a world in which 

 man could not live. The lack of coal and metals he will prob- 

 ably be able to make good in other ways ; the lack of forests 

 might be repaired by a very slow process were the soil pre- 

 served ; but the lack of soil itself could be overcome only by 

 a process as inconceivably long as that which has put the earth 

 in the condition in which we see it now. Yet only one-fifth of 

 the arable lands of the world, as Mr. Shaler computes, are 

 practically safe ; four-fifths are in great danger, not only from 

 deforestation, but from the agricultural methods now in use. 



