January 8, 1890.]' 



Garden and Forest. 



23 



hues and tints,* no less than 329 of which are made from five 

 pigments. These include all variations of color that it is pos- 

 sible to represent pictorially, and I have devised a method by 

 which absolute uniformity in different copies of each can be 

 guaranteed. The collection is accompanied by clear and sim- 

 ple formulas for reproducing each, and I can safely say that 

 every objection which has been found to my first attempt in- 

 this line (the before-mentioned " Nomenclature of Colors "), 

 except that of cost, has been completely overcome. But this 

 simple question of cost of publication is the problem which I 

 have been unable to solve, and if Mr. Orcutt or any one else 

 can explain how it can be solved, the great desideratum of a 

 complete, simple and wholly satisfactory nomenclature of 

 colors for naturalists of every class can easily be supplied. 

 Washington, D. c. Robert Ridgw ay . 



Magnolia glauca in Massachusetts. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — In regard to the Massachusetts Station of Magnolia 

 glauca, noticed in Garden and Forest (ii. 612), the following 

 may be of interest to some of your readers: 



" The first specimen of the Magnolia glauca noticed in 

 Massachusetts was brought from Cape Ann Woods in the 

 summer of 1805, by the late Chief Justice Parsons. He ob- 

 served a number of the plants in flower as he was journeying 

 on that road, and being struck with their beautiful appear- 

 ance, gathered a few, which he brought to Boston for exami- 

 nation by his friends. I happened to be at his house on the 

 day he returned from his journey. He showed me his acqui- 

 sition, and wished to know what it was. I took one of the 

 specimens home for examination, and found it to be Magnolia 

 glauca — a most unexpected inhabitant of our region. J. D." 



The above is a marginal note, written by Judge John Davis, 

 of Boston, in his copy of the first edition of Bigelow's " Florida 

 Bostoniensis " (a presentation copy to " Judge Davis, from his 

 friend andserv't, the Author") on the page where the Magnolia 

 is described. 



Needham, Mass. T. 0. Fuller. 



The Mild Winter. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — On December 28th, 1889, I found Draba verna (Whit- 

 low-Grass) in flower and fruit. I have never found this 

 plant in flower in this locality earlier than in the last week in 

 March. On December 30th, I found Arenaria squarrosa (Pine 

 Barren Sandwort) in blossom in two places. This plant usu- 

 ally flowers in the first week in June, and though I have often 

 found a few scattering flowers in the late fall, I have never 

 before found it in flower later than the first week in Novem- 

 ber. I also found on December 30th Leiophyllum buxifolium 

 (Sand Myrtle) in bloom. This plant flowers the first or second 

 week in May, and, though it is like A. squarrosa, usually a 

 fall bloomer, I have only found it once before in bloom in 

 December. 



On January 2d our early spring flowers, Pyxidantlicra bar- 

 bulata, Epigcea repens and Cassandra calyculata, showed their 

 buds unusually swollen, but I could find no expanded flowers; 

 but on the same day Scleranthus annuus and Lamium am- 

 plexicaule were in full bloom. 



I may add that many grasshoppers are found in the fields, 

 and that, occasionally, moths are seen in the woods. The 

 frogs are croaking vigorously to-day. John E. Peters. 



Pleasantville, N, J., January 2d, 1890. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — So mild was the late December that the growth of the 

 various Grasses and White Clover was not checked. On the 

 31st I gathered Viola cucullata, Taraxacum Dens-leonis, 

 Stcllaria media and Viola rotundifolia, not scatteringly, but in 

 April-like abundance. A Red Maple {Acer rubrum) in the 

 rear of my office is now well covered with blossoms, and has 

 been since the 27th of December. The earliest record of 

 blooming previously is February 7th, 1887. Rose-bushes are 

 putting out a profusion of new leaves. The Japanese Quince 

 is in bloom. Tulips, Hyacinths, Columbines and all the 

 March and April bloomers are up. With growth so started 

 and sap flowing so freely, the results that must surely come 

 with the sudden changes of January and February are not 

 pleasant to think of. 



Lawrenceburgh, Ihd. 



6". H. Collins. 



*These may be roughly classified as follows: Grays, 46 ; browns (including 

 olives), 108 ; red-browns, brown-reds, etc., 39; yellow-browns, brown-yellows, etc., 

 31 ; reds (including pinks), 35 ; purples, 41 ; blues, 32 ; greens, 40 ; yellows (includ- 

 ing oranges), 39. 



Periodical Literature. 



The Popular Science Monthly for January contains an un- 

 usual number of articles interesting to students of plant life. 

 One, called "A Harvest from the Ocean," is a description by 

 Professor C. Morton Strahan of Sea-weed gathering on the 

 north-western shores of Europe, and of the uses to which the 

 dried plants are put. Another is a translation from La Nature 

 of an essay by Monsieur J. Poisson on " Palm-trees and their 

 Uses." It will, perhaps, surprise the general reader to know 

 that more than a thousand species of Palms, belonging to 

 about one hundred and thirty genera, have now been deter- 

 mined, as against eight or ten species, belonging to half a 

 dozen genera, which were known in the time of Linnaeus. 

 The list of uses to which the various parts of very many of 

 these species are put is practically endless, but its extent is at 

 least indicated in M. Poisson's pages. The Date Palm and the 

 Cocoanut Palm are of course those whose fruit is most widely 

 serviceable to man ; but a large number of others furnish 

 food which, either raw or cooked, is useful to savage or semi- 

 civilized tribes. From bridges to dish cloths, from houses to 

 ornaments for the person, there seems to be nothing which, 

 in some part of the world, is not manufactured out of some 

 species of Palm. But the substance least commonly recog- 

 nized as wrought from a member of the Palm family is doubt- 

 less that which we call rattan. It is often supposed to be 

 derived from some sort of cane or bamboo, but is in reality 

 the stem of a climbing Palm or Palm-vine, of which the jun- 

 gles of the East Indian Archipelago are largely composed, and 

 which sometimes reaches a length of a hundred yards before 

 its continuity is lost to sight in the overarching network of 

 the forest. A striking picture of an avenue of Cabbage Palms 

 in the " Savannah " of Cayenne accompanies this article. An- 

 other, likewise translated from La Nature, is a superficial 

 chapter on Orchids, which was hardly worth reprinting. And 

 a fourth is a brief but significant word on "The Irrigation 

 of Arid Lands," by Mr. Henry J. Philpott. "There is no more 

 striking difference between the irdiabitants of the eastern and 

 western United States," says the author, " than the degree of 

 their familiarity with the word irrigation. And there will 

 never be a profounder difference than will be engendered by 

 the thing itself." Here at the east we irrigate the flower-gar- 

 den, the lawn, and the vegetable-garden when its contents are 

 first transplanted. " But the idea of watering a whole farm — 

 not a New England ' patch,' but a western ranch of from fifty 

 to fifty thousand acres — seems a financial absurdity. What 

 the eastern farmer could not produce without such expensive 

 cultivation he would say was not worth producing. Equally 

 incredible will seem farming without irrigation to the gener- 

 ation now growing to manhood over a large part of the Pacific 

 Coast. To them it will seem an absurdity not to have the 

 water as fully under your own control as the land. They 

 would not want to cultivate land if they had to take the chances 

 on there being neither too much nor too little rain." Mr. 

 Philpott describes the various methods of irrigation now em- 

 ployed in the west, some of them primitively simple, but others 

 very elaborate, and so costly that the stranger cannot conceive 

 how it pays to employ them merely for pasturage grounds and 

 the raising of hay. In certain soils irrigation continued for some 

 years suffices. The ground becomes saturated and " its for- 

 mer supply may be carried on to reclaim new deserts. . . . 

 Thousands of acres in the San Joaquin Valley have been placed 

 beyond the need of further irrigation. The whole valley was 

 once a desert." Sometimes, indeed, land has been injured by 

 over-watering. "Alkali has been brought on or brought up, 

 the soil has been made heavy, pools have been formed from 

 the 'seepage,' and orchards and vineyards have been spoiled." 

 But how great are the benefits of proper irrigation may be 

 read in the fact that Mr. Philpott speaks of an auction sale of 

 plots belonging to a land and irrigation company where land 

 " which ten years ago was an uninhabitable desert, was 

 knocked down at fifty, a hundred, and even a hundred and 

 fifty dollars an acre. The water rate is extra and is so much 

 per inch used. An inch is the amount that will run through 

 an orifice an inch square in the course of a year." Not the 

 least interesting part of this paper is its reference to the new 

 legal questions which have arisen in a country where the right 

 to the water supply is as important as the title to the land 

 itself, and to the complications which such a state of things 

 has produced in the government's dealings with purchasers. 

 As to the future conduct of the Land Office with regard to 

 water-rights and to the schemes of speculators, Mr. Philpott 

 significantly says, " This is a matter of several hundred times 

 more importance than one eastern man in a dozen will 

 dream of." 



