2 4 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 8, 1890. 



Notes. 



Twenty tons of Violets are annually used in Cannes and 

 Nice for the making of perfumes and 120 tons of Orange-blos- 

 soms. 



It is said that as many as one hundred and fifty varieties of 

 preserves are made in Roumania, many of which are flavored 

 with the petals of flowers. 



The twenty-third annual meeting of the Minnesota State 

 Horticultural Society will begin at Excelsior, a suburb of Min- 

 neapolis, on Lake Minnetonka, on January 21st, and continue 

 four days. 



An interesting object exhibited at Christmas-time in the 

 window of a Broadway florist was a piece of a branch of a tree 

 about a yard long and two inches in diameter, from which 

 grew at regular intervals four luxuriant bunches of Mistletoe. 



A correspondent writes that it may be true that the use of 

 so many Balsams and Spruces will not endanger the timber 

 supply of Maine, but he adds that he cannot suppress a feeling of 

 regret when he observes among Christmas decorations huge 

 specimens of Rhododendron maximum, and entire trees of the 

 American Holly, Ilex opaca. 



We have received many letters, for which we have no fur- 

 ther space, from correspondents who inve lists of flowers 

 blooming out of their season. But with Bluets (Houstonia 

 ccerulcd) flowering by New England roadsides, Anemone 

 blanda opening in the suburban gardens of this city and Dan- 

 delions starring the turf everywhere on the day after New 

 Year's, it is safe to pronounce this an exceptional winter. 



Croton Alabamensis (see Garden and Forest, ii., 592, f. 150) 

 is now in flower in the propagating house at the Arnold 

 Arboretum. The bright golden anthers of the male flowers 

 make the inflorescence conspicuous and attractive. The great 

 beauty of this plant consists, however, in the contrast between 

 the brilliant green of the upper surface of the leaves and the 

 snowy white coloring of their under surface and of the young 

 branches. 



We have received for examination from Messrs. Johnson & 

 Stokes, of Philadelphia, a label for plants and trees which 

 seems to be a novelty of some promise. It is made of copper, 

 which is durable ; it readily receives and firmly retains any 

 inscription, and its tags are so flexible that, with proper adjust- 

 ment, they need not injure the plant to which they are attached 

 as wire does. We should be gratified to have those of our 

 readers who may be testing this label report the results of 

 their experience. 



The increased demand of late years for green for Christmas 

 decoration has caused the introduction of branches of a num- 

 ber of plants into the markets of the northern cities for this 

 purpose. Last week we mentioned finely fruited specimens of 

 the Japanese evergreen Spindle-tree (Euonymus Japonica). 

 The supply came from Georgia, and the lustrous foliage 

 makes a handsome contrast with the brilliant scarlet arils of 

 the fruit. The Cassena, too {Ilex vomitoria), with its small, 

 shining, evergreen leaves, and clusters of small, bright red 

 fruit, is sold at the north now in large quantities, and is ad- 

 mirably adapted for the purposes of Christmas decoration. 



In a late bulletin published by the Ohio Experiment Station, 

 Mr. C. M. Weed gives a partial bibliography and systematic 

 list of the insects which are known to attack Clover. The list 

 includes more than eighty species, and there is little doubt 

 that it will be greatly extended within the next few years, as 

 our knowledge increases. Every part of the plant has its spe- 

 cial enemy, from the smallest rootlet to the stem, leaves, 

 blossoms and seed. The ravages of these insects are so seri- 

 ous, especially the destruction wrought by the Midge and the 

 Root Borer, that much apprehension is felt for the future of 

 the Clover-crop, one of the most important of our agricultural 

 products. 



Dr. Charles Mohr, of Mobile, sends us specimens of the 

 Nutmeg Hickory (Hicoria myristicceforis) from the banks of 

 the Alabama River, near Hazen, Alabama. This is a new and 

 interesting station for this tree, which formerly was supposed 

 to be confined to the single restricted locality near the coast of 

 South Carolina, which remained, until this Alabama station 

 was discovered, the only place east of the Mississippi River 

 where it was known to grow. Many years after its discovery 

 in Southern California the Nutmeg Hickory was found to be a 



common tree in southern Arkansas, and last year it was dis- 

 covered most unexpectedly in the mountains of north-eastern 

 Mexico by Mr. C. G. Pringle. 



A correspondent of the American Agriculturist points out 

 some ways in which the grafting of annuals and other herba- 

 ceous plants can be made available for special purposes. Cu- 

 cumbers, for example, may be grown on a high trellis, or 

 around the upper story windows of any building, by training 

 either Sicyos angulatus (the Single-seeded Star Cucumber 

 vine), or the Echinocystis (Wild Balsam-apple) — either of which 

 will grow to the desired height. Cucumber seed may then be 

 sown in a flower pot, and when the plant is six or eight inches 

 high it may be joined to one of these wild vines at the desired 

 height. Merely scraping the bark of the two plants and tying 

 them firmly together with any soft material is sufficient. They 

 will unite in about ten or twelve days, or sooner, and produce 

 fruits at a height to which the Garden Cucumber could never 

 attain. 



One of the largest specimens of Black Walnut probably ever 

 sent to an eastern market in the log may now be seen in the 

 timber yard of Messrs. Johnson Bros., 385 Albany Street, Bos- 

 ton. The tree which produced it grew near the falls of the 

 Kenawah, in West Virginia, on the line of the Chesapeake 

 & Ohio Railroad. The trunk, which measured sixty-four feet 

 to the first branches, has been cut into five lengths ; the butt 

 log, the centre of which is hollow from decay, measures at the 

 base eight feet and a half across. The diameter of the log, cut 

 twenty-five feet from the ground, is four feet two inches, and 

 that fifty feet from the ground has a diameter of three feet 

 eleven inches in one direction and three feet in the other. The 

 upper end of the fifth log, at a point sixty-one feet from the 

 ground, where the trunk had been a good deal flattened, 

 measures four feet one inch through one diameter, and two 

 feet nine inches through the other. These measurements are 

 all made inside the bark. A thousand feet of lumber have 

 been cut from the main branches and the five trunk logs are 

 estimated to contain 10,000 feet. The wood in the butt log 

 outside the central cavity is beautifully curled and marked. A 

 superficial examination of the annual layers of growth shows 

 that this great tree has grown on the whole with wonderful 

 rapidity and that it is probably less than 300 years old. 



Dr. Hadji me Watanabe, an official of the Japanese Agricul- 

 tural Service, delivered an interesting address on the Chrysan- 

 themum at the recent celebration in Berlin of the centennial 

 of the plant's introduction into European cultivation. Accord- 

 ing to the report of his words, published in Gartenflora, the 

 Japanese divide Chrysanthemums into two groups — " Nogiku " 

 or wild single, and "Niwagiku " or double cultivated flowers; 

 and the latter are subdivided into four kinds — the ordinary 

 autumn-blooming sorts, the summer-blooming, the winter- 

 blooming, and those which bear flowers at all four seasons. 

 The single flower is not neglected by the horticulturist, but is 

 prized for its very simplicity, and is usually planted at the foot 

 of rocks, intermingled with Grasses, to give a landscape 

 design a naturalistic air. In treating the double-flowered plant 

 when it is desired to produce individual flowers of the largest 

 possible size, then all the branches but one are gradually re- 

 moved, and on this one only an isolated blossom is allowed to 

 mature. On the other hand, when as many flowers as pos- 

 sible are sought without regard to conspicuous size, the main 

 stem is brought to the greatest possible development, and all 

 its branches are preserved until the blooming season arrives, 

 when, if some show no buds, they are cut away. The sturdi- 

 est possible plants are chosen for this purpose and the speaker 

 referred to some upon which more than three hundred flowers 

 had been counted. Two forms are in favor for these many- 

 flowered Kikus, one of which gets its name from its resem- 

 blance to a thick broom, while the other is a more artificial, 

 fan-like shape. A Japanese proverb says " it is easy to grow 

 the flowers of the Kiku, but difficult to grow its leaves," and 

 the speaker declared that the plants are judged from this 

 standpoint. The amateur's Chrysanthemums are usually 

 " very poor and faulty in foliage, although they may bear fine 

 flowers ; but those which one sees at an ' art-gardener's' are 

 clothed from top to bottom with leaves regularly disposed and 

 of a beautiful fresh color." The most common method of 

 propagating the plant is by root-division, but several others are 

 employed. In one, a single leaf with a bud at its base is 

 plucked, lightly covered with earth and laid in a shady place, 

 wdiere it eventually takes root. Gardeners who own rare 

 varieties therefore forbid the visitor a near approach to their 

 plants, as it would be easy to pick a leaf of the proper kind and 

 conceal it in the pocket for future planting. 



