126 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 12, 1$ 



Bonum and Beauty of Hebron fetching as much as ninety- 

 five shillings per ton. Asparagus fetches from eight to ten 

 shillings per bundle of one hundred sticks. Tomatoes are 

 now received from the Canary Islands in considerable quan- 

 tities, and these are cheap enough and of sufficiently good 

 quality to destroy the market for English grown fruit, 

 which, a little while ago, sold for high prices at this time of 

 year. Now, however, it is possible here to get a dish of 

 tomatoes for six pence per pound retail. Except where other- 

 wise stated all the prices here quoted are wholesale. I am 

 indebted for most of the particulars here given to a paper by 

 Mr. Shirley Hibberd in the Gardeners' Magazine of to-day. 



London, February 22c!. \\f % IVatsOtl. 



Cultural Department. 



The Cu cumber. 



THIS is a much more interesting study in a botanical sense 

 than the Watermelon, and has a greater climate range 

 than the Watermelon or Cantaloupe. It is eaten young as a 

 pickle, older as a salad, and may be cooked at maturity like a 

 squash. Each country appears to have its special varieties, 

 some of which are not edible; others are actually poisonous, 

 and others again are eaten with relish undressed. 



The fruits vary in length from less than two inches to six 

 feet, and from an ounce to twenty pounds in weight. Their 

 prevailing color is green ; but there are also white, yellow, 

 pearl color with green stripes, and striped green and white 

 varieties. In form they are straight, curved, tortuous, cylin- 

 drical and prismatic; with smooth, hairy, prickly, spinous and 

 knobbed surfaces. Some are full of spines when quite young, 

 and others like a hairy caterpillar; but both kinds become 

 smooth as they mature. 



Hairy Cucumbers are the favorites of Egypt and Syria, 

 where they are eaten in vast quantities, as our people eat 

 apples, without any preparation or even paring. In India 

 they are used for pickling. We have tested two varieties from 

 Cairo, and one from Beirut. One of the Cairo varieties is 

 long, drupe-shaped, of a delicate pearl green tint, and has ten 

 bright green lines running from end to end in shallow grooves; 

 it is a beautiful looking fruit. The leaves of the plant are 

 three-lobed and of small size; the fruit is known in Egypt as 

 the Quate\ The other Cairo variety bears a curved fruit of 

 much less attractive appearance, and the leaf is scallop-edged. 

 The Syrian hairy Cucumber is known by the native name of 

 Mukte, and is considered the best in Palestine, where they 

 grow also pure white fruits, and green ones that turn lemon- 

 yellow at maturity. The Mukte somewhat resembles the 

 Quate", but has the green lines only at the ends; its leaves are 

 of the form of a Palm-leaf fan, and the plant looks more like 

 a Cantaloupe than a Cucumber-vine. The natives eat this 

 cucumber in quantities, skin and all, and American residents 

 claim that it is much more wholesome than any of our 

 varieties; when grown climbing it is a beautiful fruit, but is 

 apt to grow hollow in our soil and climate. 



The reticulated Cucumber has within a few years become 

 well known by its sponges, sent as a commercial product 

 in bales from Japan and Egypt. The first sold here was 

 the product of the wild variety of Cuba, which grows 

 very small in that island, but larger in Florida and in 

 this city. The Cuba sponge is very fine in texture and only 

 about eight inches long; it is used by Florida ladies for wash- 

 ing their hands. 



The Chinese and Japanese have the largest of the Cucumber 

 family, the fruits being very thick in proportion to their length. 

 Seeds of the Chinese variety were sent to me under the name 

 of a long, green Squash, by a correspondent at Foochow. I 

 at once found that the fruit could not be a Squash, and was 

 curious to find out what the peculiarly formed seeds would 

 produce. The plant proved to be a Cucumber-vine of large 

 proportions, having a leaf like that of the White Spine, but 

 larger. The fruit is large and green, and would be taken for 

 a Squash, which it tastes somewhat like when cooked; it 

 hybridizes readily with our Cucumber, which ruins the pro- 

 duct of the seed. 



The Benincasa cerifera of India is an intermediate in char- 

 acter between the large Chinese Cucumber and a Watermelon. 

 The vine is somewhat like that of a Squash, and the young 

 fruits are covered with hairs; the seeds are white, very light in 

 weight and abundant. The fruit looks like a Watermelon 

 covered with a white coating like the bloom upon a blue plum, 

 but much thicker; it is sometimes called the "Waxed Squash" 

 and is prepared for the table by stewing; the seeds are much 

 more like those of a watermelon than of a squash. The fruit has 



been grown at Reedland Farm, New Jersey, and bears our 

 climate well; I do not know that it has been cooked in this 

 country; in India it is served at weddings. 



Prompted by a remark made by an Armeno-Turkish lady, I 

 sent to Constantinople and obtained in 1883 the seeds of a 

 green cucumber, to which I gave the name of the " Pera," and 

 which I believe to be the largest and finest flavored variety 

 ever introduced into America; and this appears to be the 

 opinion generally held in regard to it. I also obtained seeds 

 of the White Cucumber of Palestine, and the prolific Green 

 Cucumber of Malatiyeh, in the valley of the Euphrates, both 

 of which were fully tested, and the former of which is consid- 

 ered a valuable acquisition for quality and productiveness. 

 — From an address before the Pennsylvania Horticultural 

 Society by Robert T. Harris, M.D. 



Wire-Netting in the Kitchen-Garden. 



TJEAS, Climbing Beans and Tomatoes are all better for some 

 - 1 - support, and with most village-gardeners Bean-poles and 

 Pea-brush cost money and trouble. At best, the brush and poles 

 are unsightly. Some months ago I recommended the use of 

 the galvanized wire-netting, now sold so cheaply for this pur- 

 pose, and I have just seen the suggestion ridiculed in an agri- 

 cultural paper as a device for millionaires. Now the fact & is, 

 that the galvanized wire-netting, sufficient for a row of Peas,' 

 Beans or Tomatoes 150 feet long, will cost twenty cents a 

 year if ordinary care is taken with the netting when not in use. 

 To go into the country, cut and haul brush enough for such a 

 row would cost the average town gardener five times as much 

 at least. In fact, I believe that in a farmer's garden even it will 

 be more economical to use the wire than to take time to cut 

 and haul the brush. In using the wire only a few stout stakes 

 are needed, which can be put away undercover when not in use, 

 and it makes the neatest kind of a trellis imaginable. It throws 

 no shade and always presents a point to tie to. Tomatoes 

 usually need a good deal of tying with most methods of train- 

 ing, but on the wire-netting they soon get their shoots inter- 

 locked in the meshes and only need the occasional tying in of a 

 branch. This netting is not only cheaper than the various 

 patent trellises offered for sale, but is much better every way. 

 The netting is largely used for poultry-yard enclosures. A 

 wider grade is used, so as to make a fence seven feet high by 

 the help of a base-board twelve inches wide. There is no 

 reason why these poultry-yard fences could not be made both 

 beautiful and useful by using them to support Grape-vines, 

 trained high, so as to have the fruit out of the way of the poul- 

 try. The vines would be benefited by the dropping of the 

 fowls, and the fowls by the shade of the vines. I have often 

 thought the hideous wire fences, which are now getting so 

 common, could be made more useful as fences and at the 

 same time yield a revenue by planting some of the im- 

 proved Blackberries beside them and tying the shoots to the 

 wires. I saw one recently covered with a dense growth of 

 evergreen Honeysuckle, and it was about as pretty a hedge as 

 one would wish to see. One of the beautiful sights of this 

 city is a wire fence dividing two lawns, which is covered with 

 well trained Marechal Niel Roses. Northward a more hardy 

 Rose could be substituted. 

 Raleigh, n. c. IV. F. Massey. 



Beaumontia grandiflora. 



B 



EAUMONTIA is a small genus of stout evergreen climb- 

 ing shrubs with large leathery green leaves and terminal 

 cymes of large, trumpet-shaped, white, fragrant flowers. It 

 belongs to the same natural order as Dipladenia and Alla- 

 manda, namely, the Dogbanes, and with them forms a trio of 

 free-flowering stove plants of exceptional size and beauty. 

 But whilst the two last named genera are cultivated in almost 

 every good garden, Beaumontia is scarcely known. The 

 largest flowered species is B. grandiflora, and it is to this that 

 we wish to direct special attention now. 



It was first introduced into England by Dr. Wallich in 1818 

 from the Himalaya, where it extends from Nipal to Sikkim, 

 ascending to 4,000 feet elevation. It does not, however, appear to 

 have attracted the attention of horticulturists, and when several 

 of its magnificent clusters of flowers were sent from the gar- 

 den of Earl Cowper to a meeting of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, in the spring of 1886, it was almost unknown. Mr. 

 Ruffett, gardener to Earl Cowper, has just forwarded to Kew 

 an exceptionally large cluster of the flowers, and they are so 

 large, so exquisite in form and purity, as well as being very 

 fragrant, that one wishes that every garden possessed the 

 plant which may be made to yield every spring flowers like 

 these. Here is a description of them. Each flower resembles 



