1 84 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 9, 1890. 



Notes. 



Our correspondent, Mr. Rolfe, the English authority on Or- 

 chids, has been appointed an assistant editor of Lindenia, the 

 great Iconographia des Orchidees, now in course of publica- 

 tion in Belgium. 



Part I. of the new volume of Hooker ' s /cones Plantarum 

 (vol. xx.) is devoted to different plants, principally Stapelias 

 belonging to Asclepiadacea, the descriptions being furnished by 

 Mr. N. E. Brown, of the Kew Herbarium. 



A great " flower festival," similar to the one which was so 

 successful last year, is being organized in Detroit by the Jour- 

 nal of that city, and will open on the 22d of April. The pro- 

 ceeds will be divided between a number of local charities. 



The Manchester Guardian states that Dr. Jones, of Acton 

 Hall, has discovered a chemical process by which the juice of 

 apples and grapes can be manufactured into an agreeable 

 non-alcoholic beverage which will keep for a number of 

 years without fermentation. 



A bundle of California-grown Licorice-roots was lately sent 

 to the office of the Tulare Register. The editor of that paper 

 asserts that the roots have the genuine licorice flavor and 

 sweetness and cannot be distinguished from the imported ar- 

 ticle, and that the plant grows like a weed. 



Premiums to the amount of $250 were offered by John 

 Gardiner & Co., for the best collection of spring flowering 

 bulbs to be competed for at the Exhibition of the Pennsylvania 

 Horticultural Society. The first prize was won by William 

 Jamison, and the second by J. W. Colflesh. A box of Crocuses 

 shown by W. K. Harris received special mention. 



Prunus Davidiana, and its variety with white flowers, at- 

 tracted much attention from visitors to the Jardin des Plantes 

 in early March, as did a fine specimen of Parrotia Persica, 

 covered with blossoms. This tree, still little known outside of 

 botanical gardens, belongs to the Hamamelis family. It is 

 especially ornamental by reason of its foliage, which does not 

 appear till later in the season. Its flowers, of which the most 

 conspicuous parts are the brownish red stamens, have little 

 value. 



L' Orchidophile remarks upon the flowering in the collection 

 of M. Finet, in Argenteuil, of a Lcelia fiumila with white flow- 

 ers, a variety not previously described; while another journal, 

 the Lyon Horticole, mentions the exhibition at a meeting of the 

 Association Horticole Lyonnaise of a giant variety of Lycaste 

 Skinneri. It is called by its owner, M. Comte, L. Skinneri 

 grandiflora, and is said to be remarkable for the extraordinary 

 size attained by its leaves and flowers, which surpass anything 

 hitherto recorded of this very variable Orchid. 



According to the Manufacturers' Record '542,145 gallons of so- 

 called Olive-oil were sent from Italy to this country during the 

 year which ended June 30th, 1889, but its purity may be esti- 

 mated from the fact that, within the same period, we sent to 

 Italy 65,250 gallons of Cotton-seed-oil. Since that time our 

 exports of this product have greatly diminished, possibly be- 

 cause, since the discovery of a test for the purity of Olive-oil, 

 the Italian authorities have been able to control somewhat its 

 manufacture. This discovery was made not long ago by the 

 celebrated chemist, Becchi, and his test is said to be entirely 

 reliable. 



From an instructive bulletin lately issued by Professor 

 Whitcher, of the New Hampshire Experiment Station, it ap- 

 pears that the commercial fertilizers sold in that state do not 

 contain enough potash for the requirements of the soil there. 

 It also appears that home-mixed chemicals can take the place 

 of barnyard-manure as a source of plant-food. For the state 

 in question a fertilizer should contain from nine to eleven per 

 cent, of phosphoric acid, from nine to fifteen per cent, of pot- 

 ash, and from two to four per cent, of nitrogen. The pre- 

 pared fertilizers in the market average eleven per cent, of 

 phosphoric acid, two and a half per cent, of potash, and two 

 and a half per cent, of nitrogen. 



The term "gun fences," used by Mr. A. D. Mellick, Jr., in 

 his recently published book, "The Story of an Old Farm," has, 

 doubtless, puzzled many of his readers. Replying to a ques- 

 tion put by one of them in the Evenitig Post, he says that gun 

 fences, as formerly used in New Jersey, were " constructed of 

 rails, often formed of lopped tree-branches, resting one end 

 on the ground and the other in the air at an angle of about 

 forty-five degrees, each one being supported a little above the 

 centre by small cross stakes shoved into the ground. They 

 were popular with the early settlers, because of their being so 



easily and rapidly built, owing to their needing neither post- 

 holes nor hewn posts. At a distance the rails did not look 

 unlike a lot of guns stacked in line, hence the name." 



The second part of Mr. H. Nehrling's "North American 

 Birds " has appeared. It contains the completion of the 

 account of the Mocking Bird, and descriptions of the Cat-bird, 

 the Brown Thrasher, the Long-billed Thrasher, the Curve- 

 billed Thrasher, the Crested Thrasher, the American Dipper, 

 the Bluebirds, and the beginning of the Gnat-catchers and 

 Warblers {Sylviidce). The work will be finished in twelve 

 parts, illustrated by thirty-six colored plates from drawings by 

 Ridgway, Goering and Muetzel. It is published by George 

 Bramder, 286 West Water Street, Milwaukee. The first part 

 has received the highest praise from naturalists competent to 

 judge of its value, and its excellence is fully sustained in the 

 number before us. 



The first number of Le Journal des Orchidees, a bi-monthly 

 devoted to the cultivation of Orchids, has reached us. This 

 new journal, the editor, M. Lucien Linden (Secretary of the 

 Orchideene, and editor of Lindenia, etc.), tells us, has no scien- 

 tific pretensions, and no other ambition than to be practically 

 useful in giving as much information as possible upon the 

 care and cultivation of Orchids. Le Journal des Orchidees is 

 published at Brussels and will appear on the 1st and 15th of 

 each month. It is a handsomely printed octavo of sixteen 

 pages, without illustrations; and the first number, which con- 

 tains a number of good articles, fully justifies the claim of the 

 editor. The subscription price is ten francs a year, which 

 may be sent to the office of the journal, 100 Rue Belliard, 

 Brussels. 



A western perfumer advertises the " phenomenal sale " of 

 a new extract which he calls " Golden Rod perfume." If it 

 has no more odor than the blossoms which, as he says, have 

 won popularity as our " national flower," any sale, however 

 small, must indeed be regarded as phenomenal ; nor does it 

 seem probable that the single species of Solidago (S. odorata), 

 the leaves of which emit, when crushed, an anisette-like per- 

 fume, can be obtained insufficient quantities for extensive dis- 

 tillation. There is frequent similar proof, however, that in 

 this, as in other trades, it is difficult to supply a succession of 

 " novelties " and fit them with attractive names without trust- 

 ing a little to the credulity of the public. For example : if the 

 Golden-rod is popular, the Orchid is " fashionable," and this 

 is even better for advertising purposes. Therefore "Orchid 

 perfumes " are now in the market bearing the names of sev- 

 eral kinds, some of which have no fragrance whatever. Some- 

 times the makers are so discreet as to say no more in their 

 advertisements than that they " reproduce " the odor of the 

 given flower ; but the name on the bottle seems like an 

 attempt to make the confiding purchaser believe that he can 

 inhale from it the actual breath of some rare, costly exotic. 



American pomology has lost an ardent devotee in the 

 death of Mr. Charles Gibb, which occurred in Cairo, Egypt, 

 on the 8th of March. Mr. Gibb was born in Montreal 

 in 1845, was graduated from Gill University at the age of 

 twenty. On account of impaired health he sought out-door 

 occupation, and after a visit to Europe he spent some time 

 with prominent horticulturists in New York and New Jersey, 

 an experience which strengthened his taste for fruit-culture 

 and led to his adoption of that pursuit. Fortunately he was 

 possessed of ample means, and on his return to Canada he 

 purchased a large tract of land at Abbottsford, Quebec, where 

 he established trial grounds for exotic trees and shrubs and 

 planted extensive orchards especially of the more desirable 

 Russian fruits. In 1882 Mr. Gibb visited Russia in company 

 with Professor Budd, and the work which they accomplished 

 in introducing Russian fruits to notice is well known. In June 

 of last year he left Montreal for a journey through the East in 

 the interest of fruit-culture and had visited Japan, China and 

 India and was on his way home when death overtook him in 

 Egypt. Mr. Gibb was a man of modest and retiring disposition, 

 but his home at Abbottsford was the seat of wide and generous 

 hospitality to all those who were interested in horticultural 

 pursuits. He was singularly unselfish, and the horticultural 

 and kindred societies of the Dominion, in all of which he took 

 an active interest, bear witness to his public spirit. He pre- 

 pared numerous papers which have been published during 

 the last fifteen years in the reports of the Montreal Horticul- 

 tural Society, the Ontario Fruit-Growers' Association, the 

 American Pomological Society and similar organizations, most 

 of which are of permanent value, especially those which relate 

 to the fruit-trees of northern Europe, their nomenclature and 

 their value for cultivation in the orchards of this continent. 



