196 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 16, 1890. 



Another instance of the way in which our florists now devote 

 themselves, very often, to raising large quantities of a single 

 kind of Mower is found in a note, dated Springfield, Massachu- 

 setts, which was recently published in the American Florist. 

 " I grow Carnations only," said the writer, "and last season I 

 cut 26,000 blooms from 700 plants of Grace Wilder. I now 

 have 1,300 plants." 



A lady who read a paper at the meeting of the American 

 Horticultural Society, which was held in February at Austin, 

 Texas, recommended that the effort to agree upon a "national 

 Mower" should be abandoned; but that instead each state 

 should select a Mower for itself. Thus far the advice seems 

 good enough, if, indeed, the subject has any real hold on 

 popular interest. But when we are told, furthermore, that on 

 occasions of national significance all these "state flowers" 

 may be massed in a great bouquet or garland, the picture pre- 

 sented to the imagination is not very agreeable. 



German horticultural papers speak highly of a variety of 

 Begonia fiorida incomparabilis which has been named " Hof- 

 gartner Pettera" after its introducer, the gardener of Duke 

 Philip of Wurtemberg, at Gmiinden. The flowers, which are 

 dark carmine, "completely cover the plant;" but its great 

 peculiarity is the color of the leaves, which, when exposed to 

 full sunshine, " become a deep blood-red, while the stem and 

 leaf-stalks are coral-red." It is recommended as a valuable 

 addition to the plants now used for carpet-bedding and for 

 multicolored groups. 



A peculiarity of the plants producing what we call gourds 

 or calabashes is the musk-like odor that most of them give 

 out when their leaves are pinched. We generally look upon 

 a gourd as something unsuitable for the table ; but Dr. Harris 

 states that when cooked several of the varieties of Syria, 

 Japan and Brazil are quite palatable while young, especially 

 those which grow long, thin and green, like the Hercules 

 Club. The fruit which furnishes the reticulated skeleton used 

 as a bathing-scrubber and in making beautiful bonnets is in 

 habit and growth a Cucumber (Cucumis reticulatus), although 

 sometimes called a "Dish-cloth Gourd" from one of its uses 

 in our Gulf States. In India the natives eat one of the varie- 

 ties when quite young ; but of a dozen varieties grown by Dr. 

 Harris in Philadelphia none were tempting to the appetite. 



A corporation called "The Blue Mountain Forest Park 

 Association" has been formed at Newport, New Hampshire, 

 its President being Mr. Austin Corbin, of this city, whose sum- 

 mer home lies in that region. The purposes of the Associa- 

 tion are to breed American game and fish, to cultivate and 

 properly administer the forests, and to form and beautify parks 

 and avenues. Seventeen head of buffalo have been turned 

 out on a "range" which embraces about 10,000 acres, and it is 

 hoped that the race may thus be preserved from extinction. 

 The good done by such an association, however, will spread 

 far beyond its own property, for it will doubtless incite the citi- 

 zens of other localities to imitation, and must help to prove to 

 the people at large that our forests are worth preserving, and 

 that the adornment of country neighborhoods should be sys- 

 tematically undertaken. 



We have received the first number of Zoe, a new biological 

 journal to be published monthly in San Francisco. It is 

 intended as a " medium for recording in accessible form the 

 numerous, often unconnected observations, pertaining more 

 particularly to the western part of North America, made by 

 amateurs as well as by working naturalists." The name of 

 the editor does not appear in the prospectus, but contribu- 

 tions are promised, and many of the promises are fulfilled in 

 the first number, by articles from many of the best known 

 naturalists of the Pacific States. The first number contains 

 botanical notes by both Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Brandegee, and the 

 first of a series of important articles on the naturalized plants 

 of southern California, by Mr. S. B. Parish. Zoe is in magazine 

 form, in octavo, and the first number contains thirty-two 

 handsomely printed pages. It is published by the Zoe Pub- 

 lishing Co., of San Francisco, and the annual subscription is 

 two dollars. 



One of the most perfect trees in the United States stands 

 behind the old Drayton Manor House on the Ashley 

 River, not very far from Charleston, South Carolina. It is a 

 Live Oak. The trunk girths, at five feet from the ground, 

 nearly twenty-five feet, and the main branches, which shoot 

 out at right angles from the trunk at the height of ten feet 

 above the ground, have a spread of one hundred and twenty 

 and one hundred and thirty feet, and form a dense, symmetri- 

 cal, flat head of indescribable beauty and impressiveness. 

 There are larger Live Oaks to be seen, but it is rare to find 



one of the age and size of the Drayton tree of such perfect 

 shape and in such good health. There is nothing about the 

 tree to indicate very great age, and as it is a well known fact 

 that the Live Oak grows in good soil with extreme rapidity, 

 it is not improbable that the two centuries during which the 

 Drayton family have occupied the Manor House may cover 

 the span of its existence. 



Writing on "The Slave Trade in the Congo Basin," in the 

 April number of the Century Magazine, Mr. E. J. Glave says 

 that nature has, in the case of the African, met the universal 

 desire for a drink stronger than water by providing him with 

 the juice of the Palm-tree, "a most palatable beverage, re- 

 sembling when fresh a very strong lemon soda, but intoxicat- 

 ing in its effects. . . . The villagers in charge of this particular 

 industry climb the tree, trim away some of the leaves, and 

 then bore three or four holes, about half an inch in diameter, 

 at the base of the frond, to the heart of the tree." A small 

 gourd is placed beneath each of these holes, and receives 

 during the day about half a pint of juice. " The contents of 

 these gourds are collected every morning. This beverage is 

 called by the natives malafu, and is well known to all European 

 travelers as Palm-wine." From the author's accounts of the 

 drunken revels which he witnessed, it seems to be as potent, 

 in its ultimate effects, as the most civilized of fermented drinks. 



Odontoglossum Pescatorei is the rival of 0. crispum as a gar- 

 den Orchid. In their cultural requirements and in general 

 habit they are alike, whilst in attractiveness there is little to 

 choose between them. Both species have revealed under cul- 

 tivation an extraordinary range in the size, form and marking 

 of their flowers. Now and again a variety of startling charac- 

 ter appears, and if placed in the market fetches a sensational 

 price, as, for example, Veitchs' variety of 0. crispum and 

 Veitchs' variety of 0. Pescatorei, both of which are in Baron 

 Schroeder's famous collection. The last sensational feat has 

 been the production of an inflorescence by O. Pescatorei, upon 

 which no less than 130 blooms were borne! The length of the 

 panicle was four and a half feet, or more than double the 

 maximum length given in Veitchs' Orchid Manital. It bore 

 fourteen branches, which again ramified. The plant must be 

 of extraordinary vigor, as its pseudo-bulbs are described as be- 

 ing as large as large hens' eggs. It is in the collection of Mr. 

 J. B. Merriles, Reading, and was grown by his gardener, 

 George Russell. 



We have received from Mr. 0. C. Simonds, Superintendent 

 of Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, a series of photographs 

 illustrating the method of transplanting large trees. Of two 

 trees moved together the larger was sixty feet high, with a 

 spread of branches of sixty feet. The roots were taken up 

 in a circle of about the same diameter, tied up in bundles, 

 wrapped in canvas and kept moist. The trees measure 

 respectively seven feet three inches and six feet in circum- 

 ference, the measurements being taken at three feet above 

 the ground. The earth was retained about the roots for 

 some distance from the trees, which were moved in an 

 upright position. The planting was completed on the 4th 

 of May, 1889. The trees grew nicely during last season, 

 and Mr. Simonds believes they will become as firmly estab- 

 lished as they were in the woods from which they were 

 taken, although it is yet too early to speak with entire con- 

 fidence as to the result. The trees were moved on rollers 

 nearly a mile in an upright position, stayed upon a heavy 

 frame-work of timber, and the cost was between five and 

 six hundred dollars. 



According to a correspondent of Gartenflora, the splendid 

 crops of Hyacinths which are grown in the vicinity of Haarlem, 

 in Holland, require a careful preparation of the soil. A field 

 which the following autumn is to be planted with bulbs is 

 worked over during the winter to a depth of three feet, in order 

 that the upper soil, in which bulbs have already been grown, 

 may be thoroughly replaced by fresh sand; for it is almost 

 pure sand which forms these fields along the dunes. Simple 

 cow-manure is then applied, and Potatoes are planted, and 

 after these are harvested the soil is again worked over. About 

 the beginning of September the bulbs are planted and covered 

 with a layer of sea-weed, which is removed early in the spring. 

 The yellowish leaves which have sprouted under the mulch 

 quickly turn a deep green, and by the middle of April the 

 flowers spread their immense many-colored carpet before the 

 eye. As soon as they begin to fade they are cut off to direct 

 all the strength of the plant toward maturing the bulbs. 

 Formerly the cut flowers were sold, largely for the English 

 market; but this sale so injured the demand for bulbs that, by 

 agreement among the growers, it has been abandoned. 



