244 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 14, 1890. 



Mr. Walker, the largest grower of Daffodils for market in 

 England, states that the flowers should be cut while in bud 

 and be opened in water and heat under glass. As a rule, the 

 buds should be free of the spathe before they are cut, and the 

 very best time for cutting is just as the perianth segments 

 burst open. 



The fifteenth annual meeting of the American Association 

 of Nurserymen will be held at the Park Avenue Hotel, in this 

 city, beginning on the 4th of June and continuing for three 

 days. An unusually attractive programme of exercises has 

 been arranged, and papers may be expected from many of 

 the leading authorities in the country upon horticulture, 

 pomology and forestry. 



Some years ago seeds of Russian Rhubarb were sent to the 

 State Experiment Station at Amherst, Massachusetts, and 

 plants raised from them matured seed. A number of plants 

 have been produced from this home-grown seed, and the 

 roots, it is said, have been sent out for trial by druggists. It 

 would be interesting to know whether any reports as to the 

 medicinal value of the roots have been made. 



The proceedings of the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the 

 Western New York Horticultural Society make a compact 

 pamphlet of nearly 200 pages, filled with valuable suggestions 

 for fruit-growers especially. A very full report of the meeting 

 was given in this journal; but the pamphlet just received once 

 more calls attention to the unusual amount of instructive mat- 

 ter contained in the addresses and discussions. 



Southern tomatoes have been greatly interfered with by the 

 frost, and hot-house tomatoes are in good demand at fifty 

 cents a pound. Honey peaches from Florida, the first of the 

 season, are selling for seventy-five cents a dozen. California 

 cherries have just come in ; Black Tartarians bring $1.50 a 

 box. New limes bring from fifteen to twenty cents a dozen. 

 Fresh tamarinds are exceedingly fine. Physicians allow inva- 

 lids to take them after medicines with a disagreeable taste, 

 and they are used largely for flavoring lemonade. 



The first part of the twelfth volume of the "Journal of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society " of England has reached us. 

 Reports of the Vegetable Conference and of the Chrysanthe- 

 mum Centenary Conference, held in London last year, occupy 

 a large proportion of the pages of this part, and contain a large 

 amount of valuable information. The Journal is now one of 

 the most useful of serial horticultural publications, and cannot 

 fail to increase the taste and knowledge of cultivated plants. 

 It is an essential addition to the library of every horticulturist 

 and of every working botanist occupied with the study of cul- 

 tivated plants. 



Professor C. C. Caldwell quotes from Dr. Mueller to the 

 effect that the sugar of the Grape is produced in the leaves ; 

 that toward the end of summer the older leaves diminish in 

 activity and only the younger ones make sugar ; that leaves 

 some distance beyond the fruit may produce sugar for it, as 

 may also leaves on lateral shoots springing from the fruit- 

 bearing branch, but only when those shoots are above the 

 fruit or close to it. Pruningby cutting off the ends of fruit-bear- 

 ing branches was found injurious, and by too close pruning 

 fruit was produced having four or five per cent, less sugar 

 than fruit on unpruned branches. 



During the past week the flowering Dogwood, the Silver- 

 bell (Halesia), the Bladder-nut (Staphylea), the Black Haw, the 

 Sweet Viburnum and the Judas-tree, among our native shrubs 

 and smaller trees, have come into bloom in Central Park. The 

 Lilacs are in full flower, and so are the Kerrias, double and 

 single, Exochorda, Rhodotypus, Azalea amcena, the Haw- 

 thorns, and many kinds of Prunus. The most interesting 

 among herbaceous plants which have lately come into flower 

 are Phlox amcena and P. divaricata, Iris fiumila and its varie- 

 ties, Houstonia and Bird's-foot Violets. The park was never 

 better kept and never looked more beautiful. 



Amelanchier oligocarpa, of which a figure and description 

 were published on page 245 of the first volume of Garden 

 and Forest, proves to be a garden plant of great beauty ; and 

 the size it attains in cultivation, the vigor of its growth and 

 the abundance of its flowers are surprising to those persons 

 who have only seen this shrub growing in its home in our far 

 northern forests. Specimens in the Arnold Arboretum are 

 now nearly three feet high and three or four feet across, 

 forming perfectly symmetrical compact bushes, which this 

 year have been covered as with a sheet with their handsome 

 solitary white flowers, which, however, like those of the other 

 species of Amelanchier, are of short duration. This is cer- 

 tainly one of the most desirable of our native plants to in- 



troduce into the garden, and when it is better known and its 

 beauty recognized, it is certain to become popular. 



On Monday of this week the Flower Mission of this city 

 began the work of its twentieth year by sending great num- 

 bers of Apple-blossoms, Lilacs, Pansies, Buttercups and other 

 flowers to the various hospitals and to the sick in tenement- 

 houses. Fifty ladies were present on the first distribution-day, 

 and it is hoped that still more will offer their services in fu- 

 ture. The service required is not simply the arranging of the 

 flowers in bouquets, but the delivery of them to the sick, who 

 appreciate the flowers more highly when they receive them 

 directly from the hands of the distributors. Donations of fruit 

 as well as of flowers are requested for this beautiful charity. 



In Agricultural Science for April, Professor C. M. Weed, of 

 the Ohio Experiment Station, has an interesting note on the 

 use of arsenites for the Plum curculio. Many experiments 

 have been reported in which alternate trees were treated and 

 the sprayed trees yielded as little sound fruit as the others. 

 Mr. Weed points out that the remedy acts mainly by destroy- 

 ing adult beetles that feed on the surface of the fruit and 

 foliage. It need not act upon the beetles when engaged in 

 oviposition nor upon the larvae after hatching. The beetles 

 from unsprayed trees may deposit eggs on the fruit of sprayed 

 trees, and beetles killed on sprayed trees will lessen the injury 

 on the check trees. A fair test cannot therefore be made with 

 a few trees close together. An examination of the question 

 convinces Professor Weed, however, that in good sized 

 orchards of Cherries, Plums and Apples the arsenites furnish 

 a complete and practical remedy for the curculio. 



The apple scab is caused, as is well known, by a parasitic 

 fungus (Fusicladium dendriticum). The injury to fruit is often 

 very great, and in neglected orchards the entire crop may 

 prove of no value except for cider. Some careful experiments 

 made by Professor Taft, of the Michigan Agricultural College, 

 showed that the size of apples affected by the scab was re- 

 duced by one-tenth on an average, making a loss in bulk, not 

 to speak of the loss in good appearance, of fully a bushel to a 

 tree. Of various remedies tested the most effective was a 

 spray of the so-called " Eau Celeste," somewhat diluted. The 

 mixture is prepared by dissolving two pounds of copper sul- 

 phate in hot water in one vessel, and two and a half pounds of 

 carbonate of soda in another. The two solutions are mixed, a 

 pint and a half of ammonia is added, and the whole is diluted 

 to thirty-two gallons. An orchard can be sprayed at a cost of 

 two cents a tree, and the treatment may make the difference 

 between success and failure of the crop. 



The unequal effects of the past winter on vegetation in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country is remarkable. A correspondent 

 describes on another page the condition of the flower-buds of 

 many early flowering-trees in Pennsylvania. In eastern Mas- 

 sachusetts, where the winter was also exceptionally mild and 

 where the thermometer fell to zero once at least during the 

 month of March, Cherry-trees are remarkably full of flowers. 

 The buds of Peach-trees are generally uninjured ; Plum-trees 

 are blooming abundantly; there is a great show of flowers on 

 Pear-trees ; Apple-buds are uninjured. Forsythias have all 

 flowered as freely as usual, although the flowers have been 

 perhaps rather smaller in size than they were last year. The 

 Chinese Magnolias have all flowered well, although the size of 

 the flowers was reduced by a frost of several degrees which 

 occurred just as the buds were opening. The different Ame- 

 lanchiers have been unusually full of flowers. Flowers of the 

 Chinese and Japanese Apples are just opening and have never 

 been more abundant. This is true of Thunberg's Barberry, 

 the earliest of the genus to flower, and of Thunberg's Spiraea, 

 the ends of the shoots of which are not more injured than 

 usual. The flowers of Andromeda floribunda have never been 

 more abundant or larger or better colored. Those of An- 

 dromeda Jafionica were entirely killed during the winter. The 

 Japanese Primus peiidula lost some of its buds, and the flow- 

 ers which developed have been smaller than usual ; while the 

 flower-buds of the Sweet Almond were nearly all killed. On 

 the other hand, the Flowering Dogwood never gave a better 

 promise of flowers than it does this year, although in the lati- 

 tude of Massachusetts the buds often suffer in severe winters. 

 It is unusual to see Lilacs so covered with flower-buds as they 

 are this season in Massachusetts. The flowers of the Red 

 Maple were uninjured, and the fruit is already half grown, 

 although the late frosts destroyed the flowers of the Silver 

 Maples or most of them. The Norway Maples have flowered 

 profusely, as usual. Rhododendrons and Ghent Azaleas have 

 never before in Massachusetts given such a promise of flow- 

 ers as they do this spring. 



