292 



Garden and Forest. 



[June ii, 1890. 



Among; nuts mention was made of many good varieties of 

 our wild Chestnut, some of which are of excellent quality. 

 One named Dupont, from Delaware, is very large. A rich 

 tree often yielded nuts to the value of $30 and $50 a year. 



The Paragon, which has been sent out by Engle & Son, of 

 Marietta, Pennsylvania, is larger yet, four orfive times as large 

 as the ordinary Chestnut. It bears enormously and at an early 

 age. It is not quite so well flavored as the finest of the small 

 Chestnuts, but it is of purely native origin and well worthy of 

 cultivation. 



Of the newer Grapes, the Lyon, originating in Michigan, 

 was reported of fine quality. The vine is very vigorous; the 

 clusters are of the Catawba shape, although the berries are 

 smaller. Colrain, which is probably a seedling of the Con- 

 cord, is a variety larger in bunch and berry than Martha, and 

 earlier. The vine is stronger and as healthy as the Concord. 



Mr. Campbell, in reply to the inquiry as to whether its skin 

 was too tender for shipment, stated that it was no more tender 

 than that of the Worden. The Woodruff Red has proved itself a 

 rampant grower and very productive. It is not of the finest 

 quality and has a rather thick skin, but it is an excellent popu- 

 lar market variety. Green Mountain is a strong vine, very 

 fruitful and is probably the earliest white Grape of good quality. 

 It is rather small in berry, however. 



The Crandall Currant is a variety of the Missouri Currant 

 and the largest of the wild varieties. It originated in Kansas 

 and has the merit of being proof against the attacks of the 

 Currant-worm. Nor do the leaves fall as they do from many 

 other varieties of Currant from some unknown fungus growth. 



Notes. 



Peaches from California are now coming into market here, 

 and so are the sour "English" Cherries from the south. 



Le Jardin, commenting upon the poisonous properties of 

 Primula obconica, says that the common European Primrose 

 will irritate and burn the lips if bitten. 



It is announced in some Oregon papers that an excellent 

 syrup, clear and well flavored, has been made from the sap 

 of the Vine Maple {Acer circinatum). 



Magnolia hypoleuca is just coming into bloom. Remarka- 

 bly beautiful flowers of this species and of M. parviflora were 

 shown at the Nurserymen's Convention last week by Mr. S. B. 

 Parsons. 



Professor Oliver, after a connection of thirty years with the 

 herbarium of the Royal Gardens at Kew, of which for many 

 years he has been the curator, retires from office. He is, how- 

 ever, to continue to reside at Kew, and will continue to edit 

 Hooker's " Icones Plantarum," in which the most important 

 and interesting of the new plants received at the Kew herba- 

 rium are figured and described. 



The statement is made in an interesting article on the forests 

 of Roumania, recently published in the Revue des Eaux et 

 Forets, that the American Locust-tree (Robinia Pseudacacia) 

 has been used with great success in that country in holding 

 the shifting sand at several places along the banks of the 

 Danube, and that during the last five or six years twelve or 

 fifteen thousand acres have been covered with plantations of 

 this tree for this purpose. 



There is wisdom as well as charity in the following words 

 spoken by Mrs. Helen V. Austin at a recent meeting of the 

 New Jersey Horticultural Society : "We are often told that if 

 fruit-trees were planted in the street the boys would get the 

 fruit. That would be one great object in thus planting, so that 

 the boys and girls could get the fruit. The fact is that chil- 

 dren are starving for fruit ; and what with the scarcity of the 

 article and the enclosures surrounding what there is, the 

 average boy is forced into being a thief." 



The Revue Horticole, quoting from the Botanisch Jaarbock, 

 calls attention to the results of a curious series of experiments 

 lately made in the Botanical Garden of Ghent for the purpose 

 of determining whether the seeds which germinate the most 

 rapidly produce the most vigorous plants, and whether, in the 

 case of the Gilliflower, as had been affirmed by Dr. Nobbe, the 

 plants which germinate first produce a larger proportion of 

 double flowers than those in which the germination had been 

 retarded. It appears that these experiments confirm the truth 

 of the assertion. Such experiments, to be at all conclusive, 

 must, of course, be repeated over and over again and on a 

 very large scale ; still, as Monsieur Andre suggests, they may 

 be of immense horticultural significance. 



The May issue of the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information 

 from the Royal Gardens at Kew contains correspondence on 

 Lagos rubber, the product of the West African Ficus Vogelii; 

 on a new Mealy Bug which has proved a troublesome and de- 

 structive pest among cultivated plants in Egypt, with a descrip- 

 tion and figure of the insect (Crossotosoma ALgyptiacum); on the 

 machines used in the manufacture of hemp in the Mauritius, 

 and on the Siberian perennial flax, about the use of which the 

 authorities of Kew have endeavored to obtain some informa- 

 tion in the hope that it might prove a substitute for the com- 

 mon Flax, which is an annual and therefore has to be raised from 

 seed every year. The perennial Flax has numerous wiry, 

 slender stems about one or two feet high. Many attempts 

 have been made to utilize this plant for fibre and in the pro- 

 duction of linseed oil, and it was supposed that it had been 

 used for this purpose in Siberia. The correspondence, how- 

 ever, which Mr. Morris' inquiries have brought out, seems to 

 show that it is doubtful if Flax on a commercial scale is any- 

 where produced except from the annual species. 



The American Agriculturist for June gives an interesting 

 account of the cultivation of Lima Beans in VenturaCounty, Cali- 

 fornia, where the crop brings something like half a million 

 dollars. The seed is planted in May by machines, which drill 

 in three or four rows at a time. The plants are cultivated 

 once or twice and never irrigated. No poles are used, but the 

 vines cover hundreds of acres, clinging close to the ground 

 like a green carpet. In August, when the beans are ripe, a 

 V-shaped knife, with blades five or six feet long, and attached 

 to a wooden sled, is drawn by three horses, which are guided 

 between the rows by one man. Two rows are cut at once, 

 and four men are kept busy raking the loosened vines into 

 heaps to dry. Twenty acres are cut in a day. Three or four 

 weeks are required to properly dry the beans, which are then 

 run through a thresher, and the straw is stacked, to be used 

 later as fodder for cattle and sheep. The average yield of 

 Limas is 1,800 pounds to the acre, and these are worth $44 at 

 wholesale. A liberal estimate for expenses, including seed, 

 planting, cultivating, cutting and harvesting, is $8, leaving a 

 profit of $36 to the acre. 



It is well known that the larva? of the May-bug or Dor-bug do 

 an immense amount of damage by eating the young roots of 

 grasses, Strawberry and other delicate rooted plants. In 

 France, especially, their ravages have resulted in great losses, 

 and energetic attempts to destroy them are made. The de- 

 struction of these beetles is a matter of such importance that a 

 word, " Hannetonnage," has been coined to express the action of 

 hunting them. It appears, according to the Revue Horticole, 

 that during the year 1889 the Department of Seine-et-Marne 

 paid no less than 113,000 francs in prizes for the destruction of 

 the beetles, which were collected to the amount of more than 

 500,000 pounds. They are trapped by suspending lights over 

 shallow vessels of water. The beetles fly against the glass 

 covering of the lamps and drop into the water below, and are 

 then collected and destroyed. The experiment has been tried 

 in this country with success, and it is worth doing on a large 

 scale wherever these insects abound. As the presence of the 

 larva? is not known until the damage which they inflict is com- 

 pleted, the only way to attack them is to trap the beetles. A 

 little kerosene-oil poured on the water placed in the vessels 

 into which they are intended to fall will deprive them of all 

 chance of escape. 



It is well known that the practice of removing the flower- 

 stems of Hyacinths and Tulips just as the spikes have attained 

 full development prevails in all the bulb-farms of Holland. 

 The general opinion is that there is but one object in view in 

 depriving the plants of their beauty at its zenith — namely, to 

 save the plants the strain of ripening seed, and to aid the de- 

 velopment of the bulbs by the power thus conserved being 

 devoted solely to them. It is recently stated, however, by a 

 correspondent of the Journal of Horticulture, that one of the 

 largest growers and exporters at Haarlem gives another ex- 

 planation of the custom. The specific object of removing the 

 flowers of Hyacinths and Tulips is, he says, to prevent the 

 petals falling upon the leaves, which occasions spotting, com- 

 monly called " fire." When the foliage becomes thus affected 

 its powers of assimilation andelaboration are materially cur- 

 tailed, and the bulbs are greatly weakened. The strain of 

 ripening seed is so small a consideration that in the case of 

 Crocuses and Narcissi, which do not become " fired " by the fall- 

 ing flowers, it is not thought worth while to sacrifice the time 

 necessary for removing the latter, and they are consequently 

 allowed to fall. The manner of removing the flowers is merely 

 a matter of convenience. Hyacinth spikes are cut off; Tulips, the 

 stems of which are brittle, are broken with the fingers and thumb. 



