June 25, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



307 



set without stakes. They cover the ground in the orchards 

 between the trees, and are also trained on espaliers or fences 

 along the highways and to form the divisions between the 

 fields. The sandy soil seems to have protected them against 

 the ravages of the phylloxera, and the quantity of wine they 

 yield is large and ever increasing, although its quality is not so 

 good as that produced on the hills in other parts of Hungary. 

 When the development of this industry was first thought of 

 the government planted an experiment station of large extent 

 with six hundred varieties of the Grape, American as well as 

 European sorts being tried, and with this was combined an ex- 

 perimental orchard. To-day the municipality also owns a 

 " Town-garden" containing about one thousand fruit trees of 

 the finest sorts, and itself administers large tracts of the 

 former heath. But it is not more interested in improving its 

 own property than in spreading information among private 

 cultivators and encouraging them to new efforts. With these 

 ends in view it has established a large agricultural school and 

 in fourteen of the scattered little communes on the heath has 

 founded village schools for the education of the neighboring 

 peasant children. During the winter they are taught in the 

 usual way from books, but in the spring the teacher grasps 

 spade and hoe, and, in the extensive garden that adjoins the 

 school, gives practical instruction in horticulture. 



In short, within forty or fifty years, at a comparatively small 

 outlay of money, a vast, forbidding desert has been trans- 

 formed into a garden blossoming like the Rose, where no foot 

 of ground is wasted, and where the once half-nomadic, half- 

 savage population is steadily growing in intelligence as well as 

 in wealth. And the town to whose municipality the credit 

 for the work must be given, has itself profited by the increase 

 of trade to a degree that is said to be fairly surprising. Intelli- 

 gent direction and concerted effort, without any great expendi- 

 ture of money, have accomplished these results. 



Who is the Vandal? 



MR. FERNOW is writing some tracts on Tree Topics 

 in Kate Fields Washington, and the first of the 

 series is devoted to the education of those whose misguided 

 affection for single trees leads them to shudder when any 

 proper thinning out of park plantations is attempted. In the 

 grounds of a public institution in Washington, planted by 

 Downing, the trees are choked and disfigured for lack of 

 proper care, and yet the officials will not allow a tree to be cut, 

 being restrained, it is said, by sentiments of reverence. " You 

 propose to cut a tree in this park ? " cries the indignant enthu- 

 siast. " You are a vandal ! " 



"My frjend," replies the critic, " it is you who are the van- 

 dal. It is you who lack a civilized conception of fitness and 

 beauty. It is you who do not see that by allowing this tree 

 to stand you are preventing the development of its more 

 valuable neighbor. It is you who, from a purely sentimental 

 motive which you call reverence, will suffer your pets to choke 

 and stunt each other till the beauty of a whole group is marred, 

 in which the doomed member has outgrown its usefulness. 



"Mr. Downing adapted the groups of trees and the shrub- 

 bery to make a pleasing picture at the time. He knew that 

 the individual parts could not always retain their relation to 

 the whole, and he never intended that they should. May his 

 aesthetic spirit and his conception of the fitness of things de- 

 scend upon those of our public officers by whose hands the 

 beauty of our national capital may be either preserved and 

 improved, or marred and destroyed." 



Danger to Orange Groves in California. 



AN important discussion is now going on respecting Florida- 

 grown Orange-trees, which have been sold by thousands 

 in California. Several nurserymen who found that the margin 

 of profit was large, began to bring Florida Orange-trees to 

 California several years ago, and at last established nurseries 

 in Florida. The purple, or oyster-shell scale (Afylilaspis citri- 

 cola) has been discovered on Florida stock in southern Cali- 

 fornia, and so have the " long scale " {M. Gloverii), and the 

 "chaff scale" {Parlatoria Pergandii), all of which are illus- 

 trated and described in Hubbard's "Insects Affecting the 

 Orange." The "chaff scale" is often found on Orange-trees 

 imported from China and Japan, and the inspectors have 

 ordered more than one affected lot of trees to be destroyed. 

 The Florida " red scale " {Aspidiotus Ficus) has also appeared 

 in southern California on Florida stock, and on trees brought 

 from Brazil. Professor Couquillett is reported in the Rural 

 Californian as saying that ten new pests have been found this 



year on imported stock. The newspapers and horticultural 

 societies are taking up the matter and urging prompt measures 

 to destroy every infected tree. 



An orchardist at Santa Ana writes about an allied species of 

 red scale, the Aspidiotus aurantii, in the following vivid man- 

 ner: " The red scale is as dangerous and infectious to fruit in- 

 terests as small-pox is among human beings. If any one wants to 

 know what a destructive thing it is, let him come down in tins 

 vicinity and visit Orange. It is a pitiful sight to see what ruin has 

 been caused by the indifference of the people when the pest 

 first came into this valley. When I first saw Orange, in the 

 fall of 1884, I thought it the garden spot of America. I never 

 shall forget the luxuriance of the acres of Orange-orchards, 

 and the prosperous looking places. There were then ship- 

 ments of many carloads of Oranges from Orange station every 

 spring, and there were dozens of men who got from $2,000 to 

 $4,000 a year for their Orange-crops. The red scale came 

 there in the spring of 1885. People talked a little about it, and 

 a few said the pest would be serious unless stamped out at 

 once. Their fears were ridiculed, and every one went on in an 

 easy, indifferent way, while the little red scale multiplied, 

 spread and devoured, until at last the people saw acre after 

 acre of Orange-trees dead and dying. In Orange to-day, where 

 there were hundreds of fine orchards five years ago, the land 

 is now covered with the decaying stumps of Orange and 

 Lemon-trees." 



This sort of thing stirred up the Pomona and Riverside peo- 

 ple, and their Inspectors have been at work for two months, 

 examining every tree in the district, whether set in nursery or 

 orchard. They long ago quarantined against the infested dis- 

 tricts of California, and now the quarantine will undoubtedly be 

 extended to all Florida-grown trees. 

 Niles, Cat. Charles H. Shinn. 



Legislation Against Fungous Diseases in New Jersey. 



T AST year a large portion of my time was occupied in an 

 -*— ' investigation of the diseases of the Cranberry, the results 

 of which were published in Bulletin 64 of the Experiment Sta- 

 tion. Aside from the "Scald" of the Cranberry (sometimes 

 called the "Rot") the next worst enemy is the Gall Fungus. 

 This last takes a second place only, because it is at the present 

 time very limited in the area upon which it was seen. A single 

 large bog only was found infested with it, but from a study of 

 the habits of the fungus it is evident that it spreads with the 

 water during spring, and if it should effect an entrance into a 

 bog it would soon develop in all parts through which the con- 

 taminated water flows. Fortunately, the water from the in- 

 fested bog in question does not How into any other bog or it 

 would most certainly carry the disease there with it. It is, 

 however, likely that the germs may be taken from one bog to 

 another by birds and other animals, and by winds drifting the 

 diseased leaves over the crust of snow upon fields in winter. 

 The danger of thislast mode of spreading infection is increased 

 by the fact that several kinds of plants closely related to the 

 Cranberry and growing upon the borders of the bog are also 

 infested, and some of them drop their leaves in autumn. 



The Gall Fungus has proved almost ruinous to the infested 

 bog, and, because of this, and that it is as yet so circumscribed, 

 the following law has been passed to cover all such cases of 

 fungous diseases : 



Whereas, The officers of the State Agricultural Experiment 

 Station have discovered certain new fungous growths that 

 threaten serious injury to important agricultural interests of 

 the state, therefore, 



1. Be it enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the 

 State of New Jersey: That when the officers of the State Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station shall discover any new fungous 

 growth which is doing injury to plants or vines, and while 

 the same is confined to limited areas, they are hereby author- 

 ized and empowered to enter upon any lands bearing' vines or 

 plants so affected, and destroy the same by fire or otherwise 

 as they shall deem best. 



2. And be it enacted, That any damage to private property 

 resulting from the operation of destroying the said fungous 

 growth by the officers of the state shall be certified to by them 

 and the amount of damage paid to the owners thereof from 

 the same fund and in the same manner as is paid to owners of 

 diseased animals by order of the State Board of Health. 



3. And be it enacted, That expenditures under this act shall 

 not exceed one thousand dollars in any one year. 



4. And be it enacted, That this act take effect immediately. 

 Approved May 23d, 1890. 



It will be seen that, according to this act, means can be taken 



