352 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 16, 1890. 



Edward Wak eficld, in his History of New Zealand, estimates 

 that the introduction of bumble-bees into that country has 

 already profited the farmers to the extent of $5,000,000. Before 

 their introduction it was impossible to grow Red Clover seed 

 for lack of fertilizing agents. 



In the Boston Public Garden there was lately in bloom a 

 mass of white Ascension Lilies and azure-blue Delphi- 

 niums, which presented a most effective combination. The 

 plants seemed informally mingled and they were much more 

 effective from this irregularity. 



The new Japanese Poppy Mikado is a really distinct and 

 beautiful flower, the fringe of bright scarlet on the border of 

 the white petals being very effective. It ought to be the par- 

 ent of a new race of Poppies in which a wider range of colors 

 will be united with the peculiar form of this variety. 



In a paper read not long ago before the Rhode Island Horti- 

 cultural Society, Professor Cushman, apiarist at the State Ag- 

 ricultural Experiment Station, declared that bees never attack 

 sound fruit, but only such as is decayed or has been already 

 injured by other insects; and his words were endorsed by all 

 his auditors. 



On one farm of 3,000 acres, entirely devoted to fruit, in Ala- 

 meda County, California, from $30,000 to $50,000 are annually 

 expended in wages. The laborers are in part Chinese and in 

 part Portuguese. The latter are considered much the better 

 workmen, and many of them have already established them- 

 selves on small fruit-farms of their own. 



Our valued correspondent, Herr Carl Bollg, of Berlin, has 

 long held the position of Chairman of the Division on Trees 

 in the Society for the Promotion of Horticulture. The knowl- 

 edge and experience thereby implied should render him espe- 

 cially useful in the position recently given him as a member 

 of the Park Commission of the City of Berlin. 



The famous old Elm on Boston Common, which fell in 

 1876, was especially beloved by Methodists, as under its 

 boughs, in the year 1790, the first Methodist sermon ever 

 heard in Boston was preached by Jesse Lee. A centennial 

 celebration of this event was held on July nth on the spot 

 where the ancient tree used to stand. 



Large quantities of compressed vegetables are annually 

 prepared for use in the British army and navy. In addition to 

 separate sorts, a mixed preparation is much esteemed which 

 consists of forty per cent, of potato, thirty of carrot, ten of 

 cabbage, ten of turnip, and ten of seasoning vegetables, such 

 as onion and parsley. The method employed is to dry the 

 vegetables and compress them into small slabs, which are 

 packed in sealed tins. 



The season so far seems to have been favorable for the 

 development of forest fungi. The Ash anthracnose (Gliosfto- 

 rium aridum), a fungus closely related to the blight of the 

 Sycamore, Oak and Maple, recently noticed in this journal, 

 and the showy white mildew (Microstoma Juglandis), which 

 covers the leaves of the Hickory, are both uncommonly fre- 

 quent. No remedy has yet been discovered which is not too 

 expensive for ordinary application. 



In Germany, at least, landscape-gardeners are thought as 

 worthy of honor as artists of other sorts. Not long ago we 

 recorded the various ways in which Lenne's memory has been 

 honored — by the placing of statues and painted portraits in 

 public places and the naming of streets in more than one 

 town. Lenne's most distinguished pupil and successor was 

 Gustav Meyer, who died in 1877, and to him also a life-size 

 statue has now been erected on the terrace of the Treptower 

 Park in Berlin, which was his last work, and is usually thought 

 his greatest. 



An esteemed cotemporary kindly attempts to answer our 

 request for information about the Crandall Currant by saying 

 that it is identical with the Missouri Currant, Ribes aurenm. 

 This fact, however, is one which seems to be universally ad- 

 mitted. The question, originally asked by Mr. Thomas Meehan, 

 is this: How does the Crandall Currant differ from varieties of 

 the same species introduced twenty-five years ago under the 

 names of the Utah Black and Utah Yellow Currants ? ■ We 

 should like to know whether these earlier introductions have 

 been kept distinct in cultivation. 



The American Garden quotes from a western paper the 

 measurements of three Apple-trees. One, which stands in 

 Fairfield County, Ohio, and bears a fruit closely resembling 

 Maiden's Blush, is nine feet five inches in circumference at three 

 feet above the ground, with a spread of seventy feet in diam- 



eter. Another, in Wayne County, Ohio, is ten feet four inches 

 in circumference at one foot above the ground, and is known 

 to be seventy-six years old. The third and largest is in the 

 same state, in Washington County, and was planted in 1791 or 

 1792. The trunk, where it is smallest, girths twelve feet two 

 inches, and the largest branch girths seven feet. It is a seed- 

 ling, which bears a large yellow apple of excellent quality for 

 cooking. 



A German journal reports that about fifty novelties of Ameri- 

 can introduction were included in the last Chrysanthemum 

 exhibition in London. The writer praises Mrs. Alpheus Hardy 

 very warmly, and says the anticipatory reports were not over- 

 charged except as regards the size of the blossoms, and their 

 smallncss he attributes to weakness in the plants caused by 

 excessive multiplication. Among the finest of the other 

 American novelties he notes Medusa, Shasta, Monadnoc 

 (which is especially commended), John Thorpe, Mrs. Andrew 

 Carnegie, George McClure, Mrs. A. J. Drexel, G. F. Moseman, 

 J. C. Price, Beauty of Castlewood and Superbe Flore, which 

 has been introduced in several German cities by an English 

 firm and excited general admiration. 



Referring to the note on wire-worms quoted in our last 

 number from The Garden, Professor Smith writes that these 

 worms have been for years among those pests for which we 

 had no satisfactory remedies. Salt in corn hills has been 

 used with more or less success, but has killed as many corn 

 plants as wire worms. Experiments made during the present 

 season indicate that in the potash salts, muriate and kainit, we 

 have the long looked for remedy. Laboratory experiments 

 prove positively that both of these substances are fatal to wire- 

 worms, both the myriapods (lulus sp.) and the spring beetle 

 (Elaterid) larvae, while the universal testimony of farmers who 

 have been in the habit of using these substances as fertilizers 

 is to the effect that they have not been bothered since they 

 used them. It will not do to plant in a bed of either muriate 

 or kainit, since the latter especially is dangerous to plant life; 

 but a heavy top dressing some days before planting so that a 

 rain will dissolve and carry the salts into the ground will prove 

 fatal to most of the insects in the soil. Experiments indicate 

 that the muriate is the more effective on insects and the least 

 injurious to plant life. 



In a recent number of the Sanitarian Dr. W. T. Parker pro- 

 tests against the thick planting of trees very near the house. 

 Not only do they prevent the free access of air and of sunshine 

 or even light, but they also injure the character of the soil as 

 suited for permanent occupation. "A soil," says the writer, 

 '* loaded with roots and densely shaded is unfit for man to live 

 upon constantly. . . . Vegetation produces a great effect upon 

 the movement of the air. Its velocity is checked, and some- 

 times in thick clusters of trees or underwood the air is almost 

 stagnant. If moist and decaying vegetation be a coincident 

 condition of such stagnation, the most fatal forms of malarious 

 diseases are produced. A moist soil is cold, and is generally 

 believed to predispose to rheumatism, catarrh and neuralgia. 

 It is a matter of general experience that most people feel 

 healthier on a dry soil. In some way, which is not clear, a 

 moist soil produces an unfavorable effect upon the lungs. A 

 moist soil influences greatly the development of the agent, 

 whatever it may be, which causes the paroxysmal fevers." Of 

 course in the desire to avoid possible dangers it is not 

 necessary to place a house on an absolutely bare spot, away 

 from any tree, as is often done by rural builders, even when 

 fine trees are within reach. Enough trees to produce an effect 

 agreeable to the eye and comfortably to shade certain portions 

 of the house and its immediate vicinity in summer, yet not so 

 many as to render the soil damp or prevent the free circula- 

 tion of air, or wholly shut out the sun. This should be the 

 householder's ideal. Conifers are especially bad if many of 

 them stand close to the house, because they exclude sunshine 

 in winter, when one cannot have too much of it. 



Mr. B. S. Williams, widely known as the author of the 

 standard work on Orchid culture, " The Orchid Manual," died 

 recently in his sixty-seventh year. He came of a family of 

 gardeners, having worked as a boy under his father (who is 

 still alive at the age of ninety-four) in the gardens of Mr. John 

 Warner, a famous Orchid-grower of the time. His most note- 

 worthy book was the outcome of a series of letters written to 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle under the title " Orchids for the Mil- 

 lion." It has gone through six editions, and his "Choice Stove 

 and Greenhouse Plants" and "Select Ferns and Lycopods " 

 are likewise esteemed as excellent manuals in their depart- 

 ments. For nearly half a century he has been a successful 

 exhibitor of various classes of plants. 



