37 6 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 30, 1890. 



volume, as Professor Bailey explains, has been somewhat 

 hastily prepared and naturally he has not had the co-operation 

 of the horticulturists of the country to such an extent as he 

 should be able to count upon hereafter when the enterprise 

 has become an established success. One is hardly disposed, 

 therefore, to search for any shortcomings in the book, but 

 rather to welcome it as the beginning, of a series which will 

 prove of substantial value to American horticulture. We are 

 glad to note the promise that the scope of the succeeding vol- 

 umes will be broader so as to include more of European horti- 

 culture. 



Perhaps the chapters of most value arc those which deal 

 directly with plants of the year. The list of kitchen garden 

 vegetables seems very complete and it will furnish invaluable 

 material for studying plants in the future. It ought also to 

 serve a good purpose in preventing the duplication of names. 

 In looking over the catalogue of plant portraits for 1889 we ob- 

 serve that some half dozen of the portraits which have ap- 

 peared in this journal during the year have been omitted. 

 Some of these are important, as, for example, the portraits of 

 Croton Alabamensis, Philadclphus Lemoinei and Yucca elata. 

 We observe also that none of the illustrations in the American 

 Agriculturist have received any credit; but no doubt such 

 errors will be less frequent in the succeeding numbers. 



Notes. 



Eighty million feet of timber were contained this year in the 

 annual " drive " of logs sent down the Connecticut River, most 

 of it being consigned to Holyoke, Massachusetts. 



A large part of the cranberry picking on Cape Cod is now 

 done by Portuguese, both men and women being employed. 

 There are now more than a thousand of these immigrants in 

 Provincetown, forming about one-fourth of its population. 



Hollyhocks, single and double, formed the chief feature of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's show in Boston on 

 July 19th. Mr. Joseph S. Fay, of Wood's Holl, sent the largest 

 contribution, while those of Mr. C. F. Curtis, of Jamaica Plain, 

 Messrs. Edwin Sheppard & Son, of Lowell, and Dr. C. G. Weld, 

 of Brookline, were also remarked. 



The Japanese Box Elder (Negundo cissifolium), which has 

 been flowering and fruiting in this country for several years, 

 seems to be a most desirable tree for the borders of a small 

 lawn. It is a round-headed tree, with clean, thick foliage, and 

 it is strikingly beautiful in midsummer on account of the deli- 

 cate color of its young shoots, which continue to grow after 

 most other trees have finished their growth for the year. 



One objection to NympJicea tuberosa, of which Mr. Hors- 

 ford speaks in another column, is that by the production of 

 tubers it multiplies so rapidly that it will soon fill a large pond, 

 and may crowd out plants of less aggressive vitality. Mr. 

 Gerard finds that N. Marliacea is also prolific of tubers, so that 

 it will soon be within reach of every one, and it, too, may 

 prove a dangerous competitor in the struggle with other 

 aquatics. 



In his article on Botticelli, published in the Century Maga- 

 zine for August, Mr. W. J. Stillman says with reference to the 

 artist's picture of "Spring," where the foreground turf is 

 thickly dotted with the common flowers of Tuscan meadows : 

 "The non-occurrence of the Anemone, now one of the most 

 splendid attractions of the flora of Tuscany, in this collection 

 of flowers, which is painted with almost scientific exactitude, 

 is considered as a proof of the late arrival of that flower from 

 the East, and that it did not exist there in the time when this 

 picture was painted. It is certain that if it had been known in 

 the fields of Florence its conspicuousness of form and color 

 would have made it impossible to leave it out of this gorgeous 

 /tortus siccus." 



The house once occupied by Governor Endicott, which was 

 recently torn down in Salem, Massachusetts, was one of the 

 oldest in the commonwealth. It is said to have been first 

 framed in England, then brought across the ocean and set up 

 in Gloucester. In 1628 it was purchased by Endicott and 

 taken apart, removed to Salem and rebuilt on what is now the 

 corner of Washington and Church Streets. After the Gov- 

 ernor's death in 1665 it was still for some time occupied by his 

 family, and for a while the sessions of the General Court were 

 held within it. Afterward it was moved a short distance away, 

 and went through many vicissitudes, its last service having 

 been as a storage-house. Its timbers were found to be of Eng- 

 lish Oak of great size and still in apparently perfect condition. 



Bulletin No. 10 of the Minnesota Experiment Station speaks 

 as follows with regard to the bagging of Grapes : " The varie- 

 ties treated were Delaware, Early Victor and Brighton. The 

 fruit was bagged with paper bags when about the size of small 

 peas. At the harvest, the bagged grapes were better in every 

 case than those not bagged, but the most marked difference 

 was with the Brighton, the bunches of which were clean, per- 

 fectly colored, and the sweetest grape I have ever eaten. Those 

 exposed were not so good in any way, being very dusty and 

 uneven in ripening. In our previous trials with Concord and 

 Worden and some other varieties, the result has been uni- 

 formly in favor of the use of hags as a covering." The cost 

 of bagging was estimated as varying from a quarter of a cent 

 to one cent a pound. 



In answer to a question, Mr. F. W. Burbidge writes in The 

 Garden: "The first Cattleya ever introduced into Britain was 

 C. labiata, found by Mr. William Swainson in the Organ 

 Mountains, Brazil, and brought to England in 1818. On this 

 plant Lindley founded his genus Cattleya in honor of the late 

 Mr. W. Cattley, of Barnet, one of the first amateurs in England 

 to form a collection of Orchids. Mr. Cattley died in 1832 and 

 his plants went to the collection of Mr. Knight (now Veitch's) 

 at Chelsea. If this true old C. labiata exists wild now in Brazil, 

 its locality is unknown, and it has not been imported for forty 

 years or more. Sander has had men hunting for it for years, 

 but it is now believed to be extinct. In cultivation it is rare 

 and valuable, and is known as the old autumn-blooming C. 

 labiata or C. labiata vera. Botanically, however, all the 

 Cattleyas are now considered as geographical forms or varie- 

 ties of the old C. labiata. It has a robust constitution, as is 

 proved by its having lived on so long in our collections, since 

 the last importation came nearly half a century ago." 



In an article recently published in Nature it was stated that 

 " as far as known at present the Roses of western Asia have 

 no Sanscrit name and were not known in ancient India. Yet 

 Rosa Damascena is grown on a large scale for the manufac- 

 ture of Rose-water and essence of Roses throughout northern 

 India as far as Ghazipur, in twenty-five degrees north latitude. 

 It is not impossible that the western Roses were introduced 

 into India by the Mohammedans. As there is no Sanscrit 

 word, so is there no original term for the Rose in Hindoo. In 

 most Indian languages the cultivated Rose is called^/, which 

 is the Persian name. It is called giddb, which really means 

 Rose-water, unless, indeed, as sometimes stated by Munshis 

 in India, db in this case is a suffix with no separate meaning. 

 In addition to their local names, some of the wild Roses of 

 Himalayas are often called giddb, ban giddb (the Rose of the 

 Forest or Wild Rose). These facts seem to us of interest, as 

 illustrating that wide-spread influence of the Persians which 

 has been dwelt upon in the articles on the History of the Art 

 of Gardening which have recently been published in Garden 

 and Forest. 



The New York Sun recently contained a long description of 

 the Vanderbilt estate near Asheville, North Carolina. Not 

 only the magnitude of the enterprise but the intelligence with 

 which it has been undertaken puts it at the head of all con- 

 temporary enterprises of the kind in this country. Five thous- 

 and acres with a frontage of four miles on the French Broad 

 River were purchased by Mr. George Vanderbilt in a region 

 famed for beautiful scenery and a delightful climate. Messrs. 

 F. L. Olmsted & Co. were employed to aid in choosing and 

 preparing a site for the house, instead of being called in — as 

 is so often the case with landscape-gardeners — after the archi- 

 tect had done his work. The house, which Mr. R. M. Hunt 

 will build, is to be of Indiana limestone, and, with its connected 

 offices, nearly 500 feet in length. It has been designed in an 

 Italian Renaissance style, and one facade will' be supporteH by 

 a retaining-wall rising thirty feet from the face of a hill-side, 

 commandinga superb distant mountain view. Clay is abundant 

 in the vicinity, and a brick-making plant has been set up, as two 

 or three million bricks will be needed for the house and its 

 dependencies, in addition to tiles for the underdraining of the 

 land. Other materials will be brought to the spot by a branch 

 railroad two and a half miles long, constructed for the purpose, 

 from the nearest station. The intervale lands on the river are 

 to be farmed, while of the hill lands fully four thousand acres 

 are to be improved as a forest under the advice of the land- 

 scape architects. It bids fair to become, in a few years, one 

 of the most interesting places in America for the lover of rural 

 life on a lordly scale to visit, and one which will represent not 

 merely a large outlay of money, but the intelligent co-opera- 

 tion of great wealth with the best science and the highest art 

 that the time affords. 



