September 17, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



449 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY LY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 







ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE l'OST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1890. 





TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Preparation for Planting; Trees. — The Beauty of Garden 



Flowers. — The Tulare Forest Reservation 449 



Plan for a Small Town Place. (With figure.) 4S° 



Color Notes on California Wild Flowers.— II C. R. Orcutt. 450 



A Suggestion from Nature H. B. Ayres. 451 



A New Enemy to Willows Professor John B. Smith. 451 



New or Little Known Plants : — A Curious Form of Kalmia. (With figure.) 



C. S. S. 452 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter W. Watson. 452 



Cultural Department :— Notes on Shrubs J. G. J. 454 



Mulching E. P. Powell. 454 



Hollyhocks Phono. 454 



Sarracenias W. H. Tafilin. 456 



Notes on American Plants F.H. Horsford. 456 



Dendrobium Findlavanum John Weathers. 456 



The Egg-Plant Blight Professor Byron D. Halsted. 457 



Chrysanthemums John Thorpe. 457 



The Forest : — The General Condition of the North American Forests. — II. 



Dr. Heinricli Mayr. 457 



Correspondence :— Wayside Beauty B. W. Barton. 45S 



Shrubs on Tree Borders H. W. S. Cleveland. 459 



Recent Publications 459 



Notes < 460 



Illustrations :— Kalmia latifolia, van, Fig. 56 453 



Plan for a Small Town Place, Fig. 57 455 



Preparation for Planting Trees. 



THE placing of a young tree in the ground after all 

 preparation for it has been carefully made is the work 

 of a few minutes only. As a rule, the proper season for 

 this operation in latitudes north of this city is in the 

 Spring ; but it is a fatal error to delay all preparation until 

 April or May. These preliminary steps require time, and 

 they should be taken with deliberation and care, so that it 

 is not a day too early to make a beginning. In the first 

 place, a careful study of the grounds should be made and 

 the precise spot selected where each tree is to stand. The 

 need for such a study would seem to be self-evident, but, 

 as a matter of fact, the amateur too often waits to purchase 

 his trees until the time for planting has actually arrived, 

 and then he sends for a number of such varieties as he or 

 his friends consider handsome, and after his trees have 

 been delivered on the ground he sets about hunting places 

 to plant them. Of course, in the rush and pressure of 

 spring work everything must be done hastily and carelessly, 

 and too often all the work is worse than wasted. 



When the positions have been selected and the proper 

 varieties of trees have been decided upon, it will pay the 

 planter to visit some good nursery and make his own selec- 

 tion from among the growing trees of first-rate and thrifty 

 specimens. He then can make his order intelligently, 

 and he should insist that the trees he has chosen should 

 be lifted from the nursery rows and forwarded to him 

 as soon as possible after the leaves have ripened. 

 Upon their arrival, any bruises which the roots have re- 

 ceived should be carefully cut away and the young trees 

 should be heeled in and left till spring. This operation 

 should be performed as thoroughly as the act of final 

 planting. A well drained place well sheltered from the 

 wind should be selected, and fine mellow earth should be 

 sifted among the roots and firmly packed about them. 

 When practicable, a mound should be raised about the 

 stems of the trees, and, if it is beaten smooth, the mice 

 will rarely trouble them during the winter, as they do not 

 like to climb up steep banks under the snow. When the 

 trees are heeled in with care calluses will form where the 



roots have been cut and white rootlets will at once be 

 thrown out in the warm earth, and they will furnish a sup- 

 ply of moisture to the trees and prevent their drying out in 

 winter. 



By all means the ground where the trees arc to be finally 

 placed should be prepared in autumn. This means that a 

 hole should be dug to the depth of three feet, and if 

 the trees are such as grow to a large size there is little 

 danger of making it too spacious. No thrifty tree is in 

 danger of having too much nutriment, and if the hole is 

 five or six yards across no injury will be done. After it 

 has been dug the loam should be shoveled back and the 

 coarse stones picked out, so that in the spring the ground 

 will have become firmly settled. If this work is delayed until 

 planting-time, and a deep hole is then dug, the loose earth 

 will settle away from the roots of the tree and leave air- 

 spaces, which may prove fatal. In the spring small holes 

 should be made in the centre of the large ones, but of 

 ample size to contain all the roots of the tree without 

 bending or cramping. The young trees should then be 

 carefully lifted from their wintering-places, so that the 

 fibrous roots will not be disturbed, and they should be set 

 with all care, as has been often explained in these columns, 

 special pains being taken to have the soil rammed com- 

 pactly about the roots. 



Of course, many trees are successfully planted in 

 autumn ; and it is often said that whether spring-planting 

 or autumn-planting is to be preferred depends upon the 

 season. If trees are planted in the fall they should be 

 moved as soon as the leaves have ripened, so that young 

 rootlets will form before the ground freezes. The plan 

 here recommended, however, is safe in any year, and 

 leaves the trees in the best condition to withstand a hard 

 winter or a dry summer. There is nothing novel in the 

 instructions given, and we repeat them now simply because 

 the time is at hand when preparation should begin, and 

 because every year brings a new crop of failures on the 

 part of novices whose delays make success impossible. 

 What is especially insisted on is that every single process 

 in the planting should be done in season and done with 

 care. This means that the planter should be able to give 

 an intelligent reason in every case why a given species or 

 variety has been selected and why it has been placed pre- 

 cisely where it stands. It means that no tree should be 

 planted but a thrift)'-, well-rooted and carefully lifted indi- 

 vidual, and that it should receive no check in transplanting, 

 but continue in uninterrupted growth with every possible 

 provision for, and assurance of, a long and vigorous life. 

 Without such deliberate care every tree planted will be 

 likely to prove a disappointment, which will grow more 

 bitter as the years roll on. While, on the other hand, 

 every tree which is planted as it should be, and which is 

 full of joyous life from the outset, will prove an enduring 

 and ever-increasing source of comfort and satisfaction. 



In Harper s Magazine for September Mr. Hamilton Gib- 

 son's pen and pencil once more invite us out-of-doors to 

 the wild gardens of Nature's own planting. Very beautiful 

 are the pictures of Cypripediums, Lupins, Pyrolas and the 

 rest, and very pleasant are the artist's sympathetic descrip- 

 tions of these wildings and their ways. 



But is it not possible for one to make room in his 

 affections for the flowers of the garden as well as for the 

 flowers of the wood-side and way-side ? Mr. Gibson seems 

 to doubt this, and he even stigmatizes as a "pagan mar- 

 plot" the gardener who had succeeded, as many others 

 have done, in flowering a hybrid Lady's Slipper of his own 

 production. 



Of course all hybrid Orchids are not more beautiful than 

 their parents, and some are not beautiful at all. Of course 

 such objects can never have the particular kind of charm 

 which invests a bit of Nature's handiwork chanced upon 

 out-doors. And, of course, a man who devotes himself to 

 hybridizing Orchids or anything else may become so 

 proud of his results as to lose sight of their relative 



