September 17, 1890 ] 



Garden and Forest. 



457 



clasped by the sheath "of an oblong-lanceolate acute leaf about 

 three inches long and somewhat leathery in texture. 



D. Findlay anwn takes its name from a Mr. James Findlay who 

 seems to have been the first European to discover it, about 

 1867, on the mountains dividing Burmah from Siam. Mr. 

 Findlay called the attention of the veteran collector and botan- 

 ist of Moulmein— Rev. C. Parish— to his find, and this gentleman 

 in connection with Professor Reichenbach duly named and 

 described it. It was not, however, until about ten years after 

 its discovery that its first flowers appeared in England, this 

 event taking place in the famous collection of Sir Trevor 

 Lawrence, at Dorking. 



The most convenient mode of growing this species is in 

 baskets, which may be suspended from the roof within a foot 

 or two of the glass, thus enabling the plants to receive abund- 

 ance of light, which they enjoy. When the sun, however, is 

 powerful the plants must be protected from its rays by means 

 of shading. When the young growths begin to push forth, 

 that is the time to begin increasing the supplies of water, and 

 when they are approaching maturity the supplies may gradu- 

 ally be decreased, at the same time giving the plants as much air 

 and light as is consistent with safety. The summer tempera- 

 ture may range from sixty-five to seventy-five degrees Fahr. 

 during the day, and about sixty degrees at night, while for the 

 winter these figures may be reduced by five or eight degrees. 



Isleworth, London, W. John Weathers. 



The Egg-Plant Blight.— The Egg-plant has been seriously 

 diseased during the present year, and the crop is light from 

 the inroads of a blight. Complaints have come from various 

 sources, but nowhere have the losses been greater than in 

 some portions of Gloucester County, New Jersey, where this 

 crop covers large areas, and where market-growers sometimes 

 plant as many as fifteen acres. A microscopic examination 

 of the diseased and drooping, half-developed plant reveals a 

 Fungus in the pale yellow leaves which, after sending its fine 

 threads all through the tissue, soon concentrates in small 

 areas and produces brown spots, over which are developed 

 minute dark specks. These specks bear the multitudes of 

 minute, colorless spores or reproductive bodies that are 

 capable of germination and producing the disease in healthy 

 parts of the same or other plant. The fruit upon the sickly 

 plants is small, and before reaching half the normal size the 

 skin turns brown in patches, followed by a dark pimply devel- 

 opment of the surface, which ultimately spreads over the 

 whole fruit. Before this, however, the fruit usually falls to 

 the ground, and shortly becomes a soft, spongy, rotten mass. 

 These decayed fruits, when left in the field, become the origin 

 of infection for other fruits ; for each pimple — and there are 

 thousands upon the same "egg" — is a spore-bearing body, as 

 are the black specks above mentioned as occurring upon the 

 brown patches of the leaves. This Egg-plant blight or rot is 

 closely related to the black rot of the Grape, and the same 

 differences between leaf and fruit-form are manifest. The 

 species is Phyllosiicta hortorum, Speg., and belongs to a large 

 genus of destructive parasitic Fungi. In. the laboratory it has 

 been an easy matter to propagate the disease from one fruit 

 to another, the infection showing itself in thirty-six hours. 

 There is but little doubt that by spraying the vines with Bor- 

 deaux mixture or carbonate of copper in ammonia the trouble 

 can be checked. 



Rutgers College. byrOll £>. Halsted. 



Chrysanthemums. — It is about time to lift Chrysanthemums 

 from the open ground. All plants should be dug around at 

 least four days before removal, and a full week would be bet- 

 ter. I use a sharp spade and thrust it in the ground around 

 each plant in a circle, which about equals the circumference 

 of the pot in which it is to be placed. The digging around 

 cuts off the long roots, after which young fibres are formed 

 within the circle, and they commence feeding at once. If the 

 long roots are cut at the time of lifting the food supply is 

 rudely checked, the plant wilts and often the buds are crip- 

 pled. The disbudding of all plants should be proceeded with 

 as soon as the buds are as large as Radish-seed. Do not shrink 

 from thinning severely. On one growth of stem from the sur- 

 face of the ground of a plant of Gloriosum I have to-day re- 

 moved forty-seven buds, leaving seven. These will be re- 

 duced to five, or perhaps to three, before the time of bloom- 

 ing. The flowers will be not less than five inches in diame- 

 ter, and will present nearly as much coloring as if the whole 

 crop of buds had been left, but with this difference, that a few 

 finely developed flowers will take the place of many puny ones. 

 By the end of the month it will be necessary to have all Chry- 



santhemums where they may be protected in case of a sharp 

 frost, which almost invariably occurs here between the 27th 

 of September and the 8th of October. _, , _, 



Pearl River, N. Y. John lllOrpe. 



The Forest. 



The General Condition of the North American 

 Forests. — II. 

 HPHE visitor from Europe is particularly surprised at the ex- 

 *■ traordinarily long and numerous wooden structures which 

 the railway train sets to vibrating in crossing the water- 

 courses. In America the streams retain a freedom of move- 

 ment of which they make full use; one year here, another 

 there. From high mountains the bed of a stream looks like a 

 broad white band of water and gravel banks, with green, 

 wooded islands between. 



Streams are a good indication of the state of cultivation 

 of the surrounding country. Those which from year to year 

 discharge their clear water into the sea, and through the 

 year scarcely vary in their water-level, come from an undis- 

 turbed wood-land. Their banks are held fast by the roots of 

 the trees in the region of the head-waters, and in the moun- 

 tains the water gathers slowly from the woods. Such streams 

 one sees now for the most part in uninhabited regions only; in 

 the Island of Hokaido, in northern Japan, for example, I have 

 found such. 



Streams which during the rainy season or during the season 

 of melting snow flow turbid, and' during the rest of the time 

 clear, showing in ordinary weather small variations in their 

 water-level, rise in woodlands, and flow through arable land, 

 part of the soil of whose roads and fields the rains wash into 

 the streams. Of this kind are the streams of Germany and 

 France. 



Finally, streams which year by year flow with turbid water, or 

 which, at least, through the rainy season rush through the culti- 

 vated plains to the sea with swollen floods, here carrying away 

 soil, there heaping up gravel-banks, come from an up-country 

 in which the forest is almost entirely wanting, or the deforest- 

 ing is under full headway. Such streams one sees, for exam- 

 ple, in Ceylon, where the English, with plantations of Tea, of 

 Coffee and of Cinchona, have begun the destruction of the 

 forests and the woodlands of the mountains. Such streams 

 are numerous in Japan, Spain and northern Italy. There the 

 streams are feared whenever it rains a few days longer than 

 usual. The American streams approach this stage. In their 

 unrestrained impetuosity they vie with each other in bringing 

 ruin upon their bottom-lands, which, as a rule, contain the best 

 soil. That a change must have taken place in a river is clear 

 when during the rainy season it undermines its banks covered 

 with trees that have stood for centuries, and finally sweeps them 

 away in its floods. Instances of this are numerous in America, 

 and speak plainly to every one who can and will see, more 

 plainly than all the books upon the influence of the deforesting 

 of the mountains and the plains upon the water-level of streams. 

 The deforesting of the Adirondacks through fire and in use- 

 ■ less attempts to take the mountains for agriculture, causes a 

 perceptible change in the water-level of the Hudson, which 

 during the dry season is fed with the moisture of the earth in 

 the Adirondacks. Formerly Peekskill was a water station of 

 the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This sta- 

 tion had to be abandoned because during the dry season the 

 salt water forces itself as high up the stream as Tivoli, and 

 salt water is unsuitable for feeding locomotives. 



Although the American engineer is familiar with the in- 

 creasing variation in the level of the streams, one sees but few 

 efforts to regulate their flow, which, indeed, would involve a 

 mere waste of money, as long as the average level of high 

 water is yearly becoming higher. Moreover, many look upon 

 the deforesting of the mountains with indifference, because 

 they believe that the forest, with its beneficent influence, can 

 be replaced upon a magnificent plan. Their idea is to fill 

 enormous reservoirs with water during the rainy season, and 

 then to permit the contents to flow throughout the cultivated 

 lands. But for the filling of such reservoirs a considerable 

 surface of soil which may collect the rain is necessary. It is 

 to be hoped that the rain will be so gracious as always to fall 

 with due regard for human safety, for the breaking of the res- 

 ervoirs might have worse consequences than a cloud-burst. 

 To me it seems much safer that the great amount of money 

 which permanent water-works would require should be utilized 

 in buying up the mountain lands and preserving their forests. 

 This would be good policy even without taking into account 

 the fact that these natural reservoirs bring in money, while the 

 artificial ones only swallow it up. 



