5 o8 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 15, 1890. 



Plants one year from seed are strong, and bear from fifty to a 

 hundred buds. 



Sir Joseph Hooker's interesting and sympathetic account of 

 the scientific career of the late John Ball prepared for the 

 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society has now been issued 

 separately. 



In an article on irrigation in China, General Tcheng KiTong 

 says in the Revue Scientifique that the system of water regula- 

 tion in that empire is one of the greatest achievements of the 

 intelligence and labor of man. 



Very striking just now, when flowers are rare, are tall plants 

 of Maximilian's Sunflower. In good soil these are eight or ten 

 feet high, and where they have been properly tied up they 

 spread out into a great dome of bright yellow blossoms which 

 last a long time. 



One hundred and sixty-five varieties of Rice, says a recent 

 writer in the Popular Science Monthly, are recognized by the 

 planters of Ceylon. The product of Chinese plantations was 

 greatly improved by the influence of imperial edicts prohibit- 

 ing the planting of any but the largest grains, while the best 

 variety grown in our own country is due to the intelligence of 

 a South Carolina planter who, noticing some very long grains 

 on an ear, secured them and perpetuated their excellence. 



Mr. E. W. Hammond, of Wimer, Oregon, sends the dimen- 

 sions of an Elder-tree (Sambuca glauca) growing in Jackson- 

 ville, the county-seat of Jackson County, in that state, which 

 are worth putting on record. This remarkable specimen, 

 which is believed to have been planted in 1859 or i860, now 

 girths seven feet two inches at three feet from the ground. 

 The trunk retains the same size up to five feet; then increases 

 somewhat up to its division into main branches, which occurs 

 at eight feet from the ground. The spread of the branches is 

 thirty-three feet, and the total height of the tree about forty. 

 The enlarged base of the trunk girths 141 inches. 



Mr. Charles Mohr has published an interesting pamphlet on 

 " The Medicinal Plants of Alabama," describing not only their 

 distribution and their characteristics, but the proper time for 

 collecting their useful portions. As the forests north of the 

 Ohio have been cut away, the centre for the supply of medi- 

 cinal plants has shifted to North Carolina and the northern 

 parts of Alabama are now also being drawn upon. Most of 

 these plants are forest-nurslings, and thus, says Dr. Mohr, 

 " we find the interests of the healing art closely connected with 

 the question of the preservation of the forests of our country, 

 and the pharmacist should feel in duty bound to unite his 

 efforts with those who are already striving to secure this im- 

 portant object." 



A method of marketing fruit which originated in Schleswig, 

 but which has extended to many other parts of Germany, has 

 proved successful in securing buyers against a bad article and 

 in giving an opportunity for good growers to make sales of a 

 good article. Samples of various fruits are placed in dishes 

 for exhibition in a sales-room by growers who are prepared to 

 furnish various kinds. The buyer has only to write his name 

 and address on a card, with the quantity he wishes, and leave 

 it at the central office, with the number of the plate. The 

 order is then forwarded from the office to the grower, who in 

 turn delivers his goods there. Here the fruit is inspected, and 

 if it comes up to the sample in quality it is forwarded to the 

 buyer. If it proves inferior it is returned at once to the grower. 

 A grower who, on three occasions, furnishes goods inferior to 

 the samples is excluded from the market. The office receives 

 10 per cent, commission for inspecting, forwarding, etc. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle says that a technical school has 

 been established at Lambeth for the purpose of teaching 

 weaving on the most scientific principles, and also for that of 

 testing the leaves of all promising plants, "to see if any suit- 

 able substitutes for Flax and Hemp can be discovered. Pre- 

 vious would-be discoverers . . . have failed through want of 

 funds, time, patience or some other necessary. At the fac- 

 tory we now speak of the leaves of Agaves, Aloes, Phormhim 

 tenax, Palms and Rhea have been tried with good, but not 

 entirely satisfactory, results. The processes necessary for the 

 conversion of a fibrous leaf into a textile fabric are complex 

 and tedious: among many others may be cited those of remov- 

 ing the gum, combing, spinning, bleaching, dyeing and weav- 

 ing, which not only have to be performed, but done as well 

 and speedily as possible. To find any plant with fibre which 

 will lend itself to all these processes and which will be suffi- 

 ciently cheap and productive is the aim and the object of Mr. 

 Taylor Burrows, the manager of the factory, who is prepared 



to test any fibrous plants submitted to him for that purpose, 

 and to give any information concerning the botany of such 

 specimens and the best way of raising them in quantities, 

 should such a proceeding prove worth while." 



One of the bulletins of the Ohio Experiment Station, after 

 speaking of the difficulty which attends the testing of soils in 

 the laboratory, says that the results of investigations on the 

 spot are equally uncertain. " Take any single acre of ground 

 for illustration. An open glade in the original forest may have 

 permitted the wind to sweep away its winter coverlet of leaves, 

 and they may have lodged in a thicket of underbrush adjoin- 

 ing, carrying stores of potash and phosphoric acid with them. 

 Such a glade may have been for centuries the pasturing 

 ground of deer. It would then accumulate nitrogen, but 

 would lose potash and phosphoric, acid through an additional 

 channel, while the thicket would accumulate these in excess 

 of nitrogen. The growth of a surface-rooting tree in one spot 

 may have drawn upon the adjacent surface-soil for supplies 

 of potash ; that of a tree with a deep tap root in another may 

 have drawn its support largely from deeper layers of the soil 

 and also have opened a way for drainage. A slight depression 

 of the soil here may have received added fertility in the waste 

 from a slight elevation there, and he who has studied the soil 

 carefully, especially where its levels are shown by the melting 

 of snow when the ground is frozen, will have detected irregu- 

 larities of level unsuspected by the casual observer." 



An admirable system for labeling the trees and many of the 

 important shrubs in the National Botanic Garden in Brussels 

 has been adopted. Sheets of stiff metal twelve inches by 

 eight are covered on the outer surface with white enamel, on 

 which, at the top, are printed the Latin name of the plant, with 

 the best known French and Flemish names below. Under the 

 name a map of the continent to which the plant belongs is 

 drawn in black lines, and the area of its distribution marked 

 in red. This is practically the same system of labeling as that 

 which has been in use for several years in the Jesup Collection 

 of North American Woods in the Natural History Museum of 

 this city, and which was awarded last year a medal of the Paris 

 Exposition. The labels in the Paris Garden are attached to 

 large trees by a small screw and are placed on a level with the 

 eye. For plants which are not large enough to carry the label 

 it is fixed at the top of a stout iron rod placed before them. The 

 metal used for the label is stiff enough to prevent it from being 

 easily bent or broken, although the authorities complain that 

 the enamel is sometimes cracked and defaced by boys 

 throwing stones at the labels. One of the garden staff is 

 constantly employed in preparing these labels, which are pro- 

 duced at what seems the surprising low price of about one 

 franc each. 



An interesting picture, recently published in the Revue Hor- 

 ticole, shows how the Japanese, not content with dwarfing and 

 distorting plants, sometimes cause them to simulate a totally 

 alien manner of growth. It was drawn from a specimen ex- 

 hibited at the International Exhibition last summer and 

 represents Aspidiutn lepidocaulon, a Fern which the botanical 

 dictionaries describe as stemless or nearly so, with fronds from 

 one foot to a foot and a half in length, which often have a 

 long filiform tip furnished with a terminal bud ready to take 

 root. In the picture aforesaid there appears to grow from the 

 soil in the pot a rough, swollen stipe as large as a cocoanut ; 

 from this spring, at diverging angles, two similar bodies, and 

 from the top of each of these grows a luxuriant tuft of fronds. 

 When the seemingly single plant was examined the process of 

 its manufacture was made clear. Several plants with their 

 roots had been taken, and the roots wrapped, up to the spring- 

 ing of the leaves, in compressed Moss, forming ovoid bodies, 

 two of which seemed to grow from the one beneath them, the 

 different plants being so placed, at various heights, as to simu- 

 late ramifications. These ovoid bodies had then been care- 

 fully wrapped in Palm fibres so delicately manipulated as to 

 appear a natural envelope. Thus the Ferns were actually 

 growing in the concealed Moss while seeming to be nourished 

 from the earth in the pot through the large artificial (but natural- 

 looking) stipes. 



Catalogues Received. 



P. J. Berckmans, Augusta, Ga. ; Fruit and Ornamental Trees, 

 Hardy Evergreens and Roses. — Wm. C. Cusick, Union, Ore. ; Flower- 

 ing Plants and Ferns. — Dammann & Co., San Giovanni a Teduccio, 

 Italy ; Vegetable, Flower and Tree Seeds, and Bulbs. — A. Dessert, 

 Chenonceaux, Indre-et- Loire, France ; Tree and Herbaceous Pasonies. 

 — Peter Duryee & Co., 68 & 70 Vesey Street, New York ; The Styron 

 Fence. — P. H. Foster, Babylon, N. Y. ; Fruit and Ornamental Trees. 



