520 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 22, 1890. 



four parts ; salicylate of methyl, one part. The extract is said 

 to be entirely harmless. 



Mr. Sereno Watson continues his Contributions to Ameri- 

 can botany, printed in die Proceedings of the American Academy 

 of Arts and Sciences, No. 17 of the scries having; been issued 

 o\\ the 25th of September. It contains miscellaneous notes 

 upon North American plants, with descriptions of a number of 

 new species, and descriptions of new species from northern 

 Mexico, collected principally by Mr. C. G. Pringlc in 1888 and 

 1S89. A number of new species and three new genera dis- 

 covered by Mr. Pringlc are here characterized. 



The "Adirondack League Club," which owns 93,000 acres of 

 forest-land, is at once to have its property carefully surveyed 

 and inspected under the direction of Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief 

 of the Forestry Bureau of the Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington, its desire being to preserve and administer its 

 forests in the most scientific way. The example thus set to 

 other owners of woodlands cannot be too highly approved. 

 Nor has the aid of an expert in this special case been sought 

 too soon, if it is true that the club has signed a contract to sell 

 annually for the next fifteen years $30,000 worth of ripe Spruce 

 timber. 



The Manchurian representative of the Tartarian Maple 

 {Acer Tartaricum, var. Ginnala) is not surpassed by any plant 

 in the beauty of the coloring of its autumn foliage. The leaves 

 appear earlier than those of the native Maples, with the excep- 

 tion of the Red Maple, and assume the most brilliant scarlet 

 tints imaginable, retaining the color for a long time. This 

 Maple has proved one of the most valuable of all small exotic 

 trees for our northern gardens. It is very hardy ; the habit is 

 good, and the flowers, an unusual thing in flowers of the Ma- 

 ple, possess a delightful fragrance. It was introduced several 

 years ago into the Arnold Arboretum from St. Petersburg. 

 The largest plants in this country, are now eighteen or twenty 

 feet high, and flower and fruit regularly every year. 



At a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of Ger- 

 many, Chief Forest-master Kessler spoke strongly of the waste 

 and recklessness to which the forests of the United States are 

 falling a prey. Even now, as he pointed out, only eleven per 

 cent, of the surface of this country is in forest, as against 

 twenty-six per cent, of the surface of Germany. As our popu- 

 lation increases the proportion of wood supply to our needs 

 will, of course, rapidly diminish, but already the destruction of 

 our woodlands menaces not only the revenues which might 

 forever be derived from them, but also the fertility of the soil 

 in many broad districts. It is encouraging to learn that Mr. 

 Merritt, our Consul at Chemnitz, in Saxony, drew the attention 

 of our Government to Herr Kessler's remarks in a recent 

 official report. 



In his "Year Among the Trees; or, Woods and By-ways of 

 New England," published about ten years ago, Mr. Wilson 

 Flagg says : " When I am journeying through the country and 

 behold the rocky hills, sometimes for miles in extent, entirely 

 bare of trees and affording too little sustenance to support 

 even a crop of Whortleberry-bushes, where an acre would 

 hardly pasture a single sheep, I am informed by the older 

 inhabitants that these barren fields were since their childhood 

 covered with forest. This wood cannot be restored, because 

 the soil has been washed down from the surface to the plains 

 below, and nothing remains to support a new growth of trees. 

 And then I think, if our predecessors, instead of wrangling 

 about theology, had left its mysteries to be explained by their 

 pastors, and had studied some of the plain laws of meteor- 

 ology, this devastation had not taken place." Even to-day, we 

 may add, few persons realize that the laws of meteorology, as 

 well as of forestry itself and of commercial conditions, insist- 

 ently proclaim the necessity of forest-preservation. 



Under the McKinleybill a duty of twenty per cent, ad valorem 

 is now levied on "plants, trees, shrubs and vines of all kinds 

 known as nursery-stock" imported into the United States. 

 They were formerly admitted free. " Orchids, Lilies-of-the- 

 Valley, Azaleas, Palms and other plants used for forcing under 

 glass for cut flowers or decorative purposes" are still retained 

 on the free list, and bulbs or bulbous roots not edible, on 

 which a duty of twenty percent, was levied under the old law, 

 are now placed on the free list. Garden and agricidtural seeds, 

 and other seeds not specially provided for, with a few excep- 

 tions, still pay twenty per cent, ad valorem, although the fol- 

 lowingare onthefreelist : Anise, Canary, Caraway, Cardamom, 

 Coriander, Cotton, Cummin, Fennel, Fenugreek, Hemp, Hoar- 

 hound, Mustard, Rape, St. John's Bread or Bean, Sugar-beet, 

 Mangel-wurzel, Sorghum or Sugar-cane for seed, and all 

 Mower or grass seeds. These changes are likely to make a 



very considerable difference in the horticultural business of 

 the country. The admission of bulbs of flowering plants free 

 of duly should largely increase the importations of these plants 

 and stimulate their cultivation in this country. The duty of 

 twenty per cent, on so-called nursery-stock is likely to have 

 unfortunate results. Some plants, like hardy Rhododendrons, 

 hardy Azaleas, and certain conifers which require special cli- 

 matic conditions and much skilled labor to produce to the best 

 advantage, cannot be well grown in this country, and the duty 

 must have the tendency of reducing the number of such plants 

 used here. The retention of the duty on greenhouse plants, 

 which, so far as their production goes, come under the same 

 category as the plants already mentioned, is due to special 

 efforts of the florists of the country. The duty will not affect, 

 probably, the production of forest-tree seedlings in this coun- 

 try, and the only result will be to increase the cost to the 

 planter. American nurserymen have already demonstrated 

 their ability to produce better plants of this class at less cost 

 than they can be imported for from any European country. 

 The trade in Roses will probably be benefited by the duty, as 

 it has been the habit of some Continental growers to glut this 

 market yearly with their surplus and generally badly grown 

 stock, which under forced auction sales has demoralized 

 prices and made it difficult to find a market at fair prices for 

 good plants grown in this country or in England. 



An interesting bulletin from the Experiment Station of the 

 Kansas State Agricultural College treats of Experiments with 

 Fungicides for Stinking-Smut of Wheat. In many localities, 

 in nearly every Wheat-growing country, the crop is more or 

 less injured by this disease. It is not detected until the plants 

 have headed out, and even then it is often overlooked. Be- 

 fore the grain ripens a careful examination shows that certain 

 heads have a dark, bluish green color, while healthy plants 

 present a lighter, yellowish green color. During and after 

 ripening of the grain the smutted heads have a paler appear- 

 ance than healthy ones. At no time do the smutted heads 

 present the yellowish shade so characteristic of ripening 

 Wheat. When the smutted heads are examined it is found 

 that the grains have become dark and more or less swollen. 

 They are at first of a greenish color, but become brownish or 

 grayish when fully ripened. Because of their being usually 

 swollen, the smutted grains push the chaff apart more than the 

 sound kernels do, giving the head a slightly inflated appear- 

 ance. If one of the swollen smutted grains be crushed it is 

 found to be filled with a brownish powder which has a very 

 disagreeable and penetrating odor. Often the disease is not 

 discovered till the grain is threshed, when it is recognized by 

 the odor from the smutted grains crushed by the machine. 

 The smut may also be recognized during the milling, both from 

 the odor arising during the grinding and by the dark streaks 

 found in the flour. The dissemination of the disease is 

 brought about by the use of smutted seed. The brown pow- 

 der lodged in the threshing-machine may infect the seed, or 

 the smut remaining in the field may, perhaps, through the 

 soil, infect the succeeding crop. A summary of the results of 

 the experiments at the Kansas Station, which were carried out 

 by the botanists W. A. Kellerman and W. T. Swingle, shows 

 that the stinking-smut of Wheat is caused by two closely allied 

 parasitic Fungi called Tilletia fastens and Title tin Tritici ; that 

 these two species of smut differ only in a few microscopic 

 characters, and both produce the same disease, which is 

 spread by spores adhering to the sound grains before they are 

 planted, or, perhaps, rarely by spores present in the soil ; that 

 the damage from this disease is often very considerable, some- 

 times amounting to from one-half to three-quarters of the 

 whole crop ; that in ordinary cases the disease can be entirely 

 prevented by soaking the seed fifteen minutes in waterheated 

 to 132 F.; that the other fungicides used, when decreasing the 

 amount of smut, at the same time also interfered with the 

 germination, and reduced the vigor of the plants, and that 

 seed from clean fields (if the adjoining fields were not smutty) 

 will produce a crop of Wheat free from smut. 



Catalogues Received. 



Glenn & Drake, Columbus, Ind. ; Fruit and Flower Seeds 

 and Bulbs. — Haage & Schmidt, Erfurt, Germany ; Novelties of Seeds 

 and Bulbs. — Fred. W. Kelsey, 145 Broadway, New York; Trees, 

 Shrubs, Roses, Bulbs and Hardy Plants. — Spring City Nurseries 

 Company, Huntsville, Ala. ; Fruit and Ornamental Trees. — Samuel 

 C. Moon, Morrisville Pa. ; Ornamental Trees and Plants, Fruits, etc. 

 — Schlegel & Fottler, 26 South Market Street, Boston, Mass. ; 

 Seeds, Bulbs, Roots, etc. — Jas. M. Thorburn &Co., Fruit, Vegetable 

 and Flower Seeds. — Thos. S. Ware, Tottenham, London, England ; 

 Tree and Herbaceous Pfeonies. 



