5 68 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 19, 1890. 



Tong, gardener to Mr. W. L. Scott, of Erie, Pennsylvania. His 

 rose colored Mowers, while not large, were distinct and pleas- 

 ing. Curiously different were the airy blooms of the Massassan- 

 qua Garden, Erie, Pennsylvania, and the white Ben d'Or of this 

 selection, very noticeable. Mr. T. H. Spaulding exhibited his 

 valuable novelties which attracted so much attention and gained 

 the prize at the Orange show. He had also Mrs. Frances Spauld- 

 ing, a line yellow sort, rich colored, light, but full. Scattered 

 through the exhibition were many other seedling plants of 

 sul'lieient merit to deserve a special description in almost any 

 other company. 

 New York. >S. 



Notes. 



The Report of the proceedings of the Boston Convention of 

 the Society of American Florists has been received: It makes 

 an attractive and instructive pamphlet of 140 pages. 



It seems curious to read in an Austrian journal that while 

 herbaceous Paeonies are common in England, France and 

 even Germany, they are scarcely ever seen in Austria except 

 in one or two private gardens. 



A correspondent calls our attention to the fact that a Ginkgo- 

 tree in the garden of Mr. Robert Johnston, of Providence, has 

 produced crops of fruit since 1887. This tree and its male 

 companion were imported from France in pots in 1849. 



Dr. H. Mayr, Professor of Silviculture in the University of 

 Tokio, and author of an important work on the forests of the 

 United States, will return to Europe daring the coming year 

 to assume a position in the forest-administration of Bavaria, 

 his native land. 



It is said that dried flowers of Lilium balbiferiim and Heme- 

 rocallis graminea are sold in Chinese towns, woven together 

 in braids of some five inches long. They have local renown 

 as a remedy for diseases of the lungs, and are also used by 

 cooks to flavor dishes of meat. 



Peter Kieffer, well known as the introducer of the famous 

 Pear which bears his name, died in Roxborough, Philadelphia, 

 on November the 7th. Mr. Kieffer was born in Alsace in 1812, 

 and came to America in 1834. He built up an extensive busi- 

 ness, and was widely known as a pomologist. 



Some plants which are very susceptible to a chill in the 

 spring when they are young become quite able to endure the 

 frosts of early autumn. We have observed that several plants 

 of Cobcea scandens, which cover porches on the south or east 

 sides of a house, still hold their green leaves, and what is 

 more, are showing an abundance of flowers in this latter part 

 of November. 



A correspondent of the Illitstrirte Gartenzeitung, of Vienna, 

 says that in a private garden, of which the exact locality is not 

 given, there bloomed this year for the first time a Clematis of 

 unusual color. It is a hybrid of two years' growth from seed, 

 and the large blossom, more than four and a half inches in 

 diameter, is of a uniform dark crimson, similar to the color of 

 the flowers of Rubus odoratus. 



The Botanical Garden at Prague, which contained a fine as- 

 sortment of hardy as well as greenhouse plants, was totally 

 ruined by the great flood which in September last swept away 

 the famous old bridge over the Moldau. For four days the 

 water lay two feet deep above the greenhouses and plantations, 

 and in the lowest parts of the arboretum it remained for ten 

 days, to the entire destruction of almost all the plants. 



In commenting on the formal style of gardening which he 

 was so largely instrumental in driving out of fashion, Horace 

 Walpole amusingly says : " In the garden of Marshal de Biron 

 at Paris, consisting of fourteen acres, every walk is buttoned 

 on each side by rows of flower-pots, which succeed in their 

 seasons. When I saw it there were 9,000 pots of Asters or 

 La Reine Marguerite — that is to say, what we now call China 

 Asters." 



Mr. W. J. Green, horticulturist of the Ohio Experiment 

 Stations, in the summary of his report on Raspberries says 

 that the Black Cap varieties now considered the most reliable 

 are: Gregg, Hilborn, Ohio, Palmer. The red sorts that succeed 

 best generally are Turner and Shaffer ; the best for shipping 

 are Brandywine and Marlboro. Muskinghum, Royal Church 

 and Thompson's Early Prolific are the most promising of the 

 newer varieties. 



According to the New York Tribune the increase of grape 

 production in California has by no means decreased the 

 amount of our importations from foreign lands. On the con- 



trary, while twenty years ago not more than 500 barrels of 

 grapes were annually brought from Spain, this year there will 

 have come from the one port of Almeria alone no less than 

 180,000 barrels of the fruit. The importations are sold by 

 auction, and bring from $3.50 to $16 a barrel. 



The autumn colors of trees and shrubs are so striking that 

 we sometimes overlook the herbaceous plants which add 

 splendor to this season. Lysimaehia clethroides is something 

 of a weed, but just now a mass of it cannot fail to arrest atten- 

 tion by the rich crimson and yellow of its leaves. The little 

 blue Plumbago, too {Ceratostlgma plumbaginoides), which was 

 covered until frost with its deep blue flowers, now makes a car- 

 pet of crimson deepening into maroon. This is a good plant 

 for half shady places, where some low-growing thing is needed 

 to cover the ground. 



A German horticultural journal recently spoke with high 

 approval of the so-called "American Giant Cyclamen," Dodeca- 

 theon Clevelandi, which, it said, would for the first time be 

 offered to the trade this year by American nurserymen. It is 

 not a Cyclamen, of course, but has gained its popular name 

 from the fact that its large violet-blue flowers, with yellow and 

 black centres, somewhat resemble Cyclamen flowers in shape. 

 It is a native of California, discovered about three years ago, 

 and is a hardy perennial which thrives best in rather shady 

 localities. It bears from six to ten blossoms on a leafless 

 scape about fifteen inches in height. 



Worlidge, an English horticulturist who wrote in the year 

 1677, suggested that the name "Guelder-rose " (still commonly 

 applied to the Snowball, Viburnum opulus sterilis) was 

 notimprobably a corruption of " Elder-rose," as the flowers of 

 this Viburnum resemble those of the Elder. Some modern 

 etymologists have adopted this explanation, and it seems sup- 

 ported by the fact that the name is perhaps more often writ- 

 ten "Gelder-rose" than "Guelder-rose." But others derive 

 the term from an old belief that the flower first came from 

 Guelderland in Holland, and point as evidence to the Dutch 

 name Geldersche-roos and the French Rose de Gueldre. 



An article in a recent number of the Gardeners' Chronicle sbns 

 that the demand for trees for planting has vastly grown of 

 recent years and promises still further to increase in the 

 future. One firm of nurserymen, whose establishment which 

 is yearly being enlarged, lies not far from Carlisle, now 

 annually plants out more than two million seedling Larches 

 between two and three million Scotch Firs, one million 

 Spruces, the same number of Corsican Pines and of Austrian 

 Pines, a hundred thousand Douglas Firs, and millions of 

 Thorns, Beeches, Sycamore Maples, Ashes and other hard- 

 wood trees. This stock is eventually distributed not only 

 through Great Britain, but through the United States, Canada 

 and the various colonies. 



We have elsewhere shown that it is important to give the 

 children of our public schools some elementary instruction 

 concerning trees, and especially the native trees which grow 

 all about them. It is an encouraging sign that lectures on' 

 trees and forests now form part of the exercises at teachers' 

 institutes in many places. Mr. Fernow not long ago addressed 

 an audience of 600 teachers at Norristown, Pennsylvania, and 

 this will doubtless inspire a great many familiar talks 'by a 

 number of these teachers to their pupils. Miss Graceanna 

 Lewis, of Media, Pennsylvania, is prepared to give to schools 

 or private classes a course of four lectures on Oaks, Maples 

 and Beeches, with original illustrations showing the form, size 

 and color of the leaves of each species. The multiplication 

 of such influences and efforts is greatly to be desired. 



In the October number of the Illustrirte Gartenzeituno- of 

 Vienna, under the caption "The new Magnolia Rraseri,"'we 

 read that "this novelty " bloomed last spring in Philadelphia- 

 that a specimen of it stands in Bartram's garden, in that town,' 

 and two others in Germantown, and that one of the latter 

 " yearly blooms in profusion, but has not yet ripened seed." 

 It is true that Magnolia Fraseri is not often seen in cultivation 

 and for this reason the Philadelphia specimens (which show it 

 to be hardy far northward of its native habitat) are of interest 

 to horticulturists. But it is hardly correct to describe as "a 

 novelty" a Magnolia which was discovered by Bartram in 

 1776, was introduced by him into England in 1786, and was 

 sent by the elder Michaux to France in 1789. Readers of the 

 Gartenseilung may easily be misled into thinking it a genuine 

 novelty of perhaps Japanese origin. Its true home is in the 

 southern Alleghany Mountains, and especially along the 

 streams which flow from the Blue Ridge, the Black and the 

 Big Smoky Mountains. It is there called the Mountain Mag- 

 nolia or the Long-leaved Cucumber-tree. 



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