36 



Garden and Forest. 



[January i6, 1889. 



Few persons know that the fruit of the Horse-Chestnut has 

 any economic value. But a recent report of the Agricultural 

 Department in Washington states that a flour is prepared 

 from it with which a paste is made for the use of bookbinders 

 — the bitter taste preventing the attacks of insects which are 

 often so destructive when a more palatable kind of paste is 

 employed. 



The fourth number of Lindenia contains portraits and de- 

 scriptions of the following Orchids : Liptotes bicolor, introduced 

 from Brazil in 1831, a species with white flowers, with a red 

 lip tinged with violet ; Odontoglossimi Halli, a Peruvian spe- 

 cies, which bears the name of its discoverer ; it has yellow 

 flowers spotted with brown ; Cypripediiim Mastersianum and 

 Vanda ccerulea. 



M. Ed. Andre publishes, in a recent issue of the Revue Hor- 

 ticole, a preliminary list, with characters, of the new species 

 and varieties of Bromeliads — no less than eighty-three in 

 number — discovered by him during his journey in South 

 America in 1875 and 1876. An important work upon 

 these plants, with figures and more detailed descriptions, is 

 announced and may soon be expected. 



The leaves of Galax Aphylla at this season are remarkably 

 beautiful, and they are now gathered in considerable quanti- 

 ties on the mountains of western North Carolina and sent 

 north to be used in winter decoration. Florists might make 

 good use of them in certain arrangements. The leaves range 

 in color from a bright, glossy green to deep crimson, maroon 

 and dark bronze, and often richly variegated. 



The State Horticultural Association of Oregon has prepared 

 a bill for the creation of a State Board of Agriculture, which 

 will be introduced in the coming session of the Legislature. It 

 looks to the protection of the fruit industries of the state — 

 directing that the Board shall have power to enforce certain 

 restrictions, appoint an inspector of fruit-pests, etc. — and also 

 to the advancement of horticulture in other ways. 



A florist of this city recently exhibited in his window 

 some flourishing plants of the common Red Clover {TrifoHum 

 pratense), almost every leaf of which had four, five or six 

 leaflets. The leaves are much smaller than those usually 

 seen when the plant has grown out-of-doors, but were propor- 

 tionately more delicate and graceful on their long stalks ; and, 

 set in large silver bowls, the plants were ornamental enough 

 to be prized at this season even apart from their significance 

 as harbingers of good luck. 



Mr. G. P. Rexford, of San Francisco, is preparing, under the 

 direction of the Department of Agriculture, an exhibit of Cali- 

 fornia-grown Figs, for the coming Paris Exposition. It is 

 proposed to make the fact more generally known that the 

 Smyrna Fig of commerce, as well as another choice variety, 

 the White Adriatic, is successfully grown in California, and in 

 order that the whole industry may be represented, not onlv 

 dried fruit, but Figs crystallized, pickled and preserved by all 

 methods, are to be included in the exhibit. 



It has been established by ample proof that injury to plums 

 can be prevented by spraying the trees early in the season with 

 one of the arsenites, but no explanation has been made as to 

 whether the adult beefles are destroyed, or whether the poison 

 reaches the young larvae. From a late bulletin issued by the 

 Cornell College Experiment Station it would seem to be estab- 

 lished that the adult beetles gnaw the surface of fruits for food 

 as well as for oviposidon. Besides this they eat freely of the 

 leaves of the tree, so that the curculio is freely exposed to de- 

 struction, without reference to its habit of oviposition or to 

 the fruit food of the larvse. 



On the sth of January the Museum of Natural History in this 

 city, which contains the Jesup Collection of American Woods, 

 was for the first time opened in the evening, and hereafter it 

 will not be closed on Saturdays until ten o'clock, and on 

 Wednesdays will be closed at the usual hour, but re-opened 

 between eight and ten o'clock. Of course it would have been 

 better for the public, and especially for that portion of it which 

 can derive the most practical good from such collections, had 

 the authorities consented to open the Museum on Sundays ; 

 but while awaidng the time when this change must surely be 

 made, its opening on two evenings each week is a distinct 

 benefit. 



An interesting little article in Popular Gardening tells us 

 that the first green-house known to have been constructed in 

 America was built in this city in 1764, on the grounds of Mr. 

 James Beekman, a property which lay where Fifty-second 

 Street now runs. It was a small rectangular building with no 

 sky-lights, but a solid hipped roof, and walls formed by a suc- 



cession of simple piers and large windows. The next form 

 adopted for green-houses had a hood-like roof with slanting 

 windows. This was followed by the lean-to— a house with a 

 back wall about twelve feet in height and a front wall about 

 four feet in height, with a slanting roof of glass. Two of these 

 structures joined together give, of course, the form now 

 commonly employed. 



The most popular ornamental baskets for florists' use seem 

 just now to be rather large and shallow ones, with tall handles, 

 bent to a rectangular shape, which are covered, body and 

 handle both, with folds of ribbon. It is a question whether it 

 is as tasteful to use such an extent of color in connection with 

 flowers as to use the simple, harmonious tone of uncolored 

 straw. Nevertheless, the public always fancies new and 

 "effective" arrangements, and when the color of the ribbon 

 contrasts properly with that of the flowers, and too many bows 

 and streamers are not employed, these baskets are distinctly 

 better than many we have seen in recent years. The fashion 

 seems to have come from France, where baskets of this kind 

 are often used to contain two or three pots with growing 

 plants, the pots themselves being covered from sight with 

 trimmings of green. Something maybe learned from Parisian 

 florists as regards the number of blossoms which should be 

 used. Too often in this country we see more blossoms and 

 less foliage than is desirable, while in Paris, even when cut 

 flowers are used, four or six fine specimens, relieved against a 

 great mass of green, are preferred to a more compact dis- 

 play in which the beauty of individual flowers cannot be so 

 well revealed. 



The Garden (London) recently offered a series of prizes for 

 collections of photographs of rural and horticultural subjects 

 taken by amateurs. The result has just been announced, and 

 a very large number of pictures seems to have been submitted, 

 showing much diversity of subject matter. The first prize fell 

 to the Earl of Annesley for a collection of " interesting garden 

 subjects" ; the second to Mr. Good, for "pretty garden plants 

 and country houses," and the third to Mr. Murray, for "fine 

 old Devonshire gardens and country houses. Cork-trees at 

 Mount Edgecumbe," and other similar subjects. A long list 

 of minor prizes is also printed, and many of the photographs 

 in question will be reproduced in the columns of The Garden. 

 Some remarks appended by the editors to their list of prizes 

 may well be quoted for the benefit of American photogra- 

 phers. Among the causes of failure they noted were : "The 

 want of simple, natural ways of arranging cut flowers. The 

 complex bundles generally seen look worse in a photograph 

 than they actually are. The backgrounds, too, are not always 

 considered in relation to the color of the flowers ; a crowd of 

 so-called ' artistic ' objects around is fatal, as is the flower-jar 

 all set over with a pattern. . . . Very common subjects 

 now and then result in failure, as Lilium auratuni, which 

 has been so often well done. On the other hand, some beau- 

 tiful common things are never done well — as the Apple, Pear 

 or Thorn-tree in bloom, and many wild flowers." 



" In Sweden," writes a correspondent of The American 

 Garden, "railroad gardening has reached a considerable 

 advancement far greater than it has in England. The state 

 roads in particular have done much to adorn all their stations. 

 The station buildings themselves, though impretentious, are 

 neat and tasteful in construction. The out-houses are always 

 partially or wholly concealed, and are never unsightly even 

 when most conspicuous. . . . An area of from two to four 

 rods in width and from twice to ten times as long is devoted 

 to the railroad gardens. The general plan of this ornamenta- 

 tion consists in planting so as to hide the outer boundary and 

 in laying walks to various objects in such a manner as to rep- 

 resent a pleasure ground. The planting is always well done, 

 mostly of native trees and bushes, and, better than all, the 

 plants are cared for. At the larger stations these gardens are 

 of considerable extent and form important openings in the 

 city. The one about the central station at Stockholm is worthy 

 the denomination of park. Between stations there are at short 

 and regular intervals the residences of section overseers — the 

 banwakt — about which are small and tidy kitchen gardens and 

 beds of flowers and clumps of bushes. These houses are 

 usually all of a pattern, small and attractive, and are furnished 

 by the railroad company, along with a parcel of land for pri- 

 vate use. The banwakt receives in addition a salary of 80 

 kroner (something over $20 per month), and has free trans- 

 portation on the road to and from market and is given his 

 uniform. A certain portion of the road is allotted to his care, 

 and in addition to duties connected with the track itself, he 

 keeps the roadside tidy. American railways have too much 

 land lying idle along their lines to allow of tidy roadsides." 



