January 23, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



47 



disease has "come out." I have lately attended a meeting of 

 the Horticultural Society of eastern Iowa and the meeting of 

 the society of western Iowa, and failed to hear even one va- 

 riety of Russian Apples — or any other Russian fruit — com- 

 mended as reliable for general cultivation in Iowa. 



Regarding Russian Pears and stone fruits, no man can say 

 that any one variety has yet shown reasonable ground to ex- 

 pect of it permanent usefulness in any single region of the 

 west. The truth is that experience on the prairies has thus 

 far failed to justify the expectations raised by the over-hopeful 

 introducers of Russian fruits. The failures have not all been 

 proclaimed. We are awaiting further trials, but without 

 enthusiasm. 



It would be interesdng to know upon what authority Dr. 

 Hoskins bases his belief that "The Russian tree fruits are 

 undoubtedly of hybrid origin ; . . in the valley of the Volga 

 and the Steppe region the influence of north Asia stock pre- 

 ponderates." De Candolle, who had been supposed very high 

 autiiority, takes a diametrically opposite view, saying of the 

 Apple: "The lack of communication with Asia before the 

 Aryan invasion, makes it probable that the tree was indigen- 

 ous in Europe, as in Anatolia, the south of the Caucasus and 

 northern Russia, and that its cultivation began early every- 

 where." 



The names of a large portion of the Russian fruits received 

 in the west indicate a German origin. 



Des Moines, Iowa. December 24th, 1888. C, L. WatrOHS. 



Periodical Literature. 



A supplement published with the Christmas number of the 

 American Florist gives one a good chanCe to see the average 

 level attained by our florists in the preparation of " set pieces " 

 and floral decorations for public and domestic buildings on 

 festal occasions. It contains more than seventy pictures of 

 such designs, ranging from small baskets and bouquets to 

 altar decorations, uicluding a number of arrangements for 

 funerals and weddings. In many cases great ingenuity is 

 sliown in the application of flowers to would-be decorative pur- 

 poses ; but, unfortunately, in many instances it is ingenuity 

 misapplied. In one picture we see an upright piano swathed 

 with roses in a way that could hardly be improved upon, if it is 

 assumed that so to enwrap a piece of furniture is a task that 

 good taste can sanction. And the artist who constructed the 

 " Funeral Design of Jacob's Ladder, or the Golden Stairs," or 

 the "Flora! Table," or huge " Floral Butterfly," must have 

 possessed a degree of skill which might profitably have been 

 devoted to a better purpose. Among the worst things in the 

 collection are those which show the manner in which certain 

 pidjlic monuments had been treated on Decoration Day — 

 notably the Farragut statue on Madison Square, where " the 

 old Salamander " is made to look ridiculous with a huge 

 wreath encircling his body, while the sculptured base is en- 

 tirely concealed by ugly constructions representing ladders, 

 swords, cannon and a steamship at sea. Some of the chancel 

 and staircase arrangements of foliage plants, on the other 

 hand, are very good ; and nothing in the shape of a set piece 

 could be better than the "Trinity Cross," composed chiefly of 

 Lilies and very graceful in shape. A simple and appropriate 

 fiuieral wreath is one formed of four Palm branches lield 

 together by two bunches of Lilies-of-the-Valley, and some of 

 the little baskets filled with only one or two kinds of flowers 

 are also pretty. But too many of the baskets shown arc far 

 too elaborate for their purpose, and we find that even the per- 

 verted taste for baskets in the form of shoes, hats and other 

 objects wlioUy inappropriate for association with flowers, still 

 persists. On the whole, the collection of pictures proves that 

 good taste is by no means absent in this community, which 

 uses cut flowers more profusely than any other in the world, 

 but that there is still great room for improvement, and much 

 need for the cultivation of greater simplicity and a truer ap- 

 preciation of what the beauty of flowers really is. 



It appears from an interesting article published in the Decem- 

 ber number of the Druggist' s Bulletin that the annual crop of 

 the American Ginseng-root, which for the last twenty years 

 has amounted, on an average, to 400,000 pounds, is all exported 

 to Ciiina. The first shipments are said to have been made in 

 the year 1718 through the agency of the French missionaries 

 in China. The American Ginseng {Aralia quinqiiefolid) grows 

 in the dense forests from Canada to the high mountains of 

 Carolina and Tennessee, and from Maine to the Mississippiv 

 It has a stout root, three to six inches in length, di\'ided 

 into two lobes at the base, which is usually harvested before 



the ripening of the seed, a practice which is gradually exter- 

 minating the plant. The demand, liowever, is steadily in- 

 creasing, while the production in late years is falling off, so that 

 the priceat the present time has risen to two dollars and a half 

 a pound. The maximum exj^ort of 600,000 pounds was reachetl 

 in i860, since which time it has gradually diminislied, and is 

 now lower than the average of the last forty years ; and it 

 seems to be only a question of time when the Ginseng will be 

 exterminated, unless the time of gathering the roots can be 

 regulated so that the seeds may ripen and fall before the roots 

 are dug. 



Various attempts have been made to cultivate the Ginseng, 

 especially in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but no 

 satisfactory results have yet been reached. Large roots, which 

 are the only ones that find a ready sale at remunerative prices, 

 have only been produced from plants grown natiu-ally in the 

 shade of dense forests. As is well known, the roots of the 

 Ginseng have no medical value whatever, and their use by the 

 Chinese from time immemorial seems based upon some 

 popular superstition in regard to this plant. But whether it is 

 valuable or not, it is an important article of export, for which 

 there is, and probably always will be, an active demand ; and 

 it seems for the interest of the commimities in which this 

 plant grows to prevent its extermination by legislation, for the 

 same reason and in the same manner that game is protected 

 during a certain part of each year. 



In a late number of Nature it is stated that at the meeting of 

 the Scientific Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society on 

 November 13th, Mr. Henslow showed specimens of several 

 species of plants which are propagated by cleistogamous flower- 

 buds. By that means, while retaining a dwarf habit, they are 

 able to multiply very rapidly, and to extend over considerable 

 areas in a tennis-lawn. Although none of them are perennials, 

 they remain so reduced in size that they are not exterminated 

 by the mowing-machine periodically cutting them down. The 

 result is that each species has more or less covered certain 

 patches of ground, to the almost entire exclusion of every- 

 thing else. The plants in question are Cerastium glomeratuin, 

 Montia fontana, Trifolium procuinbens, Sagina procumbens, 

 Alcheniilla arvensis, Veronica arvensis and Pea annua. Mr. 

 Henslow added that he had observed, many years ago, Tri- 

 foliiun subterraneum flourishing in the same way in the close- 

 cut grass in Kew Gardens, on the site of the present rockery. 



Recent Plant Portraits. 



PiNUS Laricio, Gardeners' Chronicle, December 15th ; a 

 portrait of the specimen growing in Kew Gardens near the 

 principal entrance, and planted by R. A. Salisbury in 1814. 



Satyrium carnium. Gardeners' Chronicle, December 15th. 



Ficus Roxburghii, Gardeners' Chronicle, December 

 15th ; an admirable reproduction of the fronfispiece to Dr. 

 King's monograph of the south Asia Figs, showing the curi- 

 ous way in which the abundant fruit of this species is pro- 

 duced. ''Ficus Roxburghii," to quote from the columns of 

 our contemporary, " is a native of the lower and outer Hima- 

 layas from Nepal to Bhotan, being found at elevations of from 

 1,000 to 3,000 feet. It is a tree from fifteen to twenty-five feet 

 in height, and with a wide, spreading head. The leaves are 

 large, measuring from one to one and a half feet in length, 

 and from twelve to fifteen inches in breadth. The most 

 striking feature in the tree is, however, the great abimdance 

 of its handsome, russet-red figs. These figs, in shape and 

 size, much resembl^e Dutch turnips. They are carried in 

 enormous bunches on the stem, especially near its base, and 

 smaller bundles on the main branches. The mass of figs 

 borne at the collar of the stem on this singular tree at tlie 

 time when it was photographed, as Dr. King informs us, was 

 about a hundred weight. The fruit, however, although eaten 

 by the unfastidious Indian laborer, is quite unpalatable to a 

 European, being insipid and sloppy." 



AjiBUTUS Anrachne, Gardeners' Chronicle, December 22d ; 

 a view of a fine specimen tree in Kew Gardens. 



Stapelia gigantea, Gardeners' Chronicle, December 22d. 



LODOICEA Seychellarum, Gardeners' Chronicle, December 

 22d; a figure showing the method of germination of this |)lant — 

 the so-called "Double Cocoanut." 



Passion Flower, Woodhatch Hybrid, Gardeners' Chron- 

 icle, December 22d ; a hybrid raised in an English garden be- 

 tween P. raceinosa and P. quadrangularis. 



CRAT/Et;us Mexicana, var. Carrieri, Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 December 22d ; from a specimen in Mr. Gumbleton's garden, 

 near Cork, in Ireland. 



