lO 



Garden and Forest. 



ANUARY 2, li 



Mr. H. B. Hayvvard entered for prizes for the best 5,000 

 White Asii trees. His trees were planted in very Ught, grav- 

 elly soil, entirely unsuited to the Ash. They have made a very 

 unsatisfactory growth, and are not, in the opinion of your com- 

 mittee, deserving- of a prize. 



Mr. French and Mr. Beebe would have received recommen- 

 dations for prizes, exxept for their failure to present the full 

 number of trees required by the conditions of the competition. 

 They have done, however, everything in their power to fur- 

 ther the ideas which led to this contest ; their interest in tree- 

 planting- and the example which they have given by their 

 plantations to the communities in which they live have been 

 of service to the people of this state and its agricultural inter- 

 ests. Your committee is of the opinion that their efforts 

 should receive some recognition from the Society, and they 

 recommend that a suitable remembrance, not to cost in each 

 case over $50.00, be sent to them, with a letter expressing the 

 appreciation of the Board for their assistance. 



Correspondence. 



White Huckleberries. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The White Huckleberry, or the variety locally known 

 by that name, is found growing in New Jersey in small, com- 

 pact, isolated patches, upon the ridge of land running par- 

 allel with the Delaware River, and extending from Carpenter's 

 Point to Wall-pack Bend. 



The existence of this variety has been known here ever 

 since the earliest settlement of the country by the whites. 

 My attention was called to this berry by other boys, play- 

 mates of mine, fifty years ago. They generally kept their 

 knowledge of such patches a secret, and though without 

 especial value, they looked upon them as a great rarity, and 

 prized them accordingly. 



Geologically, it may be said that the Jersey ridge described 

 is capped by " Canda Galli grit," a formation partaking 

 largely of the elements of both the slaty shale on the Penn- 

 sylvania side of the river and the limestone on the other, and 

 upon exposure to the elements it disintegrates readily, form- 

 ing a calcareous loam of great natural fertility. 



Since this ridge has been subjected to cultivation, wild 

 fruits and berries of every kind have necessarily been swept 

 away, and now can only be found where they have been suf- 

 fered to exist in the woodlands that remain attached to the 

 farms of this section. Occasionally, too, they may still be 

 seen growing in bunches against a rock or large stump in 

 an old field devoted exclusively to pasturage, where a lack 

 of zeal in the use of the bush scythe upon the part of the 

 owner has suffered them thus unwittingly to remain. 



It is hardly necessary to state that the original forest 

 growth was exceptionally heavy, which circumstance, a uni- 

 formly dense shade, added to soil, may have had much to 

 do with originating this particular variety. I presume the 

 birds and inferior animals may have distributed them some- 

 what after its character had once become faxed. 



In flavor the berries are sweeter than the common black 

 or the blue Huckleberries. I once saw a small quantity of 

 them after they had been dried, and observed adhering to 

 them white crystals of sugar. They are only white when 

 grown and ripened in the shade. If partially exposed to 

 the sun they will have a pink cheek. When exposed to the 

 full rays of the sun, as in a field, they will be either pink or 

 of a bright scarlet color. £. A. Westbrook. 



Montague, N. J. 



[Mr. Westbrook has kindly sent a plant of this white Huc- 

 kleberry to the Arnold Arboretum. It is a variety of Gaylus- 

 sacia resinosa. — Ed.] 



Barberries. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.— Will you be so good as to tell me what are the "Bar- 

 berries" referred to by Hazlittin the following quotation, which 

 he had seen and tasted when he was in America, from 1783 to 

 1787: 



"The taste of Barberries which have hung out in the snow, 

 during the severity of a North American winter, I have in my 

 mouth still, after an interval of thirty years, for I have met 

 with no other taste in all that time at all like it. It remains 

 by itself, almost like the impression of a sixth sense." 



Is the fruit of the North American Berberis {Mahonia) 

 Aquifoliu77i intended, which is often abundantly produced in 

 English gardens and very beautiful, but, a.« I opine, very rarely 



eaten in Britain ? Of course, I know that pleasing and lasting 

 gustatory sensations are often the result of a traveler's or 

 explorer's hunger and fatigue, or thirst, or other accidental 

 circimistances, as was the case with the fruit of your Riibus 

 deliciosus, which, eaten under ordinary circumstances, is gen- 

 erally considered a very poor sort of a Blackberry. I shall be 

 glad, however, if an)- of your readers can corroborate Hazlitt 

 as to the distinct flavor of fi'ozen Barberries, wliatever they 

 may be. The bi'ight red fruits of our native B. vulgaris are 

 pickled and candied and used for garnishing venison, etc., but 

 they do not seem to be much appreciated for their flavor. 



Botanical Garden, Dublin, Ireland. F. W. Burbidge. 



[Hazlitt's Barberries were the fruit of the common 

 European Berberis vulgaris, which had become so firmly 

 established in the Massachusetts colonies in the first cen- 

 tury after the arrival of the pilgrims at Plymouth, that we 

 find that the Province of Massachusetts passed on the 

 loth of June, 1764, "An act to prevent damage to English 

 grain arising from Barberry bushes." It is a remarkable 

 and interesting fact that the European Barberry, whicli 

 even now is naturalized only near the coast of New 

 England, mainly in Massachusetts, has failed to spread or 

 gain a permanent foothold anywhere in the interior of this 

 country, although it had almost at once established itself 

 so firmly in one limited locality, that legislation seemed 

 necessary in order to prevent it from injuring the farmers' 

 grain. It has been suggested that the Barberry never did 

 injure the Massachusetts grain crops to any appreciable 

 extent, and that the law was passed on the strength of a 

 popular belief brought from England that it was injurious 

 to grain. "But if this is so," as Professor Gray once 

 remarked, " we have a curious illustration of the precari- 

 ous nature of testimony. For in Europe this colonial leg- 

 islation has passed into history as independent evidence 

 that the Barberry did damage grain in New England." 



The Mahonia grows in a region several thousand miles 

 from any part of America visited by Hazlitt, and was not 

 known until the beginning of the present century, when 

 Lewis and Clark crossed the continent to the north-west 

 coast and discovered it on the banks of the Columbia 

 River, in what is now the State of Oregon. — Ed.] 



Recent Publications. 



Notes on the Art of House-planning, by C. Francis Osborne, 

 Architect. New York, Wm. T. Comstock, 1888. 



The author of this little handbook is professor of architecture 

 at Cornell University, and its pages, reprinted from The 

 Builder, embody the substance of a portion of the notes he has 

 used in instructing his classes. Much that he says is adapted 

 to be of great service to young architects, and may profitably 

 °be studied by their clients as well, in order that they may 

 have a more accurate idea than is usually manifested with 

 regard to the exact nature of the result which they wish 

 to see achieved by the architect whom they may employ. 

 But as an elementary treatise on the art of house-planning in 

 America the book has certain grave deficiencies. We are 

 warned in the preface not to judge it for sins of omission, as 

 it is to be followed by a second volume on the same subject. 

 Nevertheless, we may complain if in the first volume of a 

 work which deals with a subject that may be divided into 

 separate topics for special discussion any of those topics are 

 omitted with which a designer must concern himself, if at all, 

 at the very outset of his task. To omit any of these is to give 

 a false idea with regard to the spirit in which the task, as a 

 whole, should be approached, as well as seriously to impair 

 the value of a first volume while it is awaiting its successor. 

 To illustrate our meaning, it may be said that while the con- 

 sideration which should be given to "aspect" in planning a 

 country house is by no means wholly neglected, a fuller treat- 

 ment of the question is relegated to the volume still unborn, 

 together with all discussion of the equally important and fun- 

 damental question of " prospect." But until the claims of 

 aspect and prospect are thoroughly considered, no feature of 

 a plan can be properly decided upon, and it would have been 

 better to finish with this matter before beginning to discuss 

 the relative claims of separate apartments. A sfill more 

 serious blemish, however, is the omission to recognize the 

 piazza as a feature of equal importance with any of the interior 

 I'ooms. The author rightly remarks that the history of house- 

 building is the history of civilization, and one might therefore 



