72 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 6, 1889. 



The double-flowered Chinese Blackberry has been forced 

 successfully this winter, producing wreaths of white blooms 

 about two inches across, which bear a strong resemblance to 

 Polyantha roses. It is easily grown, but requires too much 

 room in a green-house to pay the commercial grower. 



The Rocky Mountain Columbine {Aquilegia chrysantha), 

 which has been somewhat neglected of late, is now being 

 grown largely with a view of bringing its merits before the 

 public. It is a very handsome perennial, one of the handsomest 

 of its tribe, and an admirable plant for the rockery or herbace- 

 ous border. 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. are to publish the miscellaneous 

 scientific papers of Asa Gray, which are being selected and 

 arranged by Professor Sargent. The first volume, containing 

 the reviews of works on botany and related subjects, written 

 between the years 1836 and 1887, is now in press, and will 

 appear early in the spring. 



A specimen of the Californian Finns Sabiniana growing in 

 isolation on a lawn in the Botanical Garden at Kew now 

 measures thirty-five feet in height, and at four feet from the 

 ground girths five feet six inches. From an illustration of it 

 recently given in the Gardeners' Chronicle, it seems to be a 

 symmetrical and beautiful specimen. 



Many trees in western Massachusetts were broken down by 

 the formation of ice on their branches during a rain-storm on 

 the 6th of January. A correspondent writes that in some 

 cases every twig was encased in ice half an inch thick. Ac- 

 curate weighing of one of the broken branches in the village 

 of Ashfield Plain showed that there were fourteen pounds of 

 ice to one of wood. 



The material benefit which French conquest has conferred 

 upon Algeria shows clearly in accounts of the extent to which 

 systematic irrigation has already increased the cultivable area 

 of the country. In the district called the Oued Rir, the once- 

 fertile oases had been almost buried under desert sands when 

 the French took possession ; now, by means of irrigation sys- 

 tematically carried out with the water of the native wells and 

 of numerous artesian wells that have been sunk, these oases 

 have been reclaimed to the number of forty-three, and are 

 estimated to bear 520,000 Date-palms and 100,000 other fruit- 

 trees which already produce profitable crops. The population 

 of the district has meanwhile doubled, while its condition is 

 vastly more prosperous than before. 



A correspondent of an English horticultural journal writes 

 that the thick fogs which recently spread over the neighbor- 

 hood of London did serious damage to hot-house plants. 

 " Before the fog came we had cut some six dozen good flow- 

 ers (from a plant of Camellia alba), but not one since ; nor are 

 we likely to do so again; for although the trees were nicely 

 set with buds and half expanded flowers at the time the fog 

 set in, all of these turned rusty and fell off. ... A plant next 

 to it — a red variety well set with buds — has so far passed 

 through the ordeal without loss of buds or flowers. Amongst 

 Orchids the Calanthes show no ill effects. ... A plant of 

 Saccolabiiim giganteiim, with two spikes of flowers on it, suf- 

 fered injury at the ends of the trusses, where the flowers were 

 not fully open, all of them turning to a brown color and hav- 

 ing to be cut off. Azalea Indica, white and colored — a few of 

 which were gently forced — have withstood the fog well." 



The largest artificial cascade ever planned is doubtless the 

 one which was partly built in the grounds of Wilhelmshohe 

 near Cassel, the summer residence of the local dukes, but 

 better known in our time as the place where Napoleon III. 

 was confined after the battle of Sedan. The park is a large and 

 fine one, with very beautiful Beech-woods and many passages 

 of the most charming natural scenery. But it likewise includes 

 a make-believe mediaeval castle and many singular devices. 

 The cascade was begun in the first years of the last century, 

 and was intended to consist of a series of regular steps lead- 

 ing down the whole side of the mountain upon which the park 

 was created to the vicinity of the castle below. The plan 

 proved too ambitious for accomplishment, and only the upper 

 part of the cascade was built, tlie steps starting from a statue 

 of Hercules, which is thirty-six feet in height, and into the 

 head of which visitors may ascend to spy out the landscape, 

 literally through the giant's eyes. Yet though this completed 

 portion is only a third of the whole, it measures 800 feet in 

 length, the steps gradually widening as they descend between 

 masses of forest verdure. 



In the latest Bulletin from the Iowa Experiment Station, Mr. 

 R. P. Speer points out certain structural differences which are 

 said to exist between such Apple trees as Duchess of Olden- 



burg, Letofsky and a few other varieties from Russia which 

 have endured the trying climate of the North-west, on the one 

 hand, and the ordinary American Apples and those from west 

 Europe on' the other. The flowers of the former have larger 

 and thicker petals, shorter and more stocky pistils and stamens, 

 larger stigmas, anthers and pollen grains ; their leaves are 

 thicker ; their wood, bark and bud-scales have a finer texture ; 

 and their roots penetrate more deeply beyond the frost-line. 

 These physical peculiarities of the hardy trees are protective 

 against summer drought and. winter cold. Having been devel- 

 oped in a region of short summers, they ripen their wood early, 

 their cambium layers do not contain so much liquid, and are, 

 therefore, less subject to scalding of the bark on the south- 

 west side when freezing temperature quickly follows warm 

 weather in early spring. The questions suggested by these 

 studies are interesting, and it is to be hoped that further inves- 

 tigation will enable Mr. Speer to give more definite facts in 

 support of his theory. 



In a recent number of the American Florist are printed trade 

 reports with regard to holiday sales of flowers from forty-seven 

 towns in the United States. In almost all cases the report is 

 satisfactory in so far as quantity is concerned, though there 

 are numerous complaints about the quality of the flowers as 

 having been affected by unfavorable weather. In many places 

 the demand for the costliest kinds of Roses seems to have 

 been very large, while in others the cheaper kinds of flowers 

 were in greater requisition. The trade in Christmas trees and 

 in greens for church decorating is evidently increasing from 

 year to year, and the finer greens — Holly especially — are more 

 and more in demand. But the most interesting fact to be 

 gathered from these reports is that the public is turning away 

 from baskets and set pieces and learning to prefer boxes of 

 loose flowers, which may be arranged at home. "Four-fifths 

 of the call was for loose flowers," writes one correspondent ; 

 "A notable decrease in the demand for baskets and bouquets," 

 writes another ; a third " The demand for loose flowers ex- 

 ceeded everything ; but few baskets were made up," and a 

 fourth, "The demand for baskets is yearly on the decrease," 

 while thirty-four reports out of the forty-seven include similar 

 statements, and only four speak of an increased demand for 

 set pieces. Had the holiday trade, as a rule, been bad, these 

 changes might be explained by the fact that a reasonable 

 quantity of cut flowers may be more cheaply purchased than 

 even a small basket arranged by the florist. But as things 

 have stood this year they seem to denote a growth in good 

 taste and in the appreciation of the true beauty of flowers, 

 which is indeed of promising import. 



Mr. Sylvester Baxter, who is contribudng an interesting 

 series of letters on "Archaeological Campaigning in Arizona," 

 to the American Architect and Building News, speaks as fol- 

 lows of the neighborhood of Las Acequias, where Mr. Gushing 

 is now pursuing his explorations : "The new camp is pitched 

 in a pretty little hollow amid a clump of old Mesquite trees. 

 The hollow is that of one of the ancient reservoirs and the 

 moisture retained there makes it a favorable place for the 

 luxuriant growth 'of the Mesquite trees. . . . The name con- 

 ferred on the ancient city, Las Acequias, comes from the great 

 irrigating canals that spread out fan-like among the ruins, and 

 reach away to various parts of the plain to supply the other 

 cities of the group. ... It must have been an enormous labor 

 to excavate them in those times, with nothing but crude stone 

 implements and baskets for the transportation of the earth." 

 When emigration sets in "the landscape undergoes a rapid 

 transformation in the course of a few weeks. . . . The Mes- 

 quite trees are cut down and burned in piles above their roots, 

 whose ramifications are followed by the smouldering com- 

 bustion, leaving the ground ready for the plow, when that 

 instrument shall eventually be brought into requisition, which 

 will probably not be for two or even three years, for the mel- 

 low, rich soil needs no plow at first. A seed-drill rapidly 

 sows the grain when the ground has been cleared, and the 

 only labor then required is to irrigate and harvest. The next 

 year even the labor of sowing is unnecessary, for a luxuriant 

 volunteer crop springs up from the self-sown, ripened grain, 

 and often, the second year, there is still another volunteer crop 

 as abundant as the first ! The growth of Sage-brush or Grease- 

 wood is cleared off with slight trouble or cost; a stout bar or 

 beam is dragged across the land by a pair of horses, one attached 

 to each end. The bushes are displaced by the powerful lever- 

 age at their bases as the beam is dragged over them. The 

 team then follows the same course in a reverse direction, 

 either yanking up the bushes by the roots or breaking off the 

 brittle wood close to the ground. The brush is finally gath- 

 ered into great piles and burned, making a strong, clear flame 

 that shows across the country for a great distance." 



