84 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 13, 1889. 



Notes. 



None of the encyclopaedias tell us what plants furnish the 

 briar tobacco-pipes. It is said the Heath of the south of Europe 

 {Erica Mediterranea) furnishes the best. 



One objection to the Worden Grape is that its skin is too 

 tender to bear transportation well. A grower in western 

 New York has found that this difficulty is overcome if a vine- 

 leaf is placed under each cluster. 



It is proposed to place a bust of the late Professor A. E. 

 de Bary in the hall of the new University building in Strasburg. 

 Contributions are solicited from his former pupils and friends, 

 and may be sent to his successor, Professor Graf Solms- 

 Laubach. 



The climate of Afghanistan is so very dry that without 

 irrigation nothing can be grown below an elevation of 

 3,500 feet, at which point dew first begins to form. During 

 the summer season the people live chiefly on Melons, 

 which are grown in such quantities that syrup is made from 

 them. 



The attention paid to forestry is increasing in England. 

 Among other proofs we may note that during the winter Pro- 

 fessor Boulger will deliver, at the City of London College, a 

 course of ten lectures on this subject, with especial reference 

 to the examinations of the Surveyors' Institute, and will fol- 

 low them up in the spring by a course of practical demonstra- 

 tions in the country. 



In the year 1887 1,140 public lectures on the culture of fruit 

 trees were delivered in Belgium, twelve on the culture of for- 

 est trees, and six on Tobacco-culture. The relative amount 

 of forestry instruction seems unduly small ; but it should be 

 remembered that special schools exist in Belgium for the in- 

 struction of foresters, and that these public lectures were ad- 

 dressed to a mere general audience. 



A writer in a recent number of the Saturday Review, of 

 London, says : " We cannot admit that the very best American 

 apple ever possesses a tithe of the flavor of good English 

 fruit. But that cannot affect the economic question (of in- 

 creased fruit-growing in England) at all, because the number 

 of persons who can distinguish excellence of taste is, and 

 must be, always very limited. Market prices, except for 

 limited amounts of exceptional products, will always be ruled 

 by the supply of fair average commodities." 



The officers of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society an- 

 nounce that in order to make the monthly meetings more 

 interesting and secure a larger attendance, they have made 

 arrangements for a series of essays on horticultural subjects, 

 one of which will be read at each meeting. The first of these 

 papers, "The History and Future of the Pennsylvania Horti- 

 cultural Society," will be read by Wm. A. Reed, M.D., at the 

 meeting on Tuesday, March 19th, 1889. At this meeting, and 

 at each subsequent one, there will be an exhibition of new 

 and rare plants. 



The Revue Horticole wonders why the White Platycodon 

 grandijlorum, a beautiful plant, well known in America, is not 

 grown in the vicinity of Paris. A greater wonder is that, known in 

 America, it is not more popular than it is. Both the white and 

 the original blue are admirable border flowers, and are excel- 

 lent for cutting. And then they have the character, so dear to 

 the American flower-gardener, of knowing how to take care of 

 themselves. Once in a garden, they rarely die. Platycodon 

 was once among the Campanulas, and it yet often goes under 

 the name of Siberian Bell-flower. 



An interesting article in a recent number of the Illustrirte 

 Garten Zeitung, of Vienna, is devoted to the Leguminosce of the 

 western prairies. Especial mention is made of the " Tuskee," 

 or Prairie Turnip {Psoralea esculenta) and the attempts which 

 were made to introduce it into Europe as an article of food 

 at the time of the potato famine some forty years ago. In 

 1849 the Academy of Sciences in Paris considered two treatises 

 upon the tubers of this plant, which were said to contain 

 eighty-one per cent, of starch. A certain Monsieur Piquot 

 tried hard to bring it into favor under his own name as 

 " Piquotiana," and sold the seeds in botfles at a price equiva- 

 lent to nearly $2 for fifty seeds. But all efforts to establish it 

 as an article of diet were unavailing, as was the case with many 

 other tuber-bearing plants at the same epoch. 



In Mr. W. R. Bliss' interesting book, "Colonial Times on 

 Buzzard's Bay," recently published by Messrs. Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co., there is a sentence which proves that the early 



settlers had a keener sense for the value of woodlands than 

 was shown in later years, or is often found to-day. When the 

 so-called "Rochester Propriety" was established in 1679, "the 



value of the great forests was recognized by the 



order ' that ther shall be no Tymber of any sort convaid or 

 carryed a way out of the Lymits of Scippican under the penill- 

 tie of twentie Shilings for every Tree or part of a tree so 

 used.' " To protect the production of turpentine, which was a 

 chief industry of the district, another decree prohibited "ani 

 person from boxing or shiping or milking ani pine tre or tres 

 on the common on the penelty of payeng Ten Shilengs for 

 everi tre." And in another place we read, "So valuable was the 

 right to gather turpentine regarded that it was specially men- 

 tioned in deeds of woodlands granting 'All ye privilidge of 

 milking of pine trees.' " 



A Japanese correspondent of the Revue Horticole has begun 

 in that paper a series of articles on the horticulture of his native 

 land. The first article recites certain facts with regard to 

 Japanese landscape gardening which were recently given to 

 our readers from another source. As far as history tells, it is 

 furthermore said, the first garden was established in Japan in 

 the reign of an emperor who lived in the middle of the ninth 

 century of our era. In 900 another palace-garden was 

 laid out by the Emperor Ouda, who is notable as having been 

 the first to introduce the culture of the Chrysanthemum, after- 

 wards adopted as the royal symbol. The remains of a garden 

 planned by his son are still to be seen at Kioto. During the 

 twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the art seems to 

 have reached its highest development, and in 1378 was estab- 

 lished the Ghinkakouji Garden at Kioto, which is still the 

 finest specimen of landscape gardening in the empire. After 

 that time the art remained stationary, owing to the civil wars 

 which distracted the country. But when peace was made in 

 1580 the Shogun of the moment proved a noteworthy patron 

 of gardening, as was likewise his contemporary, the famous 

 savant, Rikiyu. The many plants introduced by the Portuguese 

 towards the end of this same century gave an impulse also to 

 horticulture properly so-called, and it was further helped, 

 towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, by the in- 

 troduction of conservatories, and quickly advanced to a point 

 never before attained. Mr. Yoshida's explanation of the way 

 in which the Japanese regard their landscape gardens tallies 

 with that which has already been given our readers. " To 

 imitate nature," he says, "would be a very simple thing, and 

 would demand no effort of the imagination. But the question 

 is how to represent lofty cascades of which the source is so 

 mysterious, and high mountains covered with walls of trees 

 on inaccessible rocks ? " To represent, not to imitate ; to make 

 a picture of a landscape, not an actual landscape ; this, in 

 truth, is the chief aim of the Japanese artist. 



Catalogues Received. 



A. Blanc & Co., 314 N. Eleventh Street, Philadelphia, Pa. — Cacti. 



A. Bridgeman, 37 E. Nineteenth Street, New York. — Garden and 



Farm Seeds. 

 William Bull, 536 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, S. W., England. — 



Flower and Vegetable Seeds. 

 W. Atlee Burpee & Co., 475 and 477 N. Fifth Street and 476 and 478 



York Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. — Garden, Farm and Flower 



Seeds. 

 M. Crawford & Son, Cuyahoga Falls, O. — Strawberry Plants. 

 CuRRiE Bros., 108 Wisconsin Street and 312 Broadway, Milwaukee, 



Wis. — Seeds, Plants, Bulbs. 

 John Gardiner & Co., 21 N. Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. — 



Vegetable, Flower and Farm Seeds. 

 Peter Henderson & Co., 35 and 37 Cortlandt Street, New York. — 



Seeds, Plants, etc. 

 Hooper & Co., Ld., Covent Garden, London, England. — Garden 



Seeds, etc. Agent for United States and Canada, J. A. De Veer, 



183 Water Street, New York. 



E. H. Krelage & Son, 17 to 27 Kleinen Houtweg, Haarlem, Hol- 



land. — Dutch Flower Bulbs. 

 D. Landketh & Sons, 21 and 23 S. Sixth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. — 



Vegetable and Flower Seeds. 

 LUDWIG & Richter, 14 Federal Street, Allegheny City, Pa. — Vegetable 



Seeds. ' 



W. PiERCY, 89 West Road, Forest Hill, London, S. E., England.— 



Summer Flowering Chrysanthemums, etc. 

 Pitcher & Manda, United States Nurseries, Short Hills, N. J. — 



Cypripediums. 

 ScHLEGEL & FoTTLER, 26 S. Market Street, Boston, Mass. — Seeds, 



Plants, etc. 



F. W. Wilson, Chatham, Ont. — Fruit and Ornamental Trees. 

 Young & Elliott, 54 and 56 Dey Street, New York. — Seeds, etc. 

 BowKER Fertilizer Co., Boston and New York. — Manures. 



