i8o 



Garden and Forest. 



t April lo, 1889. 



Beauty, Baroness Rothschild, The Bride, La France and Papa 

 Gontier were all seen at their very best. But since pink Roses 

 are in such exceptional demand this year the great rivalry was 

 between the two leading varieties of this color, and it would 

 be diificult, and perhaps impossible, to find specimens of Mrs. 

 John Laing to excel those grown by Evans & Battles or of 

 Madame Gabriel Luizet superior to those grown by Edwin 

 Lonsdale. 



Notes. 



Among the fine specimen plants in the Drayton Garden is a 

 Pittosporum, ten feet high and thirty feet in diameter. 



The Grape Hyacinth {Muscari botryoides), grown in pots 

 and arranged with Lily-of-the-Valley, makes a beautiful com- 

 bination. 



Forty-six Japanese gardeners are now employed, it is said, 

 in California, where it appears that the taste for Japanese fruit 

 and ornamental trees has greatly increased. 



Dr. Charles Mohr, of Mobile, and Professor Eugene A. 

 Smith, the state geologist of Alabama, have united in pre- 

 senting their herbaria of Alabama plants to the University of 

 that state. Dr. Mohr is at present engaged in catalogueing and 

 arranging the collection. 



Mr. Edward L. Davis, of Worcester, Massachusetts, to whom 

 his native city is indebted for the generous gift of the land for 

 its new park system, now proposes to build, at his own ex- 

 pense, upon the highest summit of Lake Park, a massive and 

 stately stone observation tower, as a further gift to the people 

 of Worcester. 



The latest atrocity in the way of "fashionable" floral arrange- 

 ments is a muff composed of flowers, for the use of brides- 

 maids at weddings. People seem slow to learn that there is a 

 right way and a wrong way to use natural flowers, and that all 

 ways are wrong that force them to simulate the form of some 

 article of dress or ornament ! 



Nos. 165 to 169 of the Journal of the Linnean Society, being 

 the first half of Volume XXV., are devoted to a list of plants 

 of Kohima and Muneypore, collected in 1885 on a march from 

 Galaghat, in central Assam, to Cachar, with descriptions of new 

 species by Mr. C. B. Clarke. This important paper is illus- 

 trated with forty-four plants. 



We have received the early numbers of a new monthly 

 journal of horticulture — L' Horticulteur — published at Mons, 

 under the auspices of the horticultural society of the district. 

 Judged by these early numbers, the new journal is chiefly cul- 

 tural in scope. M. Wesmael, the accomplished Belgian den- 

 drologist, appears among the list of contributors. 



Tlie Due de la Rochefoucauld has presented to the Agricul- 

 tural Society of France the sum of $20,000, the interest of 

 which is to be given as a bounty to the author of an agricul- 

 tural almanac, which must contain, in addition to the theo- 

 retical principles, a summary of the leading experiments in 

 agriculture made during the year. A condition of the gift is 

 that the book shall be sold for five cents. 



The people of California are to be congratulated upon Pro- 

 fessor Hilgard's decision to refuse the position of Assistant 

 Commissioner of Agriculture, offered to him by the President, 

 and to remain the Director of the California experiment station, 

 where he can accomplish infinitely more than he could do in 

 Washington, under the demorahzing political influences which 

 beset the Department of Agriculture. 



Mr. E. W. Reasoner, of Manatee, Florida, writes to the Agri- 

 culturist of that state that a seedling variety of the Southern 

 Dewberry {Riibus trivialis), which was found growing origi- 

 nally among grass and rul)bisii in a rich part of an old corn- 

 field, has proved very productive of delicious fruit, better 

 in flavor than any Blackberry. This Dewberry ripens in Flor- 

 ida about the middle of April, and bears for three weeks. 

 Mr. Reasoner considers it more profitable than the Strawberry, 

 in his section of the state. 



It is believed in California that the discovery of the fuel 

 value of Peach and Apricot-stones will largely increase the 

 dried-fruit industry in that part of the country. Peach-stones 

 are said to make as good fuel for domestic purposes as the 

 best coal sold in California. The present price is $6 a ton ; 

 Apricot-stones do not burn as well, and sell at correspondingly 

 lower rates. The great piles of stones seen in the neighbor- 

 hood of fruit-drying establishments are gradually being sent 



to San Francisco, and the profits of California fruit-growing 

 are greater than ever. 



The pest of ground squirrels has become so great in Cali- 

 fornia that the farmers in some counties are organizing 

 against them. It is proposed to pay a bounty, raised by local 

 taxation of so much per acre, to every owner of land who 

 shall keep it free of squirrels ; and to appoint squirrel inspec- 

 tors, whose duty it shall be to destroy the squirrels when the 

 owners of the land neglect to do so, and who shall be paid 

 for their services by the community. A bounty of fifteen cents 

 an acre is suggested for the most sei'iously infested lands. 



The Manufacturer and Builder gives some interesting statis- 

 tics of the manufacture of tooth-picks in a factory at Harbor 

 Springs, Michigan, which is said to be one of the largest of its 

 kind in the United States. The wood of the Canoe Birch is 

 used exclusively. The logs are sawed into pieces twenty-eight 

 inches long, which are thoroughly steamed and then cut into 

 veneer. The veneer is cut into long ribbons three inches in 

 width, and these ribbons, eight or ten of them at a time, are 

 run through the tooth-pick machinery, coming out at the 

 other end, the perfect pieces falling into one basket, the 

 broken pieces and the refuse falling into another. The picks 

 are packed into boxes, 1,500 in a box, by girls, mostly comely- 

 looking young squaws, and are then packed into cases and 

 finally into big boxes, ready for shipment to all parts of the 

 world. The White Birch tooth-picks are very neat and clean 

 in appearance, sweet to the taste, and there is a wide market 

 for them. The goods sell at the factory at $1.90 a case of 

 150,000 picks, or 100 small boxes each containing 1,500, and 

 the small boxes retail at five cents each, or 300 picks for a 

 cent. This single mill produces about seven and a half mil- 

 lion tooth-picks each working day. 



We are indebted to Mr. John Harshberger, of Philadelphia, 

 for flowers of Era^ithis hyemalis, gathered in Bartram's Gar- 

 den, where it has been growing for fifty years, at least, Iiaving 

 become naturalized, and is now the first plant to bloom in the 

 spring. Mr. Harshberger suggests " that this would be a good 

 plant to set out in groups under trees in any lawn or garden, 

 where, if once established, it would grow without care. The 

 flowers appear earlier than those of the Crocus, the Daffodil 

 or the Tulip, and their yellow color makes a very pretty show- 

 ing. The plant seems to follow the habits of some of its sis- 

 ter Alpine plants, flowering almost before the snow is off the 

 ground." Eranthis kyetnalis, or, as it is popularly known, 

 " Winter Aconite," from a resemblance of its leaves to those of 

 the true Aconite, is a member of the Ranunculus family, and 

 closely related to the Hellebores. It is a dwarf, perennial plant, 

 two or three inches high, with fleshy roots, bright green, 

 deeply divided leaves and bright yellow flowers an inch across. 

 It is a native of western Europe, and for three hundred years 

 has been a favorite in gardens, being one of the very eai'liest 

 plants to open its flowers. There is a second species, E. Si- 

 biriciis, which is much less commonly seen in cultivation. 



Several correspondents of the Garden (London) have pro- 

 tested of late against the use of cotton as a packing for fresh 

 flowers and fruits. One, who signs with the initials of a well- 

 known horticulturist — Mr. F. W. Burbidge — says: "Nearly 

 every day examples come before us of the misuse of this ma- 

 terial. As a packing material for cut flowers or living plants, 

 cuttings, scions, etc., it is the very worst if employed in im- 

 mediate contact with vegetable tissues. I saw some young 

 plants of the rare pink-flowered Banksian Rose the other day 

 which had been swathed up in dry cotton-wool, and the stems 

 were blackened as if by fire wherever it had touched them. 

 Flowers packed with this wool around them arrive limp and 

 drooping, and over and over again have we seen Peaches with 

 all their freshness and beauty destroyed by this substance. If 

 fruits are wrapped up each separately in tissue paper, the 

 wool may then be used with advantage as a soft padding, but 

 if it comes into immediate contact with either flowers or fruit, 

 they are always more or less damaged by it. The rule to ob- 

 serve in using cotton-wool is to wrap everything in paper be- 

 fore using it. It is most useful in packing fruits if this rule 

 be observed, but for flowers and living plants and cuttings of 

 all kinds, fresh, clean, wood Moss is infinitely better in all 

 ways. We have received boxes of flowers packed in living 

 Moss, and have admired the packing almost as much as the 

 flowers themselves. Of course, very delicate white blossoms 

 should also be wrapped in tissue paper before the Moss is 

 placed near them, but as used in any way there is no better 

 and safer packing material for flowers and plants than the 

 fresh Hypnum Moss of our woods, and there is really no 

 comparison between it and cotton-wool. 



