April 17, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



181 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACK. 

 Editorial Articles : — The Use of Arbor Day. — Nomenclature of Cultivated 



Plants. — Railroads and the Adirondack Reservation i8i 



Easter Flowers 182 



To Make a Lawn 182 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 183 



New or Little Known Plants : — Hypericum aureum (with figure) C. S. S. 184 



Cultural Department : — Cultivation of the Bermuda Easter-Lily (with illus- 

 tration) Paul Harger. 184 



Carnations for Winter Blooming T. D. Hatfield. 186 



Memoranda from a Northern Garden T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 186 



Heating Green-houses 186 



Spring Flowers E. O. Orpii. 186 



Hot Beds and Forcing Houses. — Plant Patents Professor L. H. Bailey. 187 



Principles of Physiological Botany. XVI Professor George Lincoln Goodale. 188 



Recent Publications 188 



Periodical Literature 190 



Corkespondence : — An Interesting Garden and a Good Gardener F. S. 191 



Injuries to Conifers Professor IV. J. Beal and B. E. Fernom. 191 



Recent Plant Portraits 191 



Notes 191 



Illustrations : — Hypericum aureum, Fig. 103 185 



A Field of Lilies in Bermuda 187 



The Use of Arbor Day. 



THE establishment of Arbor Day in so many of the 

 States of our country is frequently referred to, by 

 persons who write and talk about forestry, as an evidence 

 or instance of a great advance in popular interest and 

 intelligence regarding this subject. But unless more 

 serious and intelligent attention is given to the use to be 

 made of it, and to the character of the proceedings con- 

 nected with it, the day will not long be observed. Ad- 

 dresses by persons who have no real knowledge of trees, 

 or of their relations to the welfare of a community, are 

 likely to have a tiresome similarity and monotony of 

 character. When the novelty of Arbor Day observances 

 has passed away they will soon cease to attract attention 

 or awaken interest among intelligent people, unless in 

 each town a few persons care enough about the matter to 

 give to it the time, thought and labor required to make the 

 day of some practical value. The reports of Arbor Day 

 observances which come to us from some places indicate 

 that the talk and ceremonies sometimes border closely on 

 the farcical and ridiculous. In such cases it is necessary to 

 remember that tree-planting in villages is not forestry, is 

 no part of it, indeed, and has no direct relation to it. 



The subject of forestry is, of course, an appropriate one 

 for Arbor Day, if there is any person available who is com- 

 petent to present or discuss it. Almost any time would 

 be suitable for the intelligent treatment of this topic, if 

 people will come together to hear and consider it. It is 

 vitally related to the public welfare in a variety of ways, 

 and serious injury to the prosperity and civilization of our 

 country is almost certain to result from the lack of sufficient 

 knowledge to enable our people justly to estimate its im- 

 portance. Oratory without knowledge is of little value, 

 and will not long be found entertaining ; but knowledge 

 regarding the subjects which are appropriate for Arbor 

 Day can be acquired only as knowledge of other important 

 subjects is acquired, by serious interest and application, by 

 study and adequate observation. 



The planting of trees by a person able to use it as an 

 object-lesson for popular instruction by describing the 



structure and functions of the various parts of the tree, and 

 their relation to each other in its life would in many 

 places be an admirable use to make of Arbor Day. The 

 proper care of trees and shrubs in villages and along coun- 

 try road-sides, their economic value as related to bird-life 

 and insect-life, their influence on health, and on the inter- 

 est and happiness of human life, their value as a means of 

 seclusion, and their effect in landscape everywhere, are all 

 good subjects for consideration on Arbor Day, if they are 

 seriously and intelligently presented. 



If a few public-spirited young men and women in every 

 town will read the new literature regarding these and simi- 

 lar subjects, they will soon be able to supply competent 

 direction for Arbor Day observances, and, what is more 

 important, to give good counsel, and to act intelligently 

 when questions of pruning trees, widening streets and 

 destroying road-sides are under discussion. We observe 

 that in some towns which last year celebrated Arbor Day 

 with much sentimental oratory many fine trees have since 

 been unintelhgently and barbarously slaughtered, and the 

 beauty of charming b&nks and road-sides has been need- 

 lessly destroyed forever. 



It is pleasant to be able to state that Nicholson's "Dic- 

 tionary of Gardening " has been completed. The author, 

 by his attainments and his position, was admirably fitted 

 for the task ; and he has produced a work which is an in- 

 valuable aid to every cultivator and every writer about 

 plants. A work of this character necessarily soon gets out 

 of date, and some arrangement, it is to be hoped, will be 

 made which will enable the author and his publisher to 

 produce, every few years, a supplement. We cordially in- 

 dorse the plea of the Gardeners' Chrojiicle for the loyal 

 adoption by horticulturists of the names of plants em- 

 ployed in the Dictionary, not because they are always 

 correct, but because a standard international nomenclature 

 of cultivated plants is now greatly needed, and this work 

 is the best standard available for general use. In this 

 connection we cannot do better than to reproduce, from our 

 English contemporary, the following : " We do not mean to 

 deny the right of any one to put whatever names he likes 

 to his plants, so long as he does not publish them, but if 

 he does so, then he should either use English names, con- 

 cerning the value of which there can be no doubt, or, at 

 any rate, he should not employ such names as by their 

 construction imply that plants have been properly de- 

 scribed and registered by a competent botanist. Half the 

 difficulty in nomenclature is caused by the unauthorized 

 use of names botanical in appearance, but purely horticul- 

 tural or commercial in substance." Every nursery cata- 

 logue is filled with names of this character. Every year 

 hundreds of new ones are made in half the States of the 

 Union and in every country of Europe, and the mysteries 

 of the nomenclature of garden plants are well-nigh unfath- 

 omable. The coiners of names themselves begin to ap- 

 preciate the difficulties with which they are investing the 

 successful practice of horticulture, and the time, perhaps, 

 is not far distant when the various associations of nursery- 

 men and of florists will take the steps necessary for a real 

 reform in this matter. They can hardly do it too soon. 



Senate Bill number 354, intended to prevent the con- 

 struction of railroads across state lands in the Forest Pre- 

 serve of this state, was so amended in the Senate before its 

 passage as entirely to destroy its practical force and value. 

 As passed it excludes only railroads not yet chartered, and 

 as the real danger to the Adirondack forests is from rail- 

 roads already chartered, the bill in its present shape is 

 worthless. Its original character should be restored ; it 

 should be introduced in the Assembly and urged to its 

 passage. Then it should be passed by the Senate and 

 made a law. It is an important measure, as we have be- 

 fore pointed out. Its consideration rightly brings up the 

 general subject of the value of the Adirondack forests to 

 the people of this state, and the present is an appropriate 



