250 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 22, li 



been established which are doing excellent work. In many 

 states there are similar stations established and supported by 

 state aid. It seems to be desirable to secure complete con- 

 cert of action between these useful establishments. In this 

 way alone the held of research may be in some satisfactory 

 manner di\ided up, so that more strength can be given to in- 

 vestigations in regard to certain problems. Doubtless this 

 co-operation will be in some way or in some measure secured 

 as the work of the stations advances. 



Futher, it is evident that the public must not be impatient 

 with investigations which seem, at the surface and at the out- 

 set, to be far from practical in their bearings. Many of the 

 purely scientihc questions which are waiting solution can be 

 best attacked in the experiment stations where Horticulture 

 and Forestry are made prominent features. The history of 

 science has shown over and over again that the results of 

 pure, scientific research are, sooner or later, likely to be turned 

 to the highest practical account. 



In the foregoing series of communications the writer has 

 endeavored to point out the leading general principles which 

 are believed to be established in regard to the life and work 

 of plants. But even under the limitation of confining the 

 treatment of the subject to those principles which have spec- 

 ial bearings upon Horticulture and Forestry, he has been 

 obliged to indicate at times the fact that certain portions of 

 the subject have not as yet been sufficiently explored by in- 

 vestigators. In the examination of such subjects investigators 

 can frequently be much aided by observations made by prac- 

 tical men. The establishment of a journal like Garden and 

 Forest affords still another excellent opportunity for both 

 these classes of observers to exchange views and thus ad- 

 vance general as well as special knowledge. 



The series of papers now brought to a close has had for its 

 aim the presentation of the more important principles which 

 are now embodied in the leading text-books on the subject, 

 bringing these matters, as far as possible, into language 

 readily understood by the reader. It is to such authoritative 

 works as the text-books referred to at the end of previous pa- 

 pers and of this, that the reader must turn for further study and 

 for further guidance in the examination of the phenomena of 

 plants. 



Cambridge, Mass. George Lmcoln Goodale. 



Periodical Literature. 



The April number of the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous In- 

 formation is devoted to a list of new garden-plants described 

 and published during the year 1888 in various English and for- 

 eign periodicals, such as the Botanical Magazine, the Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle, Garden and Forest, Revue Horticole, 

 Reichenbachia, several German publications and two or three 

 nursery-garden catalogues. 



It will be found an indispensable aid to all persons who wish 

 to keep themselves informed of recent additions to garden 

 plants, or whose business it is to deal in or to write of such 

 plants. Hybrids of garden origin and garden varieties are 

 necessarily omitted from this list, which they would swell to 

 inordinate proportions. Of the 674 entries (including varieties) 

 sixty are credited to this journal. This pul)lication shows 

 clearly the present tendency of horticultural fashions. Of the 

 674 entries 176 are of Orchids, with forty-five Cypripediums, 

 while only twenty-eight trees, exclusive of Palms, are men- 

 tioned, nearly all unimportant garden varieties of com- 

 mon species. Ilx&wwxnh&x oi BromeliacecE is large compara- 

 tively, while Ferns, a few years ag^o the most popidar garden 

 plants in England, hardly find a place. By far the largest part 

 of the new shrubs figured are found in the columns of Garden 

 and Forest. 



When the first of this year's crop of Maple sugar reached 

 the market, a correspondent of the American Cultivator, 

 writing from Wilmington, Vermont, one of the great sugar- 

 producing towns of that state, gave the following interesting 

 information with regard to the improved methods of this 

 industry : 



" There has been as great improvement at the tree-tapping 

 and catching the sap as in any department in the work. Sixty 

 years ago my father used for tapping, a common three-quarter 

 inch auger (not very common either at the present time, for it 

 was made by a blacksmith of all work). This was bored into 

 the tree about four inches, then a spout made of sumac, any- 

 where from eight to twenty inches long, so as to accommodate 

 the trough, that might have to be placed at the latter distance 

 from the tree on account of its spreading roots, or an immov- 

 able rock, was driven in, the basswood trough placed underneath 

 was blocked up with stones, and the tree was tapped. The 



distance between the spout and the trough was often of neces- 

 sity so great that much sap was lost by the wind, but if leaves 

 were a compensation, enough of these were found in the 

 trough to give color to the sugar. At the close of the season 

 the troughs were turned over at the root of the tree, where 

 they remained till wanted the next spring. This size and depth 

 of hole was a great improvement upon the practice of a pre- 

 vious generation. Then it was common to 'box' the tree — 

 that is, to make a reservoir for the sap by chopping into the 

 tree from which the sap was drawn into the trough. Trees 

 could not stand such ' heroic treatment ' many years. 



" Our sugar maimers now use a half-inch bit, or less, some 

 preferring one three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and say 

 the latter size will afford as much sap as a larger size. The 

 flow of sap is not confined in upward parallel veins. It has a 

 lateral flow as well when given the opportunity. This being 

 the case, the larger bit will hardly draw more sap than the 

 smaller, while it will do more injury to the tree. That the 

 sap will flow laterally has been demonstrated by putting in 

 a second spout, ninety degrees from the first, and even at 

 this distance the flow from the first was perceptibly dimin- 

 ished. When another was put in on the opposite side from the 

 last, the flow from the first was still further reduced." 



Correspondence. 



A Public Loss. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Poorest : 



Sir. — During the preparations for the recent centennial cele- 

 bration in this city gratifying proofs were given of the fact that 

 the people of New York feel it incumbent upon them to pro- 

 tect the trees and shrubs on public and private grounds from 

 threatened injury. The trees which rose through the public 

 stands were railed off so that their branches might not be 

 broken, and where stands stood over shrubs, as around the 

 Reservoir and on the south-west corner of Fifth Avenue at 

 Washington Square, they, too, were carefully shielded ; and 

 now that the boarding is everywhere removed, singularly few 

 signs of damage appear. A large tree was indeed pulled down 

 in securing the triumphal arch at the lower end of Fifth 

 Avenue ; but it fell because, being rotted through, it could not 

 stand a strain which was applied with no ill effects to its com- 

 panions ; if it was not already dead, it could not have long 

 survived. 



One exception to the general rule, however, was observed 

 on Fifth Avenue, where within the owner's fence had stood, 

 time out of mind, a large English Hawthorn-tree, perfectly 

 healthy, luxuriantly developed, and if not symmetrical in 

 form, owing to the close neighborhood of the house, only the 

 more picturesque on that account, leaning out over the railing 

 as though with an almost conscious impulse to get as far from 

 the bricks and mortar as possible. Many citizens now in mid- 

 dle life recall this tree as one of the great joys of their child- 

 hood, and even in adult years have watchecl for the unfolding 

 of its fragrant wealth of blossoms as for the first sure sign 

 that summer had arrived. It was one of the finest Hawthorns 

 in New York or in its vicinity, and certainly the prettiest object 

 in the whole length of Fifth Avenue. Yet it was cut down 

 in order, apparently, that the one window it obscured, in a house 

 where both front and side windows commanded a view of the 

 processions, might be freed from the screen of budding foliage. 

 It is not too much to say that a wail of horror went up from 

 the inhabitants of this quarter of the town when they missed 

 the well-known Hawthorn. No one will question the legal 

 right of property owners to cut trees on their own grounds, 

 but certainly the owners of this particular tree did not realize 

 the amount of pleasure it had given to hundreds of people, 

 and was capable of giving to hundreds more, or they would 

 not have destroyed it for what seems to have been an 

 ephemeral purpose. Wealthy New Yorkers, escaping to the 

 country early in spring, seldom realize, perhaps, what a treas- 

 ure to the city-bound classes is every piece of natural beauty 

 that New York possesses ; and few examples of this kind re- 

 main anywhere in our streets which are as precious as was 

 this slaughtered Hawthorn-tree. 



Twelfth St., N. Y. Waver ly. 



The Home of the Bean. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The valuable article in Garden and Forest of April 

 3d, as to the American origin of the Garden Bean has recalled 

 some observations of Roger Williams bearing on this inter- 

 esting question. 



In his " Key into the Language of America," which Zachariah 

 Allen, late President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 



