July 31, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



371 



of the same kind. There may be a difference in the quality of 

 the Lily-ffowers grown at Bermuda, but it would be impossible 

 to find anything more lovely than some groups of this Lily 

 now in flower at Kew. These are all from bulbs imported 

 from Bermuda last year. They are from five feet to six feet 

 high, well-leaved down to the base, and each stem bears from 

 five to eight large flowers of the purest white. Nothing to 

 equal them has been seen in England (so it is said). Certainly 

 I never before saw this Lily so strikingly beautiful as it now is 

 here. The bulbs are cheap enough, and they are as easily 

 managed as Hyacinths. Unfortunately this extraordinary 

 vigor and floriferousness is not permanent in the Bermuda 

 Lily, as when grown a second year in England the plants are 

 simply L. longijtorum. But the Bermuda Lilies the first year 

 after importing are grand beyond all question. 

 Ke^v. W. Watson. 



The Albemarle Pippin. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Allow me to inform Mr. E. J. Wickson, in reference to 

 his note on page 346 of the Garden and Forest, that in the 

 later editions of the "American Fruit Culturist" (see page 530) 

 I gave Albemarle Pippin as a synonym of the Yellow New- 

 town Pippin, although in my statement to which he refers (in 

 a private letter not intended for- publication, as stated by the 

 editor) I did not go into any distinction between the two sub- 

 varieties of this Apple, which I did fully on page 250 of 

 that work. ^ ^ ^j 



Union Springs, N. Y. /■ /• J-nOmaS. 



Recent Publications. 



All About Pasadena and its Vicinity, by C. F. Holder. Bos- 

 ton : Lee & Shepard, 1889. 



This unpretentious little handbook to one of the tourist- 

 haunted districts of California gives some interesting facts with 

 regard to local fruits and flowers, wild and cultivated. To 

 show the perennial richness of the climate of Pasadena in edi- 

 ble fruits, the following catalogue is given : " Oranges, lemons 

 and limes are found in the market every month in the year, 

 and may be kept a year or more on the tree. These fruits 

 naturally ripen in February, March or April ; cherries from 

 June to August ; blackberries and apricots from June to Sep- 

 tember. From June to January you have raspberries and 

 peaches ; from June to November plums and prunes ; nectar- 

 ines, July to September ; grapes from July to January ; pome- 

 granates and quinces, August and December ; Japanese per- 

 simmons, November and December; loquats, April to July; 

 guavas, all the year ; currants, May to July ; apples, May to 

 February ; alfalfa, five to seven crops a year ; potatoes, two 

 crops a year, and on good land two crops of grain have been 

 taken. By the use of a system of cold storage now introduced 

 here, nearly all fruits can be had at any time during the year. 

 Vegetables are I'aised all the year round. The Orange groves, 

 taken in masses, constitute the chief beauty of the country. 

 . . The Orange was probably introduced into this country from 

 Spain, and the oldest trees, of seventy years or moi^e, are to be 

 found down at San Gabriel. Hardly a portion of Pasadena but 

 boasts a grove ; in fact, the city is laid out as a vast Orange- 

 grove. Orange Grove Avenue, the finest resident street, is 

 cut through one. . . . Trees will bear when three or four 

 years old, and begin to pay when five or six. The third year 

 one may count on a few Oranges for home consumption ; the 

 fourth year upon fifty oranges to a tree and the fifth year upon 

 200. The trees attain their full development at fifteen years, 

 and may then be twenty-three or twenty-four feet high, with a 

 trunk three feet in circumference. Such a tree may bear 4,000 

 Oranges a season, the retail value of which at the East would 

 be $200. The Orange, Lemon and Lime-trees are the ones 

 which need irrigation, being watered well three or four times 

 during the season. This is done by scooping up basins about 

 the trees and connecting them by canals, so that the basins are 

 all filled." The fruit is gathered by Indian, Mexican and 

 American gangs of peripatetic pickers, then washed, wiped 

 and sorted, according to size and color, and shipped to the 

 East. " On many ranches . . . are fine groves of the English 

 Walnut. The trees are extremely beautiful, and those of some 

 orchards realize $200 per acre in a season. The tree comes 

 into bearing when about ten years old. . . . The vast vine- 

 yards that cover miles of country here attract attention in 

 winter by their grotesque appearance, resembling roots set on 

 end with some regularity. This is due to the fact that every 

 fall the vines are cut back." In 1885 southern California sent 

 out over half a million boxes of raisins. " At Linda Vista the 

 visitor will find an expeiimental station where forest trees are 



to be planted. ... In almost every place in the city are found 

 Fig-trees bearing a large crop. . . . There are up to date about 

 a thousand acres in California planted with Olives. The tour- 

 ist will notice in the Pasadena landscape square blocks of 

 forest trees rising plume-like to a height of from 60 to 100 feet. 

 These are the Eucalyptus forests, or groves, planted for fire- 

 wood by ranchers who have land to spare. Taking an actual 

 case, a rancher planted sixty acres with 26,000 Eucalyptus 

 plants which cost $10 a thousand. Planting, mowing and cul- 

 tivating cost, including the trees, nearly $1,000, which was the 

 expense for the first year. The second year it cost $480, after 

 which there was no expense. The trees grow rapidly, and at 

 five years are large enough to cut." 



Mr. Holder speaks appreciatively of the wealth of herbaceous 

 plants. Ferns and shrubs which clothes the plain and the moun- 

 tains during the various seasons of the year; and the frontispiece 

 to his little volume gives an instance of luxuriant development 

 that it would be hard to overmatch. It shows the gable end of 

 a house which cannot have been standing many years. It is 

 apparently about twenty-five feet wide and thirty feet to the top 

 of the gable ; yet it is entirely covered, so that small trace of 

 the windows appears, with the prolifically flowering branches 

 of a single climbing Rose. 



North American Birds, by H. Nehrling ; with colored plates 

 after water-color paintings by Ridgway, Goering and Muetzel, 

 Milwaukee. Published by George Brumder, Part I, 1889. 

 This is the beginning of a new popular history of North 

 American Birds, upon which the author has spared neither 

 labor nor expense. The text is not burdened with dry scien- 

 tific details, but is filled with pleasant reading about the habits 

 of the different species considered ; with much information 

 upon the forests and fields which they frequent at the different 

 seasons of the year, and many pleasant allusions to trees and 

 herbs. These extracts, taken at random, will give an idea of the 

 writer's style and of the sort of information which may be 

 gathered from his thoi'oughly interesting and always readable 

 pages. 



" Among wild fruits the Robin is particularly fond of Elder 

 and Poke-berries. In winter these birds are unusually com- 

 mon in the beautiful Hammock-woods of Florida, where the 

 mealy Sparkle-berry and the Holly with its shining vermilion 

 berries grow in abundance. The plumage of the bird's 

 breast is often stained with the violet juice of the Poke-berry. 

 " From early in the morning to late in the afternoon these 

 birds ai"e busy almost without interruption. Itisonlydm-ing the 

 hot part of the day that they are somewhat less active. Their 

 flight is smooth, rapid and skillful, and does not lack grace and 

 beauty. To one who has seen, during migration, flocks of sev- 

 eral hundred individuals rapidly flying high over the forest 

 trees it seems easy to understand how they can traverse such 

 an inmiense expanse of country in so short a time. They 

 move about nimbly among the boughs and are perfectly at 

 home on the ground." And of the Mocking Bird — the finest 

 songster of them all — we read: "Most of the males com- 

 mence singing between three and four o'clock in the morn- 

 ing. First a single individual begins its lay from a Magnolia 

 draped with gray Spanish Moss, or from its hiding place in a 

 Banksian Rose, or even from the top of a chimney. Another 

 male sleeping in the neighborhood, probably in a tree over- 

 grown with a large Wistaria, or Trumpet-Creeper, excited to 

 rivalry, also begins to sing. The song, first softly uttered, gradu- 

 ally grows louder, intenser, more inspired and modiflated. 

 More singers join in the chorus, till one can often hear five or 

 six different voices at the same time. Thus they excite one 

 another to greater efforts. These are incomparable bird con- 

 certs, which produce a deep and lasting impression on the 

 listener in the quiet nights when all nature lies in deep 

 slumber. When the gray dawn appears in the far east, and 

 soon afterwards the sky reddens, all the Mocking Birds sing 

 diligently, and the Cardinal Red-birds, the Nonpareils and 

 others join in the chorus of jubilation to greet the day-star as 

 he rises above the horizon. Very rarely a Mocking Bird is 

 heard during the hot hours of the day ; the greatest number 

 are silent, and only towards the late afternoon does the chorus 

 commence again." 



But it is not necessary to continue these extracts in order to 

 show that their author is a keen lover of nature ; and that 

 much information can be gathered from his pages. 



The illustrations are carefully and accurately drawn by ac- 

 complished naturalists, but the coloring of the chromo-litho- 

 graphic reproduction is not very successful ; and the group- 

 ing of the individual birds is not always fortunate. The thin 

 red margin-line which surrounds the pages of text detracts 

 from their otherwise good typographical appearance. 



