384 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 7, 1889. 



Notes. 



A Redwood-tree, twenty-eight and a half feet in diameter, 

 was recently cut in Tulare County, California. 



Mr. Henry Shaw, the foiuidcr of the celebrated botanical gar- 

 dens in St. Louis, has just celebrated his eighty-ninth birthday. 



During the wet, warm weather Tomato-plants have been 

 making extraordinary growth, while setting very little fruit. 

 Good gardeners often run a sharp spade down beside the 

 plants to prune their roots and induce the formation of fruit. 



The Asparagus beetle this year seems proof against air- 

 slacked lime. London purple and Paris green are out of the 

 question while the plants are being cut for table use, but an 

 occasional sprinkling with the arsenites even now will mate- 

 rially lessen next season's labors to hold the pest in check. 



In California the fruit of Prunns Simoni develops into a 

 handsome oblate, deep purple Plum much larger than it ap- 

 pears in the engravings of the fruit grown elsewhere. It 

 ripens very early, and is very durable in shipnient, so that it 

 promises to take a high rank there among early-market 

 Plums. The Pacific Rural Press observes that nurserymen are 

 propagating it extensively. 



The Longfellow Memorial Association in Cambridge, Massa- 

 chusetts, is now preparing the land which lies between the old 

 mansion and Charles River. The plan includes a terrace, com- 

 manding a wide view over the broad green river-marshes, a 

 loggia upon this terrace, the walls of which will bear reliefs 

 and inscriptions, and a garden lying below the terrace and 

 overlooked from it. The object is to unite to appropriate 

 monumental memorials the open prospect which Mr. Long- 

 fellow so much enjoyed. Charles Eliot, landscape architect, 

 and C. Howard Walker, architect, are in charge Of the work. 



A bulletin just issued by Professor Cook of the Agricultural 

 College of Michigan, illustrates the important services of 

 parasitic and predaceous insects in overcoming our insect foes. 

 About July 1st the wheat heads throughout a large region in 

 the western states were crowded with aphides, five or six 

 often attacking a single kernel and sucking out its vitality. 

 It seemed as if the grain crop was doomed, but in a week the 

 rapidly increasing enemies of the lice were in the ascendent, 

 and in ten days the crop was safe. The bulletin gives 

 illustrations of these parasites, together with the predaceous 

 flies and the Lady-bird beetles and of their mode of attack. 

 Tiny as these insects are, they have saved millions of dollars 

 to the farmers of the West this year. 



In a recent work by Professor Hartig it is stated that a 

 count of the annual rings of a trfee when cut three or four 

 feet from the ground may not give the accurate age of the tree. 

 Where trees are crowded in a forest and have developed 

 feeble crowns, the greatest annual increment is just below the 

 crown, and it diminishes regularly downwards. When the 

 leaf-area is not sufficient to afford food-material to provide for 

 a sheet of cambiuni all over the tree, the growth stops before 

 reaching the bottom, and the ring which is found twenty feet 

 up the trunk may fail altogether before it reaches the ground. 

 In such trees there may be rings lacking at three feet high for 

 certain years, and the total number of rings would be less than 

 the number of years in the tree's life. 



A bill has been introduced into the English House, of Com- 

 mons, the object of which is to provide instruction in agricul- 

 tural and horticultural subjects in public elementary schools, 

 and to afford practical illustration in such teaching. The In- 

 dustrial Agricultural Education Bill, as it is called, would not 

 only secure for children in rural districts practical instruction 

 on such suVjjects as fruit, liowers, and vegetable growing, the 

 y:)roper method of keeping cattle, rotation of crops, packing fruit 

 for market, and other mattersof equal importance; it proposes, 

 furdier, that the instruction in these branches shall be carried 

 on after the children leave school. To effect this, it is proposed 

 to establish schools at which lessons would be given in the 

 evenings and on Saturday afternoons. To induce parents to 

 keep their children at school for a longer period, or to send 

 them to the new schools, the promoters of the measure advo- 

 cate the provision of a small number of scholarships of the 

 value of thirty shillings per annum, and tenable for two years, 

 for children who have passed the fourth standard. 



The free Gladiolus show, which Peter Henderson & Co. 

 have established as a regular feature of the floral year 

 in this city, was visited by several thousand people last 

 week, and the flowers, in spite of the drenching and pelting 

 they had received from unusually violent rain-storms, were 

 notably good. A new Gandavensis seedling, nearly pure 

 white, was greatly admired, as was a fine group of hybrids 



containing the blood of G. purpureo-auratus. Mr. Sturtevant 

 sent, from Bordentown, a tank full of Nelumbiums and other 

 aquatics. Mr. Henderson showed some remarkable flowers 

 of a variety of Lilituii auratum, known as Rubro Vittatum, 

 in which the golden band through the petals is replaced by 

 one almost crimson. A superb display of flowers of tuberous- 

 rooted Begonias was contributed by Mr. T. Griffin, gardener 

 to Alfred Sully, Esq., of Hackettstown, New Jersey. Many of 

 the single flowers were nearly five inches in diameter, and the 

 double ones were nearly as large as Hollyhocks, while the 

 colors could hardly be excelled in richness, delicacy or va- 

 riety. The plants were seedlings, and had grown in the open 

 air and exposed to full sunshine. The exhibition remained 

 open three days. 



Constant and growing demand on a constantly diminishing 

 timber supply in all the civilized countries is beginning to have 

 a visible effect. In a careful article the Lumber World states that 

 despite the systematic efforts of the various European countries 

 to maintain by forestry regulations an adequate supply, the whole 

 wooded area of Europe has dwindled to 500,000,000 acres, or 

 less than one-fifth of the area of the continent, while the de- 

 iTiand goes on increasing as the population increases in den- 

 sity and consequent poverty, forcing them to use timber, as a 

 cheaper material than brick and stone, to build houses. Nor- 

 way and Sweden have parted with nearly all their available 

 forests. Northern Russia has been stripped so bare that at 

 present the single city of St. Petersburg demands more than 

 that country can spare. The fostered German forests yield an 

 ever decreasing supply, which constantly deteriorates in 

 quality. Bohemia, Galicia, Transylvania and some adja- 

 cent sections still possess considerable areas of forest, but 

 they are in inaccessible mountain regions, with neither rail- 

 roads nor navigable streams to make the timber available. 

 The forests on the shores of the Adriatic have disap- 

 peared. France and Spain, Portugal and Italy, Turkey and 

 southern Russia have little or no timber that is available. 

 Great Britain long ago ceased to depenfl to any extent upon 

 her own small woodland areas for timber. In the United 

 States the consumption of timber goes on at an amazing rate, 

 each year seeing hundreds of thousands of acres stripped of 

 forests. Canada has large wooded areas yet, but the demand 

 upon them makes it only a question of time when they shall 

 be stripped. Asiatic, African and South American forests are 

 still important, but at present they are unavailable because of 

 their remoteness from the centres of consumption. The civil- 

 ized world will soon awake to the fact that its timber supply is 

 exhausted to a serious degree, but as yet there seems to be 

 but little appreciation of the true state of affairs. 



According to the New York Lumber Trade Jourttal Birch 

 twigs are worth a good deal, besides their reputed value as 

 accelerators of the sluggish school-boy. Even the leaves and 

 young shoots secrete a resinous substance, which, under long 

 names, is sold as a medicinal preparation for as high as 

 sixteen dollars a fluid ounce. The inner bark secretes a 

 bitterish alkaloid, not unlike cinchona in its nature, and is 

 used largely as an adulterant for quinine in many parts of 

 Europe. The so-called " Cinchona Mixture " has been found 

 by analysts to consist, in many instances, of the alkaloid 

 found in the inner bark of the humble Birch tree. The outer 

 bark, subjected to dry distillation, yields an empyreumatic 

 oil, having the peculiar odor of Russia leather ; and the 

 secret of preparing skins — and that too of the very poorest 

 quality of skins, being taken from cattle that have perished on 

 those barren, desolate plains — is the only obstacle, thus far, to 

 prevent American artisans from competing with Russia and 

 Austria in fine leather goods. The oil of Wintergreen, so use- 

 ful, fragrant and expensive, is nearly always adulterated with 

 Birch oil — much of it even is Birch oil, pure and simple, but is 

 sold as Wintergreen oil, and is Wintergreen oil to all intents 

 and purposes, having, when properly prepared and refined, 

 the same properties. The Birch limbs, twigs, bark, and even 

 the leaves, if a more commercial oil is to be made, are 

 gathered and placed in a large tub containing a coil for 

 steam heating, and as fast as the mass accumulates it is kept 

 covered with water. After becoming nearly full, steam is 

 turned on, and the batch kept about blood-warm for twenty- 

 four hours. This will dissolve nearly all the oil and resinous 

 matters, which, being precipitated, causes the mass to assume 

 a very sticky consistency. By means of a wooden connection 

 with a small barrel or keg, the tank is made tight and brought 

 to a boil. The steam, having previously dissolved the oils, etc., 

 will now vaporize them, and will condense in the last named 

 keg. After a few ho,urs the job is done, the keg is bunged 

 or corked up, and is ready for shipment as commercial 

 Wintergreen oil, though made from Birch refuse. 



