August 14, 18S9.] 



Garden and Forest. 



393 



directly upon or are indirectly injurious to cultivated plants, but 

 it is certain that few of them do good, and they arc all l)y their 

 burro wings likely to cause more or less harm to crops in their 

 early stages of growth. Many of them are directly injurious, 

 and the presence of such is one of the serious drawback's to 

 horticultural operations. The gardeners of the past all held it 

 to be essential that manure for the garden should be " old 

 and well rotted," and that it should be used in moderation. 

 This practice has been much departed from, especially in mar- 

 ket-gardening, and the result is often seen in tiie coarse char- 

 acter of the products of such gardens. One very important 

 result of composting is to lessen the attraction of manure for 

 insects when depositing their eggs, especially when the other 

 rule of moderate applications has been observed. Chemical 

 fertilizers do not directly have any attraction for insects, and 

 insects increase in land manured entirely with them only as the 

 organic matter, in the form of the unremoved roots and other 

 portions of the crops, accumulates in the soil. These do not 

 much attract Hying insects, but earth-worms increase almost 

 as rapidly in soil dressed with chemicals as in that, enriched 

 with barn-yard manure. When possible, it is best not to use 

 land continuously, over long periods of time, for gardens. 

 It is better, when the soil becomes foul with insect life, to 

 throw it into grass for a number of years.. But in gardens at- 

 tached to buildings, and intended to be permanent, some other 

 plan is needed, and none is better than that of the old garden- 

 ers, which may be supplemented by the judicieus addition of 

 chemical plant-foods. Every gardener of experience knows the 

 incidental value of this method in the avoidance of the foul 

 seeds introduced in crude organic manures. In common 

 practice I have found the increase of soil-insects materially 

 arrested by a moderate annual application of air-slaked lime and 

 unleached wood ashes. A substratum of coal ashes, several 

 inches in thickness, placed below spade depth, has also been 

 found very beneficial. It helps the drainage, is repugnant to 

 earth-worms, and is not in any way prejudicial to the plants. 

 Newport, vt. T. H. Hoskins. 



Lettuce. — In spite of all that has been said about hot-weather 

 Lettuces, I never foiuid any fit to eat during our hot sum- 

 mers, and few people care for them at that time. But as au- 

 tumn comes on, and Lettuce can be grown without so much 

 development of the bitter principle, how to get it at its 

 best becomes of interest. For Lettuce, to be headed in 

 frames, so as to be protected from the early cold, and had in 

 use up to Christmas, make a sowing of Boston Market Lettuce 

 about the middle of August, and another the last of the month, 

 in case the first sowing should get too far advanced early in 

 the season. In the latitude of Virginia the first week in Sep- 

 tember is early enough. Late in September set the plants in 

 a well-prepared cold frame, and cover with sashes when the 

 nights become frosty, but keep open in day-time. The warmth 

 with sashes closed will be enough for this early crop, which 

 should all be headed before severe freezing weather, leaving 

 the frames empty for the regular winter crops. No sowing of 

 Lettuce for the winter and spring crops should be made, 

 even at the North, before Septeml)er. 



Albemarle Co., Va. 



M. 



The Forest. 



The Forest Vegetation of the Lower Rio Grande 



Valley. 



THE Rio Grande of our southwestern boundary — the Rio 

 Bravo del Norte of our Mexican neighbors — born of the 

 snows and the thunder-clouds of the high mountains of Colo- 

 rado and New Mexico, for eight lumdred miles of its course, 

 from the vicinity of Espinola down to Rio Grande City, Hows 

 through an arid and treeless region. Its turbid waters glide 

 thin over yellow sands which fill its bed. Bluffs, which are 

 the verge of high, brown plains, or of black, volcanic mesas, 

 and rugged desert mountains — now purple-hued, now gray — 

 crowd upon its narrow valley. Only by the river-side, on Hood- 

 washed belts of gravel or strips of alkaline meadows, is an 

 arborescent vegetation possible. Here we see an almost im- 

 interrupted line of Cotton-woods, standing irregular and scat- 

 tered, and with them a few Black Willows. The roots of 

 these trees drink of the river, and the trees attain to ample, if 

 not lofty, proportions, and maintain, throughout the long, 

 summer droughts, a luxuriant foliage. Butin the thin and 

 dry soil of the mesas and moimtain-sides one can detect 

 scarcely more than shrubs — Sage-brush, Grease-wood, Mimo- 

 sas, etc. 



For more than four hundred miles of its course through 



this region our river receives scarcely an affluent to make 

 good its loss of water by evaporation under burning skies and 

 by absorption by a thirsty soil; but below Presidio the Conchos 

 comes in from the North Mexican Cordilleras, the Pecos from 

 the mountains of eastern New Mexico, and the Sabinas and 

 San Juan from the Sierra Madre of Coahuila and Niievo Leon; 

 and then, with a strong and deep current, it Hows out a few 

 miles below Rio Grande City upon the lowland plain border- 

 ing the Gulf of Mexico. 



From Rio Grande City to the river's mouth is about one 

 hundred and twenty-five miles ; but the meanderings of the 

 river over the plain make the distance by water fully three 

 times as great. On its way through this low country the river 

 shifts its channel in some part or other with every arniual inun- 

 dation ; hence, on either hand and at greater or less distance, 

 we meet with numerous lagoons, narrow and tortuous, 

 abandoned channels of the river, disused some of the more 

 remote must be since early cycles of the land's history. The 

 connection of these lagoons with the current of the river and 

 with each other has been more or less completely broken by 

 that process by which a lowland river builds up its banks above 

 the level of the adjacent lands, the precipitation of its silt in 

 the first still water of its overflow. Each great rise of the 

 river, however, fills the lagoons, and they remain throughout 

 the rest of the year shallow and slender lakes, winding 

 through silent swamps or woodlands, richly stocked with 

 aquatic plants, and the undisturbed haunts of numerous spe- 

 cies of water-fowl. 



This low country, with its deep and well-watered soil and 

 with a large amount of humidity in its atmosphere, insured by 

 its proximity to the sea, presents the conditions favorable to 

 the growth of a forest ; and to the numerous trees indigenous 

 to the region it offers a choice of three diverse situations : — 

 The raised, sandy banks of its present and former river-chan- 

 nels ; the muddy soil of swamps lying without those banks 

 and of fiUed-up lagoons ; and the levels lying above the over- 

 flow. The character of the forest, covering nearly all of this 

 region, seemed unique to one more familiar with upland and 

 mountain growths. The larger growing species, excepting 

 such as occupy, by preference, the banks of the river and 

 lagoons, stand scattered, and form low heads which are borne 

 on crooked, irregularly-branching trunks, and the intervening 

 spaces are filled up with smaller species, and with thickets 

 of interlacing shrubs, bound together by widely clambering 

 vines. 



It is along the rich banks already described that the tallest 

 and densest forest growths are to be found. Here Lettccsna 

 pulverulenta attains its fullest development, making a tall 

 tree hardly overtopped by Ulinus crassifolia, associated with' 

 it. It grows with a straight and sound trunk clear of low 

 branches. The largest specimen measured had a circum- 

 ference of fifty-six inches at three feet from the ground. The 

 species appears to be mainly confined to lianks and not to be 

 abundant ; but it is esteemed the most valuable tree of the 

 region for sawing. 



Here, too, and only here, as far as observed, Cordia Bois- 

 sieri (on higher ground a stiff shrub branching from the base) 

 becomes a tree, large with respect to trunk-diameter at least, 

 but crooked, ill-shapen and low-branching. The circumfer- 

 ence of one specimen measured was forty-seven inches ; but 

 no trunk approaching such size, and sound and straight for 

 five feet, could be found for the Jesup collection. 



Condalia obovata showed its largest specimens on these 

 banks, but its trunks illustrated the extreme of \vretchedness 

 of condition, being little better than lacerated shells of living 

 and dead wood alternated. The trunk divides, moreover, 

 from the base upwards into numerous erect stems. Its wood 

 is chosen for fuel because it makes a fire of intensest heat. 



Even in these situations Pithecolobiwii brevifoliiun makes 

 but a slender, straggling tree, and a specimen exceeding five 

 or six inches in diameter was scarcely seen. On higher land 

 it grows in clumps as a mere shrub. 



Coming, now, to the wetter, more open situations — most 

 frequently the lagoons or ends of lagoons, whicli are nearly 

 filled up with mud — we find these to be the favorite habitat of 

 Parkiiisonla actileata, a pretty little tree with clean, green- 

 barked stems, seldom more than six inches thick, branching 

 at five or six feet, and bearing heads of fine, drooping foliage 

 and abundant yellow bloom. 



Associated with this as an undershrub, half its length sub- 

 merged during much of the year, perhaps, is Mimosa Berlan- 

 dieri, with conspicuous racemes of rose-colored Howers. 



Leaning over the edges of these sloughs stand the ungainly 

 forms of Acacia Farncsiana, with crooked, low-branched 

 trunks, and l)road, drooping heads. 



