4i8 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 28, 1889. 



the other Pines, which seemed to be just as much at home, 

 while in the nursery the young plants had a jaded look, and 

 were browned more or less under the liot blast which passed 

 this region in May. 



Thus discouraged, in regard to the Rocky Mountain trees, I 

 went westward with little hope of finding much worth noting, 

 but was most agreeably surprised at Franklin, fifty miles 

 east of the one hundredth meridian, where an enterprising 

 man has begun systematically to test the possibilities of Rocky 

 Mountain conifers. Rev. C. S. Harrison is one of those hardy 

 and hearty men of the West, full of vigor, will and push, 

 bound to succeed, if success is attainable. The sight M'hich 

 met me at his nursery was astonishing, indeed, when the lo- 

 cality is considered. Here could be found more conifers in 

 one spot than anywhere on the plains west of the Missouri. 

 Nothing had been planted longer than four years, it is true, 

 but here were not a few trial-plants only, but a nursery of coni- 

 fers, in all stages, from the seed-bed to the six-year-old 

 transplants. A space of 100 feet square protected all 

 around by a loose board fence, and, shaded by a brush-roof, 

 serves the piupose of starting the plants, eitlier from the seed 

 or from seedlings, carefully taken from their native haunts. 

 Under this shed, as well as in the open, the Scotcli Pines 

 showed the thriftiest growth ; the Austrians, though no beau- 

 ties, were also well at home. Neither of these, and but few 

 of the former, showed any loss of terminal-bud, the oldest 

 transplants being six-year-old Scoth Pines, which had made 

 this season shoots of from fifteen to twenty-five inches, and 

 were now four to six feet high. 



Under the shed the Engelmann Spruces were of the finest 

 appearance, the Douglas Spruces next, while Abies concolor 

 made only an indifferent show, and Picea pungens was, 

 perhaps, still worse. 



The sturdy Plmis ponderosa, which was present in many 

 specimens under the shed, and freshly transplanted into the 

 open, had not yet put on its best style, but when a lot of them 

 were shown to me, neglected and overrun, almost smothered 

 by grass, and yet as fine Pines as ever carried a head, I had to 

 subscribe to Mr. Harrison's prophetic expression that this tree 

 is destined to furnish the saw-logs of the coming forest of the 

 plains. 



I must not forget to mention the hardiest of the hardy, the 

 ubiquitous Juniper, which, although hardly to be recom- 

 mended as a forest-tree in this latitude, is probably the most 

 rehable ornamental conifer here. The Rocky Mountains fur- 

 nish it with a beautiful silver sheen added. 



The last conifers met, save an Arbor-vitae hedge, freshly 

 planted by an enterprising settler at this place, were grown 

 under the inspiration of the water-works of McCook, the 

 "Magic City of the West," being fairly within the arid region, 

 and yet converted into a garden-spot by its energetic popula- 

 tion, who have spared nothing in ornamenting their homes 

 and streets. 



Two Scotch Pines at the depot, twelve years old, and sev- 

 eral younger specimens in town, still recommend this species 

 for ornamental planting. The White Pines, with the exception 

 of one specimen, were all out of the race ; a number of Nor- 

 way Spruces, low and stubby, yet showed fairly well, while two 

 stunted Blue Spruces had not been able to save their terminal- 

 buds. This failure of the terminal-bud, which is the common 

 injury, not only to the conifers, but to most trees in the plain, and 

 whichaccountssomewhatfortheircrookedappearanceMr. Har- 

 rison hopes to overcome, by proper treatment and "schooling" 

 under the shed and in the nursery for six years, having ob- 

 served that this same loss is frequently sustained even in the 

 native forest, and afterward outgrown. But while such treat- 

 ment may be practicable for ornamental plants, for forestry 

 purposes we would not be able to apply it, and it remains 

 questionable whether the damage would be outgrown in time 

 on the plains. 



The Bull Pine i^Pinus ponderosa) alone seems to be the one 

 native conifer which, so far, promises to serve as a timber-tree 

 of these wind-swept tables. 



Stratton, Neb. B. E. FemOW . 



Direct Influence of Pollen on the Orange. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — In spite of what some botanists set forth as Nature's 

 unvarying law, the question of the immediate and direct 

 influence of pollen on fruit should, in the matter of the Orange 

 and Lemon and all Citrus fruits, be considered as one which 

 has been settled. 



For weeks each season I have been carefully examining the 

 exterior and interior of oranges growing on Maltese Blood- 

 trees and on the Imperial Blood of the St. Michael family, 



which have a navel mark not common to either family. I 

 have singled out these two families of the Blood Orange with 

 the navel mark because I consider the three oranges as the 

 best of all oranges, and have made careful expermients for 

 years hoping and expecting to combine in on'e orange the 

 superior points of the Blood and the Navel. 



These Blood oranges having the navel mark are completely 

 changed in outline, in their exterior and all through by the 

 effect of the pollen of the Navel-trees. From being naturally 

 oblong, they become somewhat liattened, the flavor is 

 changed and the cellular form of the pulp is changed. 



Of twenty oranges having a navel mark recently cut from a 

 Maltese Blood-tree standing beside a Washington Navel-tree, 

 only two of the oranges had a single seed, eighteen were seed- 

 less, while nineteen in twenty of the Bloods which were not 

 marked by the navel had one or two seeds. Not always does 

 the pollen of the Navel show its effect in the lengthened axis. 

 Sometimes you find an orange shaped like the Navel except 

 the umbilical mark is wanting on the outside. Inside there is 

 no axilar centre; the inner orange has spread all through the 

 fruit. There are two sorts of pulp, two sorts of fruit-cells 

 and two separate and distinct flavors. 



A few times I have seen an orange cut from a Majorica-tree, 

 one side almost solidly colored, like an Imperial Blood, pulp 

 dark as wine ; the other side not a trace of rubricate, the divi- 

 sions of fruit-cells as distinct and clear as though they had 

 been fenced off by an impassable dividing-line. One side the 

 decided piquant flavor, sub-acid, that a thirsty man gratefully 

 remembers on a hot day; the other, the fruity-flavor of a Straw- 

 berry or Black-cap raspberry, with juice quite as dark as that 

 of the latter berry. Such an orange I cut at Ocala, during the 

 Exhibition, last winter, and observing visitors noted the dif- 

 ference in flavor as well as strong contrasts in color in the 

 two sides of the same orange. 



Sometime later I cut a Prata orange, such as L. W. Sherman, 

 of Boston, sells for "whites," because the rind is a pale lemon 

 color. I noticed before I cut it, longitudinal, single rows of 

 rubricate oil cells, ruiming from flower to stem as straight as 

 the lines of longitude on a school globe. The opposite cheek 

 of the orange had splashes of them, giving a beautiful contrast 

 to the pale-lemon shade. I was not surprised to find in the 

 pulp, usually as pale and white as a Villa Franca lemon, 

 rubricate tints. 



I then went to the row of trees on the opposite side of the 

 Blood Oranges, and soon found on one of the outside branches 

 of the Ribbed Du Roi, an orange well marked as a Du Roi 

 save the blossom end, which was a well-defined Blood. I cut 

 and found a more deeply-colored orange than the average 

 Bloods with not a seed, although the Du Rois are not wanting 

 in seeds. 



Among the ornamental dwarf Orange-trees at Belair, Presi- 

 dent Berckmans, during a visit last winter, called attention to 

 one found with rind not unlike the shell of the old Crook-neck 

 squash when ripe, the exact counterpart of which he had seen 

 on a tree in a distant part of the grounds. The distant tree orig- 

 inally came from Japan and has not been bearing more than 

 three years. I know such oranges were never seen there on 

 the tree on which he saw it till this one strange tree began to 

 bloom and bear fruit. Now tracks of this ribbed and warty 

 fellow are again and again seen on the other trees. 



In March last I cut a cluster of five oranges from the tree 

 sent me by Wm. Saunders, Superintendent of the Grounds of 

 the Agricultural Department at Washington, labeled Bahia. 

 The cluster looked precisely like similar clusters growing on 

 an adjoining St. Michael tree. Cutting them all, I could see 

 no difference in seed or flavor from the St. Michaels ; the 

 same sharp acid, the thicker, rougher and tougher rind than 

 that of the Navels— not a thing to remind one that the sap of 

 a Navel-tree nourished those five St. Michael Oranges. 



Some years since I procured from A. W. Rountree, of New 

 Orleans, the Double Imperial Orange. I budded a number of 

 trees from the tree he sent. They bloomed fully for the first 

 time last February and March. The past summer and autumn 

 I found again and again oranges on adjoining trees so exactly 

 like the real Double Imperial that the novice would say they were 

 the same. This orange (the Double Imperial) has an exterior, 

 as E. H. Hart says, siii generis and quite distinct from most 

 oranges. It has as much pollen (yellow, too) as any Orange- 

 bloom I ever examined. It is one of the coming oranges 

 for Florida. 



Meanwhile let me say, a race of oranges which can com- 

 pletely metamorphose whatever other variety its pollen 

 touches must be most prepotent indeed. Out of the two 

 strains, the Navel and the Imperial Blood, will come the 

 future orange, which the intelligent lovers of the queen of 



