August 28, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



419 



fruits will say are the best. Their price will depend on the 

 conscience of the seller. Note that Palermo Imperial Bloods, 

 on March ist, sold in Boston at $4.35 a box, when average 

 Palermos sold at $1.50 and less. Lyman Phelps. 



[The phenomenon of the direct influence of foreign 

 pollen upon the fruit of various plants has long interested 

 naturalists. It is a matter of much practical importance, 

 too, to horticulturists, if certain fruits, especially those 

 belonging to the Squash and Melon family, change and 

 deteriorate, as some assert, by the influence of the pollen 

 from other plants of the same family acting upon the 

 ovaries from which these fruits develop. Persons inter- 

 ested in the subject will find a summary of what is known 

 about it in a paper by M. Maximowicz published in the 

 journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, new sen, iii., 

 p. 161. See also Darwin's "Animals and Plants Under 

 Domestication" (English ed.) i, 39; Asa Gray in American 

 Journal of Sciences and Arts, 2 sen, xxiv., 442, and Darling- 

 ton's " Fl. Cestrica," 2 ed., p. 555. — Ed.] 



The Chinese Quince. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — We send you a branch from one of our plants of this 

 species in response to the suggestion (Garden and Forest, ii., 

 p. 389) that " it would be interesting to know if this handsome 

 plant is cultivated anywhere successfully in the United States." 



When the senior member of our firm settled in German- 

 town, in 1852, he found a specimen possibly twenty feet high, 

 and with a trunk eighteen inches thick — giving these 

 figures from remembrance of the specimen only — on the 

 grounds formerly owned by a Mr. Sickles, but about that time 

 purchased by Mr. E. H. Butler, the founder of the well-known 

 publishing firm of E. H. Butler & Co. It was a bushy speci- 

 men, with branches nearly to the ground. It produced its 

 large oblong fruit but sparingly. From our subsequent expe- 

 rience with its rate of growth, that specimen must have then 

 been at least twenty-five or thirty years old. No one could 

 tell how it came there. It is remarkable that at that time there 

 were found other rare Chinese plants in Germantown gardens. 

 Among them the Rosa rugosa, which has again been intro- 

 duced within recent years, and which is still growing where it 

 then grew, on the grounds about the Chew House, so famous 

 in the history of the struggle of the Colonies against Great 

 Britain. We have always credited the old firm of W. R. 

 Prince & Co. with these introductions, because some rare 

 things have been traced there, planted in the early part of the 

 present or toward the end of the past century. 



The habit of the Chinese Quince is fastigiate. Its great 

 beauty is in the color of the autumn leaves, which is fully 

 equal to that of the Tupelo, or Sour Gum, or Black Gum, as it 

 is variously called. When our nurseries were founded in 

 1852, it was one of the first to go in the collection. It has been 

 in every edition of our catalogue since that time, except our 

 last, the compiler dropping it by a lapse of the pen through 

 momentarily classing it with the " Pyrus," leaving out " Cy- 

 donia " in brackets, as often written. It is still there as Pyrus 

 Sinensis, though that name properly belongs to the Sand Pear. 

 Of the trees planted on our grounds prior to i860, one re- 

 mained to reach over twenty feet in height, when it fell a vic- 

 tim to public improvement, as it stood near the line of what is 

 now Meehan Avenue in our city list of streets. There ought 

 to be hundreds throughout the country distributed from our 

 nurseries during the past thirty years. We fancy it must fruit 

 freely in Virginia, as we frequently have specimens sent or 

 brought from there by parties anxious for its name, as its 

 large, delightfully-scented fruit attract the curious. 



In conclusion allow us to thank Garden and Forest for the 

 excellent work it is doing in bringing to notice the numerous 

 beautiful things well adapted to our climate, of which a few 

 have knowledge. There are probably between two and three 

 thousand species or marked varieties of trees and shrubs that 

 are hardy through the central states, the number, of course, 

 increasing or diminishing as we go south or north, and which, 

 if introduced and made known, would render American parks 

 and gardens superior in variety to any others in the world. 

 No nurseryman can catalogue or describe these properly. It 

 would require the expense of a heavy volume. Only journals 

 such as Garden and Forest, or societies such as the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, can do much in this line — and 

 what both of these have done and are doing is worthy of all 

 praise. 

 Germantown, Pa. Thoiiias Meehan afid Son. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Nearly twenty years ago Dr. George Thurber wrote 

 in the American Agriculturisf (Decen-\ber, 1871) : "We do not 

 know how so many Chinese Quince trees become distributed 

 about the country without the owners of them having their 

 names. For several autumns, including the one just past, 

 we have received a number of fruits from different points 

 in the vicinity of New York to be named. 



" This year one of them remained on exhibition at our 

 office for several days, where it attracted much attention 

 from its novel shape. We have had the fruit and leaves 

 engraved at about half the average natural size. The tree 

 grows in a spreading form, and reaches the height of about 

 twenty feet. 



"The leaves are quite unlike in appearance to those of 

 the common Quince, being of a dark green with a shining 

 surface. The fiowers are rose-colored with a violet odor, 

 becoming darker with age, and makes the tree quite orna- 

 mental in spring. The fruit is irregularly egg-shaped, green 

 and very hard and dry. We do not know that any use can 

 be made of the fruit, but it is quite conspicuous and orna- 

 mental when upon the tree. The botanical name is Cydonia 

 sinensis. We do not find the plant in any of the catalogues 

 of our leading nurserymen, and cannot say where it may be 

 procured." 



Most of what is stated above is as true now as it was then. 

 Many persons, otherwise well informed in horticultural mat- 

 ters, are entirely ignorant about the existence of this fruit. It 

 is strange that a tree which combines so many good qualities 

 is not more widely known. In Virginia and further South the 

 tree reaches a height of some thirty feet. Under favorable 

 conditions, the fruit grows to a very large size, single speci- 

 mens reaching a weight of from two to two and a half poimds. 



It has a very firm flesh, which, we .are assured by reliable 

 authority, makes an excellent preserve and jelly of a beautiful 

 pink color. As the tree is a profuse bearer, it seems strange 

 that its cultivation has been so much neglected. In Virginia 

 and other localities where the fruits mature every year, the 

 growing of the Chinese Quince and the manufacture of pre- 

 serves from it could no doubt be developed into a profitable 

 industry. 



New York. 



F. M. Hexamer. 



Strawberry Plants for a New Bed. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The mode of growing superior Strawberry plants 

 adopted by J. M. Smith, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and de- 

 tailed in full in Garden and Forest of August 7th, commends 

 itself not only to the sober thought of all interested, but also 

 agrees with the experience of those who have pursued the 

 plan of propagating the new plants from strong and vigorous 

 ones that have not been allowed to bear fruit and thus to par- 

 tially weaken their reproductive force. There is no doubt 

 that in all cases (other things being equal) this mode will pro- 

 duce better plants, and, consequently, a better yield of fruit 

 the following season. 



One of my neighbors has pursued this course for a number 

 of years, and he has thus been enabled to retain in good bear- 

 ing order and in a healthy condition that most excellent old 

 variety, " Boyden's Number Thirty," when all the growers in 

 the neighborhood of its early home, Irvingfon, New Jersev, 

 were obliged to discard it on account of its deterioration. It 

 is sfill true that like begets like, and in order to produce 

 strong and hardy plants you must have vigorous stock to' work 

 from. 



Newark, N.J. C. L. Jones. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Referring to Mr. Horsford's note on the Swamp Milk- 

 weed [Asclepias incarnaia), let me say that there is a variety 

 of this species with white flowers. Not long ago I came upon 

 a few plants of this sort, and the umbels of white flowers were 

 most attractive. 



Arnold Arboretum. Jackson DawSOn. 



Recent Plant Portraits. 



Botanical Magazine, July. 



Pandanus lahvrinthicus, t. 7063, a handsome species, 

 native of the Malay Islands, which has flowered and fruited at 

 Kew, its striking ovoid heads of fruit being particularly note- 

 worthy. 



Svringa villosa, t. 7064, the Lilac from North China, which 

 was figured in this journal (i., 521, fig. 83). 



Olearia macrodonta, /'.706s, one of the Daisy trees of New 



