Septf.miier h 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



433 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



I'UIiLlSHED WEEKLY LiY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tkidune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargknt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



EniTOKiAi.: — A New Enjjland Rock-Garden. — The Produclioii of Staves. — 



Drives and Wallcs. I 433 



Old Mission San Josd Gardens Charlrs H. Shinn. 434 



Notes upon Some North American Trees. — IX . . .Professor C. S. Sargent. 435 



Entomolcgical: — The Periodical Cicada Professor f. B. Smith. 436 



KoKEiGN Correspondence: — London Letter ". /K. Goldring. 436 



Cultural Department: — Shrubs with Conspicuous Fruit in Auj^ust, 



J. G. Jack. 437 



Memoranda from a Northern Garden T. H. Hoskms.M.D. 439 



Seasonalile Hints about Folias=;e Plants IV. H. Taplin. 440 



Crooked Norway Maples W. C. Strong. 440 



Rhododendron odoratum W. G. 440 



Pyrethruni ulij^inosum — Clematis paniculata O. 440 



Osheck's Sumach J. 441 



Orcliid Nomenclature Calyfso. 441 



CoKRi'SPONDENCE :— The North Woods. — VIII f. B. Harrison. 441 



Improvement in Popular Plant-Names W. H. Manning. 442 



Bits of Color Professor IV. IV. Bailey. 443 



Recent Plant Portraits 443 



Notes 444 



Illusi rations; — A New Eng;land Rock-Garden, first view 438 



A New England Rock-Garden, second view 439 



A New England Rock Garden. 



A BOSTON correspondent contributed to our pages 

 early in the season a series of notes upon some of 

 the interesting- spring-flowering plants of his rock-garden, 

 and now he has sent us a series of views of this garden, 

 taken when the Poet's Narcissus was in flower. Two of 

 these views are reproduced in this issue, for the purpose of 

 showing how interesting and attractive a garden of this 

 sort may be made, and how an ugly bit of waste ground 

 may be easily brought to serve a good and useful purpose. 

 The site of this garden, a few years ago, was an abandoned 

 gravel-pit partly overgrown with brambles. A few old 

 trees grew about the borders, and the lower side extended 

 down into the low, wet, peat margin of a pond. The flight 

 of rough stone steps, which appears in the picture on page 

 439, was carried up the steepest face of the gravel-pit to con- 

 nect a wood-walk at the lower level with dressed ground 

 above. Large stones, lichen-covered, when such could be 

 obtained, were spread over the surface of the gravel-slopes 

 to hold the soil, which was placed between them, from 

 washing away and to make the "pockets," which are 

 desirable to protect delicate plants from the encroach- 

 ments of too vigorous neighbors. A few tall-growing 

 shrubs were planted at the top of the now rocky hill to 

 increase its apparent height ; and a few low ones were 

 scattered through the rocks to break the surface and 

 avoid any danger of monotony. Then the remaining space 

 has been gradually filled with spring-flowering plants — 

 hardy bulbs of many sorts, hardy ferns, and such native 

 plants as flower before the full development of the leaves 

 on the forest trees, for as these shade the ground, e.xcept 

 on one side, it is suited for early flowering plants only. 

 These thrive here and make this small . garden a spot of 

 interest and beauty during the six weeks which follow the 

 opening of spring ; and then the ferns cover the ground 

 during the remainder of the season, or Sedums or House- 

 leeks, and other sun-loving plants, on the exposed side 

 keep up the succession of flowers. 



The view on page 438, taken from the low ground near the 

 pond, shows a section of the garden open to the south- 



west. The large tree to the right of the picture in ihe fore- 

 ground is a Sassafras, with the deeply furrowed bark 

 admirably brought out. This view shows the manner in 

 which the rocks are arranged to hold the soil jilaced eimong 

 them, and to prevent the water from pouring off from the 

 surface. The whole secret of a successful rock-garden is 

 in the manner the rocks are placed. If they are laid in 

 such a way that they offer no resistance to the flow of 

 water away from them, the moisture-loving plants, which 

 properly belong to such gardens, cannot survive our hot, 

 dry summers, but if they are arranged so as to resist the 

 flow of water, they are of great service in increasing the 

 humidity of the soil, not only by preventing the rain- 

 water from flowing rapidly away, but also by checking 

 evaporation. They are of great assistance, too, in forming 

 barriers between different plants and in protecting the weak 

 from the strong, and in keeping deep, cool recesses for the 

 fine roots of Alpine plants. The number and variety of 

 plants which can be grown in a small space, prepared in 

 this way, is astonishing, and thousands of the smaller 

 bulbous plants like Crocuses, the smaller Squills, and 

 Dogtooth Violets, may be tucked away close to the edges 

 of the rocks, or at the points where they join, without in 

 any way interfering with the more prominent occupants of 

 the larger spaces. 



Certainly, there is no sort of garden which, in our 

 northern climate, is capable of giving more pleasure than 

 one, whatever its arrangement may be, in which the prin- 

 cipal feature is the cultivation of the hardy plants which 

 flower in spring. 



The production of staves has been an important indus- 

 try in the United States for more than a century, and vast 

 quantities of the very finest timber produced in our for- 

 ests have been consumed in this way. Virginia was for 

 many years the great stave-producing state, but as good 

 Oak became scarce in the accessible parts of that state, 

 the business gradually spread west to Ohio and Indiana. 

 Now Missouri and Arkansas and the region covered by 

 the southern culmination of the Appalachian IMountain 

 systeiTi produce the largest quantity. We gather from a 

 recent issue of the St. Louis Liimhernian some interesting 

 information with regard to this industry. The wood pre- 

 ferred for stave-making is white oak. It is used for tight 

 barrels, except molasses barrels, which are made of Cyprus 

 {Taxodmm) or bass-wood. Barrels used for holding flour, 

 potatoes, apples sugar and similar commodities are made 

 of elm, ash, red oak and other woods. There are three 

 classes of staves, the classification being based on the meth- 

 ods used in getting them out. These classes are the "split," 

 the "sawed " and the "cut.'' The first are used for beer, 

 wine and other liquids, and are made from the best white 

 oak. The sawed staves are also made from white oak, 

 and are used in the manufacture of coal-oil barrels, lard 

 tierces, white-lead kegs, well-buckets and other vessels 

 intended to contain liquids. Cut staves are made by ma- 

 chinery, and are put into barrels used for solids. There 

 is, in addition to the great home cohsumjition, a large 

 export of staves to England, and to France, Italy, Spain 

 and other European wine-pi"oducing countries. The an- 

 nual export is now estimated at twelve million pieces. 

 The principal sta\e markets are New York and St. Louis. 

 New York and New Orleans are the two principal export 

 ports. The importance of St. Louis as a stave-distributing 

 centre is of comparatively recent date, and is due to the 

 exhaustion of the forests east of the Mississipi)i, and to the 

 great development of l)arrel-using industries in the West, 

 such as milling at St. Louis and Minneapolis ; beer-making 

 at Milwaukee, and especially the wine-making of Califor- 

 nia, for in all the territory west of the Rock}^ Mountains 

 there does not grow a tree from which a wine-cask can be 

 made. St. Louis now receives annually between 2,500 

 and 3,000 car-loads of staves, which are distributed all 

 over the United States and Europe, although large quanti- 

 ties are used in supplying local factories. There are still 



