444 



Garden and- Forest. 



[September ii, iS 



Notes. 



The occurrence of morphine in Eschschlolzia Califoriiica 

 has been recorded by Baudet and Adrian. 



It is noted in several instances this year that where Potatoes 

 were fertilized with potash salts the blight has been less prev- 

 alent. 



Professor Bailey reports in the American Garden that the 

 Crandall Currant has decided merits as a fruit for the home 

 garden. It is hardly a " fixed" variety, however, and only the 

 best plants should be used as stock for propagating. 



Colonel Pearson writes that the copper sulphate mixtures 

 have again proved themselves preventive of both rot and mil- 

 dew even in this exceptionally wet summer. The grape-crop 

 about Vineland is, however, almost a total failure, even where 

 the clusters were bagged, and bagged early. 



A black-seeded Maize, with cobs of various colors, from 

 Bolivia and Mexico, interests American visitors at the Paris 

 Exposition. In Bolivia this grain is used for making chica, the 

 popular fermented beverage of the country, as, indeed, of 

 most of the South American republics. 



The annual Chrysanthemum Show of the New Jersey Flori- 

 cultural Society will be held at Orange on the 12th, 13th and 

 14th of November. The President, Mr. James R. Pitcher, of 

 Short Hills, New Jersey, has sent us a schedule of premiums, 

 which are liberal, and the exhibition promises to be one o| 

 exceptional merit. 



Professor Arthur has discovered that the red Wheat-rust 

 is not a stage of the black rust {Piiccinia Graininis), as has 

 been generally held, but of P. Riibigo vera, a rust which does 

 not need the Barberry go-between for its reproductive stages. 

 This relieves mycologists from some awkward attempts to 

 explain how there happens to be so very much rust on the 

 grain where there are so few Barberries. 



The French Government has made Professor C. V. Riley a 

 Chevalier of the Legion of Honor as a deserved compliment 

 for his effective studies in economical entomology. His re- 

 searches have not only been of advantage to the farmers and 

 fruit-growers of the United States, but he discovered that the 

 phylloxera was an American insect, and identical with the pest 

 which had proved so disastrous to French vineyards. He also 

 introduced into France the spraying-nozzle which bears his 

 name, and which, with certain modifications, is used in that 

 country to counteract the mildew of the vine. 



Professor Beal finds that the peculiar markings in birdseye 

 Maple do not occur in young trees up to about three inches 

 in diameter, nor very high up in trees which are very much 

 pitted at the base. A specimen taken fifty feet above the 

 ground showed no trace of birdseye, while another from near 

 the base of the same tree was very strongly marked. If the 

 cause of these formations could be discovered and used to 

 produce the marks it would add greatly to the market value 

 of the timber, for the wood of this Maple and of other trees 

 somewhat similarly marked is comparatively scarce and in 

 great demand for veneers. 



Mr. Charles H. Shinn warns us that when the California pa- 

 pers give accounts of immense Redwood trees that have been 

 cut, they too often refer to the giant Sequoias. There are 

 many specimens of S. gioantea in the Sierra forests of Fresno 

 and Tulare, and they are being destroyed rapidly and their tim- 

 ber sold as redwood in the San Joaquin Valley. The so-called 

 Redwood which was stated to be twenty-eight and a half feet 

 in diameter was probably one of these trees. The famous 

 Felton Redwood is twenty feet in diameter and 366 feet high ; 

 and, although there may be stumps of Redwood with a diam- 

 eter exceeding this, Mr. Shinn does not know of any larger 

 tree of this species, S. sempervirens, now standing in California 

 forests. 



The first section of the Charles River Embankment, an im- 

 portant feature of Boston's public park system, is completed. 

 It lies between the two lower ijridges to Cambridge, with a 

 length of half a mile. It adjoins a crowded quarter chiefly 

 occupied by the tenement-house classes, and is of great sani- 

 tary value. Mr. Olmsted's design is appropriately simple ; it 

 comprises the elements of a wide promenade along the river- 

 wall, adjoined by slopes of turf with masses of trees and shrul)- 

 bery, mostly of common native species. There are two land- 

 ings, with Hoats for boats and steam-laimches. At one end 

 of the eml:)ankment is a public open-air athletic institution, 

 called the Charlesbank Gymnasium, the first of its kind in 



America ; it has already proved a great success. At the other 

 end an exercise place for women and girls is to be laid out. 



A correspondent, whose patience has been tried in the mat- 

 ter of labels for such plants as (Gladioli, Irises, and the like, 

 writes that her gardener has hit upon a contrivance which has 

 proved a great comfort. He takes a stout bit of telegraph- 

 wire, some two feet long, l)ends it to a ring at the top, which 

 is secured by a few spiral twists, leaving a straight, slender 

 metal rod, with an eye at one end. This is thrust down deeply 

 beside the plant, and a wooden or metallic label is attached 

 to the eye with a fine copper-wire. The rod and eye is not a 

 new device (Garden ^nd Forest, vol. i., p. 146), but this 

 method of constructing it will be new to many reatlers, and 

 they will find it better than tall wooden sticks, which get 

 pulled out oi' broken off. There are many plants to which la- 

 bels cannot be safisfactorily attached, and if the wire is set in 

 firmly it will remain as long as the plant by its side. 



Professor Scribner read a paper, at Toronto, before the So- 

 ciety for Promoting Agricultural Science, in which he spoke 

 of the Grasses on the bare summits of the southern Appa- 

 lachian Mountains. These treeless domes, concerning which- 

 Professor Plumb not long ago wrote an interesting letter for 

 Garden and Forest (p. 382), are called by the inhabitants 

 " Balds," or "Grassy Balds," and are highly prized as grazing 

 lands. Professor Scribner found twenty-five species of Grasses 

 on Roan Mountain, many of them, as for example Timothy 

 and Orchard Grass, evidently introduced, but now natin^alized. 

 The greater portion of the turf, however, was formed of 

 Mountain Oat-grass [Daitthonia compressa). Where this grass 

 occurs in quantity in New England it is taken as a sign of poor 

 or worn out land, but on these mountains it deserves the high- 

 est consideration. The condition of the stock which grazes 

 on these meadows among the clouds proves the value of this 

 grass as a food, and an analysis made by Dr. Stone, of the 

 Tennessee Experiment Station, shows that it contains forty 

 per cent, more of protein and fifty per cent, more of fat than 

 Timothy or Orchard Grass. 



Professor Burrill has detected a new bacterial disease of 

 Indian Corn which shows itself first in a dwarfed condition 

 of the young plants over areas varying in size from a few 

 square rods to an acre or more. After the tassels are formed, 

 the disease may be found scattered throughout the field in 

 single plants; the affected stalks, and especially their lower 

 leaves, being yellow and smaller than the healthy ones. In 

 anything like severe cases, at least half of the roots are in- 

 jm-ed and often dead, the lower portion of the stalk will be 

 foimd dead or dying, and presenting a dark color when split. 

 The disease organisms are found in great numbers on, and 

 within, the affected parts, in many cases collected in gelatinous 

 masses consisting of the bacteria held together by a stiff mu- 

 cilaginous substance which they exude. Too little is known 

 of the disease to suggest any remedy, but as it is probable 

 that the germs live through the winter in the soil, the young 

 Corn would be liable to suffer more if planted in fields where 

 the disease had prevailed the year before. It is noted that 

 the disease is usually the worst where Corn has succeeded 

 Corn. 'The disease is a very prevalent one, and may have ex- 

 isted for a long time. It is not always destructive enough to 

 attract attention, but not infrequently it occasions very serious 

 loss. 



Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry Division, read a 

 paper at the late meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, at Toronto, on National Interest 

 in National Resources — a subject suggested by recent action 

 on the part of the Government in regard to irrigation and 

 persistent inaction in regard to the forests of the national 

 domain. Mr. Fernow showed very clearly why our forests 

 constituted one of our national resources, which demand the 

 continued care and fostering administration of the state. In 

 commenting on the fitful and illogical way in which the nation 

 deals with its resoiu'ces, Mr. Fernow said: "While our 

 Government is ready to go to war in order to protect its 

 fisheries, it has never even known the value as food-supply of 

 the game which has been killed. Whole races of animals 

 have been extirpated before there was population enough to 

 require the meat. While with one hand we pay exorbitant 

 prices in land and wasted energy to get the plains re-forested, 

 and that with poor success, with the other hand we offer a 

 premium for forest-destruction in mountains by leaving them 

 without proper administration. And now we propose to 

 establish irrigation-systems, neglecting to provide first for 

 those conditions which assur-e a regulated water-supply — 

 namely, by forest-preservation." 



