504 



Garden and Forest. 



[October i6, iS 



Notes. 



Tlie Agricultural Society of Herault has opened a subscrip- 

 tion for a monument to the late Professor Planchon, who, by 

 his studies of the Vine, and of its greatest enemy, the Phyllox- 

 era, rendered signal and highly appreciated services to French 

 agriculture. 



A correspondent, referring to Mr. Boynton's note on Hclo- 

 nias biillata, writes that he lias tried to naturalize the plant on 

 his grounds in Ohio, but foimd it short-lived, the inland cli- 

 mate being apparently inhospitable. In the damp sand of 

 southern New Jersey the plant seems most at home. 



Professor Lintner estimates that if all the species of insects 

 inhabiting the world were known their number would reach a 

 million, and, descending to the consideration of individuals, he 

 adds that he has seen at one glance, within a small extent of 

 roadway, more snow-fleas of a single species than there are 

 human beings on the entire surface of the globe. 



The Rothschilds, according to a note in a recent issue of 

 L' Illustration Horticole, have established at Jerusalem a 

 School of Agriculture, Vine-culture and Horticulture under 

 the direction of the former head gardener of the Maradja of 

 Cashmere. Ten thousand plants of the Cashmere Vine have 

 been planted, and special attention is to be given to the culti- 

 vation of Saffron and plants with sweet-scented flowers for the 

 production of perfumes. 



Some carefully conducted experiments at the Ohio Station 

 seem to indicate that winter apples keep longer when picked 

 early. There was practically no difference in the percentage 

 of loss for six months from picking, but after that the apples 

 gathered early were much more sound than the others. The 

 greater part of the loss in weight by drying takes place in the 

 first six months. The apples picked early lose slightly 

 more than those picked late. 



In reply to some inquiries in regard to the planting of the 

 slopes of railroad cuts and embankments, Mr. Jackson Daw- 

 son, of the Arnold Arboretum, writes that where shrubs or 

 small trees are collected for this purpose from neighboring 

 woods and fields, it is advisable, as a rule, to cut them hard 

 back and grow them for a year in well-prepared ground, before 

 they are set in their permanent position. Mr. Dawson has had 

 extensive experience with native shrubs, but he adds that 

 many trials will be needed before we can know whether a se- 

 lection of shrubs can be made which will flourish on slopes of 

 clay, for example, without any surface preparation. 



A flowering plant of Vanda Kimballiana, described in 

 another column of this issue, was exhibited by Mr. John L. 

 Gardner, of Brookline, before the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society, on the 7th of this month, and was awarded the 

 silver medal of the Society. It is an interesting fact, signifi- 

 cant of the present advanced state of American horticulture, that 

 a plant which was entirely unknown to science up to the 

 present year, and had not flowered in Europe six weeks ago, 

 has also flowered in at least one American collection. The 

 fact that this particular plant commemorates in its name the 

 zeal of an American lover of Orchids, whose collection ranks 

 with the best in existence, is, perhaps, not less significant. A 

 portrait of Mr. Gardner's plant is being prepared for this 

 journal. 



The Colonial Board of Viticulture in Melbourne recently 

 proposed the establishment, at public expense, of an experi- 

 mental vineyard and school of viticulture for the colony. The 

 suggestion has now been accepted by the Minister of Lands, 

 and a site has been selected for the purpose at Rutherglen. 

 The area selected is 200 acres, and it will be permanendy re- 

 served for the purpose. Instruction will be imparted at the 

 institution by capable teachers in the most improved methods 

 of vine cultivation, and experiments will be conducted with 

 the view of testing the value of new plants said to be suitable 

 for growth in Victoria. Funds for conducting the school will 

 be provided in the present year's estimates, but pending the 

 formal vote the Minister has authorized the expenditure of a 

 sum sufficient to at once plant twentyacres of the reserve, and 

 so expedite the work. 



Mr. George W. Archer, in an interesting paper on " A Trip to 

 Old Baltimore and Other Points in Bush River Neck," which 

 has since been published in the Belair (Maryland) /Egis, writes 

 of "Shandy Hall," the home of some of the Hall family for 

 five generations. It was built by Benedict Edward Hall, a 

 stanch and prominent patriot during the Revolution. He 

 says : " In the yard is a group of venerable Box-trees, which 

 are said to have been planted when the older part of the house 



was built, in 1701. And it may well be believed; for the group 

 is now so large and compact that, but for the color, it might 

 readily be mistaken at a little distance for a misplaced hay- 

 stack. But this remarkable growth of Box is thrown into the 

 shade by a White Oak nearly half a mile distant. Not that the 

 Oak literally casts a shade quite so far as that at noon, but that 

 I found it, by actual measurement, thirty-nine feet four inches 

 in girth at the ground, and twenty-one feet seven inches at the 

 smallest part of its venerable waist, where the limbs begin to 

 swell. These limbs are as large as most full-grown 6aks. 

 The first one, where it branches off, ten feet from the ground, 

 is exactly twelve feet four inches in girth. The extent of this 

 patriarch, from end to end of its opposite branches, is 123 feet. 

 It stands in an open field, solitary and alone, and I wondered 

 that the lightning left it so long untouched. Not the least re- 

 markable thing about it is, that from tip to root, it gives no 

 hint whatever of decay. If it were a human being I might say 

 it has not a gray hair in its head, nor the sign of a wrinkle on 

 its rugged limbs. A deed of 1672 (217 years ago) designates it 

 as a 'Spreading Oak,' marking a corner of a tract of land." 



Professors L. H. Baily, E. S. Goff and W. H. Green were 

 appointed at the last meeting of the Association of Agricul- 

 tural Colleges and Experiment Stations to report on the nomen- 

 clature of kitchen-garden vegetables. In their report just issued 

 by the Department of Agriculture, after stating that a name is 

 bestowed upon a plant solely for the purpose of designating, 

 and-not for describing, it, the committee lay down the follow- 

 ing rules : I. The name of a variety should consist of a sin- 

 gle word, or at most of two words. A phrase, descriptive or 

 otherwise, is never allowable ; as, Pride of Italy, King of Mam- 

 moths, Earliest of All. 2. The name should not be superla- 

 tive or bombastic. In particular, all such epithets as New, 

 Large, Giant, Fine, Selected, Improved and the like should be 

 omitted. If the grower or dealer has a superior stock of a 

 variety, the fact should be stated in the description imme- 

 diately after the name, rather than as a part of the name itself; 

 as, "Trophy, selected stock." 3. If a grower or dealer has 

 procured a new select strain of a well known variety it shall 

 be legitimate for him to use his own name in connection with 

 the established name of the variety; as. Smith's Winningstadt, 

 Jones' Cardinal. 4. When personal names are given to varie- 

 ties, titles should be omitted; as, Major, General, Queen. 5. 

 The term " hybrid" should not be used, except in those rare 

 instances in which the variety is known to be of hybrid origin. 

 6. The originator has the prior right to name the variety ; but 

 the oldest name which conforms to these rules should be 

 adopted. 7. This committee reserve the right, in their own 

 publications, to revise objectionable names in conformity with 

 these rules. 



The following description of the manner in which floating 

 fields and gardens are formed in China, was condensed for pub- 

 lication in The Garden from an article by Dr. Macgowan, 

 which originally appeared in the China Review : " In the 

 month of April, a bamboo raft, ten to twelve feet long and 

 about half as broad, is prepared. The poles are lashed 

 together with interstices of an inch between each. Over this 

 a layer of straw an inch thick is spread, and then a coating two 

 inches thick of adhesive mud taken from the bottom of a 

 canal or pond, which receives the seed. The raft is moored 

 to the bank in still water, and requires no further attention. 

 The straw soon gives way and the soil also, the roots drawing 

 support from the water alone. In about twenty days the raft 

 becomes covered with tfie creeper (Ipomcea reptans), and its 

 stems and roots are gathered for cooking. In autumn its 

 small, white petals and yellow stamens, nestling among the 

 round leaves, present a very pretty appearance. In some 

 places marshy land is profitably cultivated in this manner. 

 Besides these floating vegetable gardens there are also float- 

 ing Rice fields. Upon rafts constructed as above weeds and 

 adherent mud were placed as a flooring, and when the Rice 

 shoots were ready for transplanting they were placed in the 

 floating soil, which being adhesive and held in place by weed 

 roots, the plants were maintained in position throughout the 

 season. The Rice thus planted ripened in from sixty to 

 seventy, in place of 100 days. The rafts are cabled to the 

 shore, floating on lakes, pools or sluggish streams. These 

 floating fields served to avert famines, whether by drought or 

 flood. When other fields were submerged and their crops 

 rotten, these floated and flourished ; and when a drought pre- 

 vailed they subsided with the falling water, and while the soil 

 around was arid advanced to maturity. Agricultural treatises 

 contain plates representing rows of extensive Rice fields 

 moored to sturdy trees on the banks of rivers or lakes which 

 existed formerly in the lacustrine regions of the Lower Yang- 

 tsze and Yellow Rivers." 



