5i6 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 23, if 



Quebec, First Vice-President; Mr. N. H. Egleston, Washington, 

 D. C, Recording- Secretary ; Mr. Charles C. Binney, Philadel- 

 phia, Corresponding Secretary ; Dr. H. M. Fisher, Philadelphia, 

 Treasurer. 



Notes. 



The Rev. Lyman Phelps writes from Sanford, Florida, of an 

 Allamanda but two years old which covers a lattice twelve 

 feet high and as many wide, and shows more than 500 flowers 

 in bloom. 



The twelfth semi-annual Fruit-growers' Convention of Cali- 

 fornia will be held under the auspices of the State Board of 

 Horticulture, in Fresno, commencing Tuesday, November 

 5th. Special attention will be given to discussions upon raisins 

 and other dried fruits. 



^ Mr. William Hamilton, Superintendent of Parks in Allegheny 

 City — which until very recent years was an exceedingly smoky 

 city — states that the Ginkgo tree thrives as well in that city and 

 Pittsburgh as the Ailanthus. This means that the smoke and 

 dust of the city do it no harm which can be detected. 



Many different modes of keeping ripe grapes have been 

 recommended and adopted, but the two great requirements 

 for success, as noted in the Country Gentle man, are 3. continued 

 low temperature, a few degrees above freezing, and well 

 ripened fruit. Badly ripened, and poor, watery grapes will not 

 keep long. Packed in dry or baked sawdust, they are excluded 

 from air currents, and are thus easily kept till midwinter in a 

 cold apartment. The Agriculturist says that if wilted and then 

 buried in stone jars three or four feet below the surface, they 

 will come out with stems green and fruit plump and bright. 



The fashion of celebrating Arbor Day has traveled as far as 

 Australia, at least. At Adelaide the initiation of Arbor Day 

 was signalized by the planting of 800 trees upon the Park 

 Lands by the pupils of the schools. Many private persons 

 also planted trees on that day in various parts of the colony, 

 and no less than 35,000 trees had been applied for at the Forest 

 Office on the day before Arbor Day. The City and Suburban 

 Schools Arbor Committee forwarded a recommendation to the 

 Ministry to provide for the proclamation of an annual holiday, 

 to be called Arbor Day, when every colonist of South Australia 

 should be invited to plant at least one tree, and they suggested 

 that the first Friday in August each year would probably be 

 the most suitable day in that region. 



Our experiment stations have made a good many tests with 

 seed-potatoes, using entire tubers, small and large, and a 

 certain number of eyes from different ends of the potato ; 

 but the experiments have given no uniform results. The 

 Gardeners' Chronicle, in the last number, sums up a discussion 

 of the general subject as follows: " The gist of the matter 

 seems to be that whole sets should be planted, and these 

 should be denuded of all eyes but a few of those at the crown; 

 and the plants allowed ample space, so that the roots may have 

 a large feeding area, and then the potato crop will be far 

 greater than we are accustomed to have, and the number of 

 sets required fewer." We are inclined to think that in this 

 country potatoes would yield more to the acre if planted more 

 thickly than usual. 



Isotoma axillaris is an Australian perennial of the Lobelia 

 Family, growing to a height of from six to twelve inches, with 

 bright blue spreading flowers nearly an inch across. It was 

 one of the early introductions from Australia, but of late years 

 has been pushed aside, like many other Australian plants, by 

 newer and therefore more fashionable subjects ; and it is now 

 rarely seen outside a few old-fashioned gardens. The most 

 attractive feature, nevertheless, this year, of the tiower-garden 

 at Dropmore, in England, was a bed entirely filled with this 

 plant. Although a perennial, Isotoma flowers freely the first 

 year from seed, and so may be treated best as an annual when 

 it is intended for summer blooming. As it is a sun-loving and 

 drought-loving plant, it might be expected to succeed in the 

 United States even better than it does in England. 



Ulmus umbraculifera is one of the most striking and 

 interesting trees of recent introduction. It is a form of the 

 Old World Elm (f/. campestris), discovered in Persia a few 

 years ago, and sent by a German gardener in the employ of 

 the Shah to Mr. Louis Spath, of the Rixdorf nurseries, in Ber- 

 lin, who has propagated it largely by grafting on the common 

 Elm. The largest specimen in Mr. Spath's nursery is a tall 

 standard, with a stem ten or twelve feet high, surmounted by 

 a dense, compact and almost globular head twelve or fifteen 

 feet across. The original tree in Persia is said to be large 

 enough to shelter a regiment of soldiers under its wide- 

 spreading branches. Ulmus umbraculifera, worked as a tall 



standard, has been planted in considerable numbers along 

 some of the new 'streets in the suburbs of Berlin — a use 

 for which its peculiar habit seems to adapt it. 



The most beautiful flowers, this year, in the small pond 

 devoted to the cultivation of aquatic plants in the gardens of 

 the Trocad^ro, in Paris, were two yellow-flowered Water Lilies, 

 in the collection of M. Lagrange, nurseryman, at Oulins 

 (Rhone). They were labeled Nymphcea odorata sulphur ea and 

 N. Marliacea (already noticed in Garden and Forest, vol. ii., p. 

 408). Both plants are hybrids, evidently between|iV. tuberosa and 

 the YXox'vla N. flava, but TV. Marliacea, as it appeared in this 

 collection, was far the handsomer and freer bloomer of 

 the two. It is certainly one of the most beautiful of all the 

 Nymphaeas ; and if it proves hardy here it will be a real acqui- 

 sition to gardens. A striking plant in M. Lagrange's exhibit 

 was a tall double-flowered Sagittaria, labeled S. Japonica 

 plena. It is a form of the widely distributed S. sagittcefolia 

 (var. diversifolia), from China, and one of the best aquatic 

 plants of its class, with great clusters of pure white flowers, 

 and bold, broad masses of foliage, sometimes more than three 

 feet high. It may be expected to be hardy in the northern States. 



At the i"ecent meeting of the British Association at New- 

 castle, a report of a committee formed for the purpose of col- 

 lecting information as to the disappearance of native plants 

 from their local habitats was read. The attention of the com- 

 mittee had been in the main directed to the threatened extinc- 

 tion of rare plants, and the report also spoke of the injudicious 

 action of botanists themselves and of botanical exchange clubs, 

 as being potent factors in the changes which had taken place. 

 The committee observed that the dealer and collector figured 

 largely in the disappearance of Ferns, and in conclusion, sug- 

 gested to natural history societies and field clubs the advisability 

 of keeping careful guard over any rare plants to be found within 

 their respective spheres of action. Canon Tristram referred to 

 the disappearance of plants, and said that all these plants which 

 they found disappearing could be procured by those who 

 wished them from nurserymen, and the collectors who wished 

 to grow them could get more readily from the dealer plants 

 likely to survive and flourish than by collecting them them- 

 selves. 



M. Andre, in a recent nimiber of the Revue Horticole, calls 

 attention to the value of Bouvardia Humboldti as a summer 

 blooming bedding plant. This charming species, a native of 

 Mexico and introduced in Europe as early as 1874, seems to 

 be practically unknown in the gardens of this country, although 

 in Paris, Tours and other French cities well grown plants in 

 flower are now not infrequently found for sale in the flower- 

 markets during the summer months. A large bed of these 

 plants, furnished by M. Jean Puteaux, of Versailles, has been 

 one of the most interesting and attractive features of the gar- 

 dens of the Trocadero during the past summer. The plants 

 were short, stocky, and covered with their terminal racemes of 

 long-tubed, deliciously fragrant, pure white flowers, which 

 contrast pleasantly with the dark green foliage. M. Andre 

 calls attention to the fact that the plants of this species will 

 continue to produce their flowers during several months if 

 they are copiously supplied with water, and if the flowers are 

 removed as fast as they fade, that the development of seeds 

 may be prevented. 



President Horace Davis, of the University of California, 

 recently received an inquiry from Algeria concerning experi- 

 ence on the Pacific coast with grasses for restraining drifting 

 sands. As much of this kind of work has been done at Golden 

 Gate Park, in San Francisco, the experience of Mr. John 

 McLaren, the efficient superintendent of the park, was asked, and 

 his statement has been forwarded to the distanf applicant. Part 

 of the information given by Mr. McLaren is quoted as follows in 

 the Pacific Rural Press : " The grasses found most successful 

 here are the Sea Bent grass (Calamagrostis Arenaria) and the 

 Bermuda grass {Cynodon dactylon), both of which have been 

 entirely successful in holding the loose sand. I would plant 

 the Sea Bent in the most exposed places and the Bermuda on 

 the protected slopes. We plant in rows one and one-half to 

 two feet apart and one foot deep. Where practicable, the 

 plow is used, dropping the roots in each alternate furrow. 

 Where the dunes are too steep for plowing, pits are dug with 

 the spade, and, after planting, the sand is trodden firmly with 

 the foot. The plantations have to be examined after heavy 

 wind-storms to replant any roots exposed by the wind. If 

 seeds only can be procured, I would suggest that they be sown 

 in nursery rows and the plants set out the following season." 

 Of course, there are also many shrubs used, and the nursery 

 at the park has propagated a vast number of the Leptosper- 

 mum and other shrubs which have been found serviceable. 



