588 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 4, 1889. 



M. Bruant, of Poitiers, writes to the Revue Horticole that he 

 has obtained some hybrids by cvoss\x\^ Rosa polyantJia \n\{\\ 

 the common Bengal Rose. The plants begin to l)loom early 

 and continue to bloom a great part of the summer, when the 

 Mowers are succeeded b}' persistent fruit of a bright red color. 

 A cluster of thefruits wassaid to make an interesting ornament. 



According to Gartenflora, the well known variegated Trades- 

 cantia {T. zebriiia) is an imfailing in-door weather prophet, if 

 grown where it can receive the sun even for a short time daily. In 

 the flowering season it will be filled with a multitude of buds, 

 but these will expand into the delicate lilac flowers only when 

 a storm is near at hand. T. viridis is said not to exhibit this 

 peculiarity. 



A correspondent of a German periodical writes that he pos- 

 sesses a variety of the common blue Chicory with white flow- 

 ers, and finds that it is often thought by those who admire it 

 to be an exotic novelty. He suggests, therefore, that horti- 

 culturists would do well to keep their eyes open in the woods 

 and fields, as they might find other pretty things that would 

 repay cultivation even in a commercial sense. 



Flowers were in great demand in New York for the Thanks- 

 giving holiday. Fine American Beauty Roses retailed for a 

 dollar each, and the same price was paid for the very best 

 Grandiflorum Chrysanthemums. Violets retailed at live dol- 

 lars a hundred. They are very scarce, owing to the disease, 

 which seems more prevalent and virulent than ever this year. 

 The unusual number of damp and rainy days may account for 

 the increase of the disease. 



The last number of the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Informa- 

 tion issued by the Director of the Royal Gardens of Kew (that 

 for November) contains articles on Phylloxera Regulations at 

 the Cape; on Collecting and Preserving Fleshy Fungi ; on the 

 attempt to promote in Labuan the cultivadon of the plant 

 which produces palm, oil {Elceis Guineensis'), and on the dif- 

 ferent machines, lately exhibited in Paris, for the preparation 

 of the fibre of the Ramie or Rhea-plant {Baehnteria nived). 



Our readers know that the Victoria Regia has been cultivated 

 out-doors in Massachusetts, for an illustration of a successful 

 result was shown in these pages some months ago. It was not 

 until the past summer, however, that the experiment was 

 made in Europe. Near the Mexican Pavilion, in the Expo- 

 sition grounds at Paris, was a small tank where three plants 

 flourished, and in the middle of August produced their im- 

 mense flowers. They had been brought from their native 

 home in boxes, and sunk, boxes and all, in the basin, which 

 was warmed with water drawn from the elevator machines in 

 the Eiffel Tower. 



From 1,000 Prune trees, five years old, Captain Guy E. 

 Grosse, of Santa Rosa, California, has this season dried five 

 tons of fruit, which he is delivering at the Southern Pacific 

 station for eastern shipment at four and a half cents a 

 pound. The rapid maturing of a Prune orchard, after arriving 

 at the fourth year, is shown by the increase in the crop of this 

 year over that of last year, when the yield was but 1,200 

 pounds. Next year it is expected the crop will be trebled. 

 At four and a half cents a pound, the proceeds fi"om the 

 1,000 trees this year equals $450. In two years more it should 

 be nearly $3,000. 



One hundred and twenty-nine thousand eight hun- 

 dred persons visited the Niagara Reservation during the 

 months of July, August and September last. A new stairway 

 to the Horseshoe Fall has been built ; the old art gallery 

 has been- turned into a library ; an iron railing, 200 feet in 

 length, has been carried around on the steepest shore of Goat 

 Island ; the stone foundation of Prospect Park has been re- 

 built, and many walks have been repaved or macadamized. 

 Money has been appropriated for the estal^lishment, at the 

 " Old Garden," of a nursery, whence material for planting can 

 be drawn in future years. 



Floral decorations are taking their place among advertising 

 expedients. At the recent opening of a large retail store in 

 Washington, the interior of the seven-story building was 

 almost covered with groups of Ferns and Palms and large 

 " set pieces " of brilliant hue, and with wreaths of Asparagus 

 and Smilax, while the great show-window was arranged as a 

 sort of conservatory — banked with Ferns and filled with flower- 

 ing plants surrounding a small glass lake in the centre, the 

 firm's stock of furnishing goods being illustrated by an inter- 

 mingling of lace curtains, rugs andornamental seats. It seems 

 douiitful whether the effect can have been very artistic, but one 

 can well believe that it served its main purpose by "attracfing 

 great attention." 



Mr. Peter Henderson exhibited in his windows in Cortlandt 

 Street, last week, a selection of Chrysanthemum flowers, in- 

 cluding a number of new importations from Japan. Besides 

 the new pink one in the style of Mrs. Hardy (Louis Bohmer), 

 there was also shown another numbered 22, with large tubular 

 florets, with coarser glandular hairs. Mr. Henderson's new 

 collection comprises a number of fancy kinds, quilled and tas- 

 seled. One of these, number eight, has very narrow florets, 

 which are so tightly twisted that they look like long, slender 

 tubes, the lower half of which are crimson and the upper half 

 bright yellow. They are gathered in a cluster like a plume, the 

 florets curving gracefully outward. There are three others of 

 this type, a pure white, a crimson and white, and a pink. They 

 are dwarf and bushy in habit, very floriferous, and quite distinct 

 in character from any other Chrysanthemums that have come 

 under our notice. 



The color and texture of rocks, especially when they rise in al- 

 most perpendicular walls, form a noteworthy feature in many 

 landscapes. The soft, mellow tints of the buttresses of the Nat- 

 ural Bridge in Virginia will occur to many persons as an illus- 

 tration of this, and all who have traveled among the northern 

 Rocky Mountains have observed the rich color-effects upon 

 the cliifs of that region. Writing of Lower California, Mr. 

 C. R. Orcutt, in the West American Scientist, says : " No small 

 factor in producing a pleasing effect in the scenery here is the 

 great variety of rock-lichens everywhere prevalent. Red, yel- 

 low, gi'ay and white are the prevailing colors observable, 

 and the whole side of a cliff is often covered by lichens of the 

 same tint. How many valuable mines may be hid from the 

 prospector's keen eye by these deceptive colorings ? Quartz, 

 however, is not a favorite rock with the lichens and conse- 

 quently is seldom concealed, while the lichens also frequently 

 imitate, in coloring, the natural color of the rocks on which 

 they are found." 



One of the most interesdng and valuable results of recent 

 French horticultural effort is found in the new race of dwarf 

 Cannas, with large and brilliantly colored flowers, produced 

 by M. Crozy, of Lyons. A large bed of these plants in the 

 garden of the Trocadero, in Paris, was surrounded all sumnier 

 by crowds of people. Too much has not been said of the 

 beauty of these plants and of their value for decorative pur- 

 poses, whether planted in the open ground or grown in pots or 

 tubs. The colors of the flowers of some of the varieties are 

 surprisingly brilliant. There seems no good reason, however, 

 for calling the plants " dwarf," except that they begin to flower 

 when they are not more than twenty inches high, for they 

 grow, especially in this country, when generously treated, to a 

 height of six or eight feet. Seventeen of the new varieties 

 exhibited at Paris for the first time, which, on the whole, are 

 no better than those sent out by M. Crozy during the past two 

 years, are described in a recent issue of the Revue Horticole. 

 No one who has not seen a collection of M. Crozy's Cannas in 

 good condition, can form the faintest idea even of the beauty 

 and the brilliancy of the flowers of the plants. 



A recent writer in the New York Sun says that the name of 

 Maine should be changed from the Pine-tree to the Spruce- 

 tree State. "In the early days of lumbering," 'he explains, 

 " pine made up the greater part of the cut, and little else than 

 pine and spruce was sought for. The pine was mostly sawn 

 into boards, and a large part of it was shipped to the West 

 Indies, where it was exchanged for Spanish gold, molasses 

 and sugar. While this traffic lasted Bangor's foreign trade was 

 lively. A big fleet of the old-fashioned brigs and schooners 

 found employment in a trade which paid good freights. Cargo 

 after cargo of the wide, clear, White Pine board's went out to 

 Cuba, Porto Rico and the Windward Islands, and other cargoes 

 of the sweets of the Antilles came back. Loggers and river- 

 drivers earned great wages ; the big pine was rapidly cut away 

 and began to grow scarce. Then came a change, the decad- 

 ence of the pine and the ascendency of the spruce, the decline 

 of the West India business and the opening of a new era in 

 the lumber trade. In 1855 123,000,000 feet of pine were sur- 

 veyed at Bangor, and only 78,000,000 of spruce. Ten years 

 later things had changed about, for in 1865 the survey was: 

 spruce, 107,505,867 feet; pine, 48,296,222 feet. In 1889, out of 

 a probable survey of 150,000,000 feet, less than one-sixth of the 

 amount will be pine, and that mostly second growth. There 

 are lots of big Pine trees left in Maine, but they are far away 

 to the north, and no great operations are now carried on for 

 that kind of lumber. Some pine is cut to supply a limited 

 demand, mostly local, but the large markets are now supplied 

 from Canada and Michigan. This is tlie age of spruce in 

 Maine. 



