3d 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number ^66. 



Notes. 



Tlie Miller Raspberry, which has already been described in 

 this journal (vol. vii., page 300), will be offered by leading nur- 

 serymen this spring. It has hitherto been grown only by 

 commercial planters in Delaware and Maryland for the sake of 

 its fruit, and has not been disseminated. 



From a private letter dated on the last day of the year we 

 learn that Chrysanthemums were still enlivening the gardens 

 of Santa Barbara, California, with Roses, Violets and Salvia 

 splendens still in bloom. Cestrum aurantiacum and C. elegans 

 were also in flower; the Libonias, Passiflora manicata and 

 Bignonia venusta were showing some blooms, while Vel- 

 theiniia speciosa was just coming on with Paper White Nar- 

 cissus in full bloom. 



The Tree Tomato, Solanum betaceum, is a shrubby plant, 

 a native of Central America, growing to a height of five or six 

 feet with large shining leaves, fragrant flesh-colored flowers 

 and fruit said to be as large as a duck's egg and of similar 

 shape. It is at first purple, but gradually assumes a warm 

 reddish color, so that the plant is really ornamental as it is 

 grown in southern California. The plants bear the second 

 year from the seed and the fruit ripens continuously for several 

 months. The fruit will never be of any commercial impor- 

 tance, but it may be eaten raw, and when it is stewed with 

 sugar it has a slightly subacid flavor which is very refresh- 

 ing. 



The forty-sixth volume of the Gardeji, which begins with 

 the first issue of this year, is appropriately dedicated to Mr. 

 Edward Whittall, the English merchant of Smyrna, who has 

 enriched English and American gardens with many new and 

 beautiful plants from the liills of Asia Minor, many of which 

 are perfectly hardy. Among these are species and varieties 

 of Crocus, Chionodoxa, Cyclamen, Fritillaria and Sternbergia. 

 Mr. Whittall is still a young and active man, and we cordially 

 unite with Mr. Robinson in wishing that he may live long to 

 continue the good work of distributing plants which have for 

 ages bloomed unseen or unappreciated in those mountain 

 solitudes. 



A bulletin which gives notes on the Strawberries grown at 

 the Geneva Station, New York, last year, contains an illustra- 

 tion of four rows of a seedling raised at the station and known 

 as No. 198. The strong, upright fruit stems and large, vigor- 

 ous leaves are conspicuous. This variety was only exceeded in 

 total yield by five others, and it was especially noted for its 

 large production late in the season, three-fourths of the entire 

 crop, 144 ounces on thirty-three square feet, having been 

 picked after the third of July. This is a remarkable showing. 

 The berries are of a good dark color and large size, but they 

 are not of the highest quality. The extreme lateness of its 

 season of bearing, however, ought to give this variety a 

 special value. 



We are sorry to learn that Mr. C. M. Atkinson, one of the 

 best all-round gardeners that America has seen, has been 

 obliged, through physical infirmity, to retire from the charge, 

 which he has held for nearly thirty years, of the gardens and 

 estate of Mr. John L. Gardner, of Brookline, Massachusetts. 

 This place has long been known to lovers of horticulture for 

 its well-grown fruits and flowers, and especially for many of 

 those old-fashioned hard wood greenhouse-plants which are 

 so sadly neglected in most gardens of the present day, and 

 which Mr. Atkinson grew to perfection. His skill, however, 

 was not limited to any single field, and he was equally suc- 

 cessful with Azaleas, Japanese Irises, Roses, Orchids, Violets, 

 and all sorts of greenhouse and hardy plants. 



At the meeting of the directors of the various experiment 

 stations in Washington last autumn there was exhibited the 

 photograph of a Tomato-plant which originated in the garden 

 of Colonel M. V. Moore, of Auburn, Alabama. The plant 

 covered a trellis about fifteen feet square, and it was said that 

 during the season it produced more than four hundred well- 

 developed fruits, some single specimens of which weighed 

 nearly a pound, the average weight being about six ounces, or 

 a hundred and fifty pounds, say, as the entire yield during the 

 season. The fruits were round and smooth, and they grew in 

 clusters of from three to seven. The flesh was solid, richly 

 flavored and finely grained. The plant has been perpetuated 

 by cuttings, and seed of some of the largest fruits has been 

 preserved. 



A late number of the Gardeners' Magazine contains an 

 excellent illustration of a fruiting branch of the Sea Buckthorn, 



Hypophae rhamnoides. In his description of the plant, Mr. 

 George Nicholson says that few growers of trees and shrubs 

 are acquainted with the plant, although its bright orange- 

 colored berries set closely along the branches and remaining all 

 winter long, make it especially valuable. The fruits are some- 

 what bleached by hard freezing, but in late autumn they liter- 

 ally glow in the bright sunlight. Hypophae is hardy in our 

 northern states, but it is less common here in cultivation even 

 than in Great Britain ; in fact, we have never seen good fruit- 

 ing plants of it in America. The genus is dioecious, and the 

 staminate plants are, of course, useless for decorative pur- 

 poses. That it should be better known and more generally 

 grown must be the opinion of any one who has seen it in 

 some Swiss valley in September, when its bright fruit makes a 

 striking display. 



The latest news from Florida shows that the orange crop 

 will not be a total loss in some of the groves in the central 

 part of the state and along the south-western coast. Although 

 heavy frosts prevailed in these parts and the thermometer 

 fell to twenty-eight degrees, there was no long-continued 

 cold, as throughout other sections, where the freezing weather 

 lasted for three days, and the oranges were frozen solid on the 

 trees. Later on these oranges dropped, and the ground was 

 thickly covered with useless fruit, and in many instances the 

 leaves also fell, while the bark burst the entire length of the 

 trunks. Besides the supplies of Mediterranean fruit under 

 way to supply the deficiency, the New York market is ready to 

 take the supply from Jamaica, Porto Rico and Cuba, so that, 

 although there will not be as many oranges of the first quality 

 as was expected, there will be no scarcity of fairly good fruit 

 at reasonable prices. In ordinary seasons the shipments of 

 oranges from Jamaica stop when the Florida season is fully 

 under way, and this is true also of Cuba oranges. Jamaica 

 oranges sold at auction on Saturday at $4 50 a barrel for the 

 best, while damaged Florida fruit could hardly be sold at any 

 price. Mediterranean oranges are selling at wholesale for 

 $2.50 to $3.00 a box. Tangerine oranges bring $5.00 a box for 

 a grade which brought $2.50 a fortnight ago. Almeria grapes 

 of good quality can be had for thirty cents a pound. Hot- 

 house strawberries from New Jersey cost $3.00 a pint, and 

 hot-house pineapples from Florida may be had as low as 

 thirty-five cents each. 



Dr. Bornet has published in the Bulletin de la Societe Myco- 

 logique de France a sympathetic notice of Philibert Picart, the 

 French engraver, who is specially known to Americans by his 

 engravings in Engelmann's classical work on Cactacea, and in 

 the first volumes of Sargent's Silva of North America, upon 

 which he had been exclusively engaged for several years be- 

 fore his death. " Philibert Picart," Professor Bornet tells us, 

 " was born in Paris on the 2d of December, 1825. A pupil 

 in the School of Design of the Rue de I'Ecole de MiSdecine, he 

 obtained, at the age of sixteen, the highest prize given in that 

 establishment. Soon becoming the principal support, and 

 then the head of a numerous family, he would have been 

 obliged to abandon it for military service had not Louis 

 Philippe generously come to his rescue and purchased a sub- 

 stitute for him from his private purse. With the assistance of 

 his mother, who was as brave as himself, he succeeded, by per- 

 sistence and self-sacrifice, in bringing up his six brothers and 

 sisters. One of his brothers, Eugene, who was also an excel- 

 lent engraver, was, until the end of his life, the assiduous 

 assistant of Pliilibert, dying two years before fiim. The list of 

 the great works to which Philibert Picart has contributed is a 

 long one. Les Quinquinas de Weddel, the Cactaceae of Engel- 

 mann, I'Arboretum Segrezianum of Lavalli^e, the Plants of the 

 Orient of Jaubert & Spach, the Jardin Fruiter du Museum of 

 Decaisne, the Chilian Voyage of Gay, the Batrachospermes 

 of Sirodot, the Forest Trees of North America of Sargent, are 

 familiar to every one. A skilled entomologist, the zoologists 

 are not less indeljted to Picart than the botanists. ' An inde- 

 fatigable worker,' said Monsieur Migneaux, in the sympathetic 

 address delivered at his funeral, 'conscientious, an excellent 

 observer, with a talent supple and ingenious, which specialists 

 and savants, whom he aided, can alone appreciate. Picart 

 was certainly the most complete expression of that group 

 of engravers who have illustrated the works of natural his- 

 tory in the second half of this century. Among the mul- 

 titude of scientific publications to which he contributed it 

 is proper to mention as the most important, perhaps, the 

 works on cryptogamous plants of Tulasne and "Thuret. The 

 plates of this work, engraved from drawings of Riocreux, are 

 simply masterpieces, the like of which will, perhaps, never be 

 seen again.' Picart possessed rare unselfishness and integrity. 

 The man was the equal of the artist." 



