96 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 366. 



& Co., of Philadelphia, announce that it will be distributed 

 next year. 



A statue has recently been erected at Montpellier, in the 

 south of France, to commemorate the life and services of the 

 distinguished botanist, Gustave Planchon, to whom, after a 

 study of the phylloxera on American Grape-vines, was largely 

 due the rehabilitation of the Vines of France after tliey had 

 been ravaged by that insect. It is the work of tlie sculptor 

 Baussan, and represents a laborer offering a Vine-branch to 

 Planchon. 



Small compact plants of Spiraea Thunbergii, of which we 

 have spoken on another page of this issue, have sometimes 

 been used for winter-forcing with good effect, and we have 

 lately seen some good branches of this plant which made a 

 fair show of flowers when placed in water. The buds are 

 fully formed in autumn, and its habit of early flowering is 

 often indicated by the white blossoms which it bears during 

 mild days in November. 



Cos Lettuces have never been as popular in this country as 

 they are in Europe, although for flavor and tenderness the 

 best of them are superior. Of course, they form no head, but 

 if the leaves are gathered up and tied the inner ones will soon 

 become blanched and brittle. A correspondent of American 

 Gardening has found that a slender rubber band slipped over 

 the outside leaves of the plant will answer every purpose, and, 

 of course, this is much more expeditious than tying. 



A bulletin from the Agricultural College of Texas, which 

 treats of fruits for that state, gives the information that native 

 Plums of the Wild Goose group and of the Americana group do 

 not seem so well adapted to Texas as those of the Chickasaw 

 group. The European varieties have almost entirely failed. 

 Japanese varieties also seem to do well. The Kaki, or so- 

 called Japan Persimmon, is also promising, and thrives well in 

 Texas when budded on stock of the native wild Persimmon. 



There seems to be no end to the problems which confront 

 workers in the higher branches of horticulture. Some men of 

 science in France have been making a study of plants grown 

 from the seeds produced on grafted plants, and they seem to 

 have demonstrated that the seedlings may partake of the 

 character of the stock as well as of the cion — that is, a seed- 

 ling from a graft may be, in a certain sense, a hybrid inherit- 

 ing the qualities both of tlie plant whicli is used as a cion and 

 the plant used as a stock. These experiments have tieen con- 

 fined to herbaceous plants, and they show that, for example, 

 when a Turnip is grafted on a stock of Garlic Mustard, plants 

 from the seed showed a marked reversion to the wild type, 

 and when this Garlic Mustard was grafted on Cabbage the 

 seedlings showed a likeness to the Cabl)age-plant, and had a 

 less marked smell of garlic than the wild plant, combined with 

 something of the odor of the cabbage-leaf. Of course, if this 

 is true, it is not improbable that the same law liolds through- 

 out the vegetable kingdom, and when, for example, we cross 

 two varieties of grafted Apples the seedlings may show not 

 only the characteristics of the parent plants, but of the cions 

 upon which they grow. In this way a hybrid Apple may have 

 four parents, to each of which it is responsible tor some of its 

 characters, not to speak of the qualities it may have inherited 

 from the numerous ancestors of each of these parents. 



Dr. Hoskins has been giving instructions about planting 

 orchards in northern New England, and some of his advice, 

 while by no means new, cannot be too often repeated. Much 

 depends on getting first-rate trees to start with, and the stock 

 should be bought, therefore, of a trustworthy firm and not of 

 traveling peddlers, who too often supply poor trees of poor 

 varieties in poor condition. When taken from the nursery as 

 much of the roots should be taken as possible, and in an un- 

 mangled condition, but where their ends are bruised they 

 should be trimmed smoothly with an undercut with a sharp 

 knife. They should be planted as quickly as possible in their 

 natural position, with the roots sloping downward somewhat 

 from the trunk and with fine soil carefully worked in about 

 the fibres, and firmly set with a slight inclination toward the 

 southwest, otherwise the prevailing wind will bend them as 

 much the other way in a few years, and the hot sun will in- 

 jure the bark on that side of the tree. The first point in the 

 selection of a position for an orchard is to have good soil. An 

 Apple-tree has not only to grow, but it has to produce abun- 

 dant fruit if it will pay. The tree may appear to thrive when 

 it has not much nutrunent for a while, but as it increases in 

 size it will demand more food, and if it does not get enough 

 it will have a scrubby growth, even before it comes into bear- 

 ing. Where land has been run down it must be enriched until 



it is good enough to give a crop of Corn, and unless a young 

 orchard makes an annual growth of, at least, a foot of 

 new wood every year, the ground should be manured 

 thoroughly. 



In a recent address. Dr. E. H. Jenkins, of the Connecticut 

 Experiment Station, argued against the usual practice of esti- 

 mating the value of stable-manure simply from its contentsof 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. Stable-manure contains 

 elements of value to soils which chemical fertilizers cannot 

 supply, and without which they cannot produce their full 

 effect. These elements regulate the heat and moisture of the 

 soil, together with its powers of nitrification. This organic 

 matter produces the black mold which holds water, makes 

 leachy soils retentive of moisture and keeps other soils, in 

 which chemical fertilizers are used freely year after year, from 

 becoming hard and cloddy. This humus is a specially valua- 

 ble part of manure, because we do not get it in commercial 

 fertilizers, and we cannot get it in any other way in such good 

 condition as we can through the manure pile. These facts 

 emphasize the importance of a supply of litter in the stable, 

 not only as an article of comfort and cleanliness to animals, 

 but because it adds largely to the value of the manure decay- 

 ing along with it and performing an important use in the soil. 

 Stable-manure exposed to leaching and drainage will lose the 

 greater part of its value, and even in a tightly packed pile one- 

 quarter of its nitrogen and one-third of its organic matter may 

 be lost by fermentation in half a year. Kainit, where the 

 manure is to be used on sandy soil, and superphosphate gyp- 

 sum, where the manure is to be used on heavy soils, when 

 mixed with the manure pile, will entirely prevent the loss of 

 nitrogen and largely preserve the organic matter. A mixture, 

 in the proportion of four parts of dissolved phosphate rock 

 with three parts of plaster, should be used at the rate of one to 

 one and a half pounds a day for each head of stock, and when 

 kainit is used the proper amount is from one and a half to two 

 pounds a day. 



Butforthetwodisastrousperiodsof zero weather which deso- 

 lated the Orange groves of Florida the market here would now 

 have been well supplied with fruit from that state. Probably 

 the number of oranges destroyed in Florida would amount to 

 as many as the entire California crop, which is arriving under 

 the most favorable conditions for profit to the growers. The 

 great bulk of the supply from the West Indies is already here, 

 although these islands will provide limited quantities for a 

 month to come. The Valencia fruit has been injured by cold, 

 and the season for Sicily oranges will not be at its height until 

 the larger part of the California supply will have been niar- 

 keted. And yet choice fruit from California commands little 

 more than it does in ordinary seasons. A very limited supply 

 of hot-house strawberries and hot-house grapes can be dis- 

 posed of at fancy prices, but the great mass of buyers will only 

 pay reasonable rates for fruit for daily consumption, and they 

 will go without oranges rather than buy them at $5,00 a box, 

 however high their quality. It should be said, too, that the 

 California fruit is unusually good this year. There has been 

 no chilling weather on the Pacific coast, so that the oranges 

 are more juicy than they usually are, and the crop this year is 

 said to be the best in color and quality ever sent to the east. 

 Perhaps the dry and cottony quality of California oranges in 

 some former years has prejudiced New York buyers against 

 them, and the fact that frozen and, therefore, worthless fruit 

 from Florida has been sold to some extent, has also made 

 them cautious. However this may be, the best California 

 oranges are not realizing what they would naturally be sup- 

 posed to command under the present remarkable conditions. 

 Nevertheless, the oranges which are arriving here at the rate 

 of twenty to twenty-five car-loads a week, are all disposed of 

 at good prices, and the lower grades are selling for more 

 money than in ordinary years. Altogether, then, the Cali- 

 fornia fruit-growers have nothing to complain of, and it is 

 probable that if the Florida supply had been uninjured the 

 year would have been a disastrous one to them. Oranges 

 from Jamaica, Havana and Abaco, one of the Bahama Islands, 

 and from Sicily are selling well, but the fancy fruit of the sea- 

 son, no doubt, comes from California. A few heads of cauli- 

 flower which came from California with the first shipments of 

 oranges found a ready sale, and owing to the good quality and 

 the dearth of fresh vegetables from the south, cauliflower is 

 now coming across thecontinentby thecar-load. Large, bright 

 heads sell at retail for fifty cents each. Artichokes from 

 southern France and -Algiers are in good supply, and sell at 

 twenty-five cents each. String-beans are coming from Ber- 

 muda, and all northern-grown hot-house vegetables are in 

 good demand and profitable to the growers. 



