I20 



Garden and Forest. 



[NtrsTBER 369. 



Notes. 



Mr. Hamilton Gibson has been invited to give his illustrated 

 lecture on the Fertilization of Flowers before the next annual 

 meeting of the American Florists at Pittsburg. 



Mr. J. H. Hale writes to the Florists' Exchange that he could 

 find in his orchards last year, where no special cultivation had 

 been used, smooth and fair spechnens of the Crosby Peach 

 eleven and a half inches in circumference. 



The frontispiece of the Popular Science Monthly for March 

 shows a fine portrait of Thomas Nuttall, tlie famous explorer 

 and botanist, whose Genera of North American Plants, pub- 

 lished in 1818, moved Dr. Torrey to declare that "it had con- 

 tributed more than any other work to tlie advance of the accu- 

 rate knowledge of the plants of this country." The portrait is 

 accompanied by an attractive sketch of Nuttall's diversified, 

 adventurous and prolific life and of his singular personality. 



Antirrhinums are useful border flowers, usually hardy here, 

 and white sorts are especiallv desirable. At the last meeting of 

 the New York Florists'Club.'Mr. W. R. Wood, of West Newton, 

 Massachusetts, exhibited a vase of large pure white flowers, 

 which were said to be a variety of A. majus. The long stems, 

 well furnished with unusually large flowers of perfect purity 

 of color, were most attractive. It this variety flowers as freely 

 as ordinary Snapdragons it ought to be a desirable addition to 

 greenhouse collections. 



During the past winter California escaped those periods of 

 cold weather which were so disastrous to fruit-growers in many 

 parts of the world, but at the close of last week there was 

 heavy frost in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, which 

 did great damage to the apricot, almond, cherry, peach and 

 prune crops, as the trees were still in blossom or the fruit had 

 just set. As the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range were both 

 covered with snow, it was feared that the frosts miglit con- 

 tinue for several nights. 



Mr. Jackson Dawson, of the Arnold Arboretum, has raised 

 a hybrid with Rosa Wichuraiana as the seed parent and Rosa 

 rugosa as the pollen parent. The plant has the perfectly pros- 

 trate habit of R. Wichuraiana, lying flat to the ground, but 

 with the vigorous constitution of R. rugosa, and large, deep 

 green glossy leaves. The flowers are single, nearly as 

 large as those of R. rugosa and of a clear rose-pink color. 

 If it had no flowers whatever the lustrous leaves and vigorous 

 habit of the plant would make it desirable. 



Occasionally vessels from the south of Europe bring over 

 small numbers of what are called nut-cones. They are really 

 the cones of Pinus pinea, in shape and general color resem- 

 bling somewhat a small pineapple. When brought into some 

 warm place, as, for example, near a steam radiator, the scales 

 quickly begm to reflex, commencing at the base, and turning 

 back release the pinons or edible seeds. The motion of the 

 scales as they open is so rapid as to be plainly visible, and is quite 

 interesting to people who have never seen the spectacle, and 

 this exhibition gives a value to the cone apart from the nuts 

 which it contains. 



Dr. Peters, of the Botanic Garden of Gottingen, has been 

 experimenting with seeds taken from different depths of soil 

 in a dense wood from 100 to 150 years old, which had been 

 arable land for many years before it became woodland. His 

 object was to discover how long the seeds of weeds would re- 

 tain the power of germinating after tliey had been buried in the 

 soil to a depth where they could not sprout. Soil samples 

 were taken at various distances from the surface to the depth 

 of a foot. These samples were placed under genial conditions, 

 and the seeds which germinated were raised and cultivated to 

 a flowering stage. Although the land had ceased to be arable 

 between 300 and 400 years before, the weeds of cultivation 

 were abundantly represented, and Dr. Peters claims to have 

 proved that the seeds of many field and pasture plants retain 

 their vitality considerably more than half a century. 



A summer school of forestry, continuing from the 8th of 

 July until the loth of August, is to be held under the auspices 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Educa- 

 tion, at Avalon, New Jersey, fifteen miles north of Cape May, 

 on the coast. A large part of this island is covered by forests 

 of Oak, Cedar, Pine and Holly, and there are remarkable dunes 

 which show the effect of drifting sand. The director of the 

 school will be Mr. John Gifford. Dr. Charles Dolley is the lec- 

 turer on Zoology in relation to Forestry; Dr. T. N. Lightfoot 

 lectures on Geology in relation to P'orestry ; Dr. S. Egbert lec- 

 tures on Forestry in relation to Health ; Albert B. Entwisle lec- 



tures on the Uses of Woods. Students to the school of 

 forestry, for which a fee of $10.00 will be charged, are admitted 

 to the courses of the Assembly in Natural Science free. 



From the twenty-sixth annual report of the Park Commis- 

 sioners of West Chicago, it seems that the parks in that city 

 are suffering from the same abuses of which the Park Board 

 of Buffalo complain. It is said that visitors make walks across 

 the turf and mutilate the plants. There is no cure for such a 

 state of things except a more elevated and refined public sen- 

 timent. A community which allows the beauty of its public 

 grounds to be trampled out so far proves itself lacking in cer- 

 tain elements of civilization. The people who are helping to 

 devastate the Chicago parks, the wealthy men in this city 

 who have tried more than once to turn Central Park into 

 a trotting-course, the wheelmen and horsemen who are en- 

 deavoring now to confiscate a part of the Buffalo park system 

 for bicycle tracks and speedroads, all belong to the same 

 class. They are not intentionally public enemies. The trou- 

 ble is they are not yet completely civilized. 



Mr. G. F. Scott Eliot, who left England in September, 1893, 

 on a botanical exploration of Mount Ruenzori and the country 

 north of Albert Edward Nyaiiza, has just returned, and at the 

 last meeting of the Linna^an Society gave an interesting ac- 

 count of his journey. The country north-east of Victoria 

 Nyanza is described as a rolling plain, fertile and grassy, 6,000 

 feet above the sea, while Mount Ruenzori, where he spent 

 four months, reaches an altitude of 18,000 feet. The sides of 

 the mountain are clothed at the l)ase with a thick growth of 

 trees resembling the Laurel of the Canary Islands, above 

 which are Bamboos to the level of 10,000 feet, and above that 

 again a sul.istance which the explorer could only liken to a 

 Scotch peat moss into which he would sink at every step for a 

 foot or more. Among the plants he saw were a gigantic 

 Lobelia five or six feet high, Hypericums resembling those 

 found in the Canaries, Violets and Cardamines. Large trunks, like 

 those of Erica arborea of the Canary Islands, but indicating trees 

 eighty feet high, were also seen. In addition to a large collec- 

 tion of dried plants, Mr. Scott Eliot brought home and pre- 

 sented to Kew a collection of living plants, including various 

 bulbs and Orchids. 



The main dependence for potatoes this year is the domestic 

 crop, which is in striking contrast with the condition of the 

 supply of this staple a year ago. Since October ist 730,000 

 barrels of home-grown potatoes have been handled by New 

 York wholesale dealers, 230,000 barrels more than were re- 

 ceived here in the same period a year ago. In the same 

 months during the present season only 60,000 sacks of Euro- 

 pean potatoes came into this port, whereas above 338,000 sacks 

 from Great Britain and the Continent passed in during this 

 period last season. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Cuba 

 and Bermuda are also minor sources of supply. Potatoes 

 from Bermuda cost fifty cents a half-peck ; parsley from the 

 same islands brings seven cents, and beets twelve cents a 

 bunch, while heads of Romaine lettuce cost twelve cents each. 

 Cuba still sends egg-plants, okra, peppers and onions. String- 

 beans from the southern part of Florida are a scarce luxury, 

 and cost the unusual price of a dollar a quart. Small lots of 

 tender and crisp lettuce from Florida find ready sale at good 

 prices, and the first cabbage from that state has been quickly 

 bought up by dealers in choice vegetables at $4.00 a barrel, as 

 high a wholesale price for this quantity as is asked for 

 one hundred heads of northern-grown winter cabbage. 

 Danish cabbage has advanced to $10.00 and $12.00 tor 

 a hundred of the firm, large, white heads. Tomatoes 

 from Key West and Havana come in varying grades ; those 

 of ordinary quality may be had as low a§ fifteen cents a 

 quart, the better-colored and more delicate ones costing thirty 

 cents a pound, while choice hot-house tomatoes of uniform 

 size and rich color command eighty cents a pound. The first 

 Charleston asparagus costs $2.50 a bunch. Kale, chicory, 

 spinach and escarole, from Norfolk, are moderately abun- 

 dant. The only green peas now offered here are the few com- 

 ing from California, and these cost seventy-five cents a half- 

 peck. The last California cauliflowers sell for fifteen to thirty- 

 five cents a head, and the smaller and whiter hot-house cauli- 

 flowers bring thirty-five cents each. Hot-house radishes cost 

 five cents a tjunch, and tender young carrots the same price. 

 Rhubarb, from Long Island, is ten cents a bunch, mushrooms 

 seventy-five cents a pound, and Boston cucumbers twenty 

 cents each. Among winter vegetables Brussels sprouts cost 

 twenty-five rents a quart. Half-a-dozen roots of long, well- 

 blanched Rochester celery cost fifty cents ; the smaller celery 

 from New Jersey commands half that price. Choice Vineland 

 sweet-potatoes cost fifty cents a half-peck. 



