i6o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 373. 



ing of the lime certainly is a slight inconvenience, but has thus 

 far not proved very objectionable. 



Cornell University. 



E. G. Lodeiiian. 



■:'■' Notes. 



Perhaps it ought to be stated that it is Professor Tuomey 

 himself whose portrait is given vi'ith that of the Cactus on p. 155. 



Professor Halsted writes that the late winter has been very 

 trying upon the English Ivy which covers many of the older 

 buildings in New IBrunswick, New Jersey. The leaves are 

 mostly brown, many of them dead and have the appearance 

 of having been scorched by fire. It may be that the plants 

 will revive witli warm weather, but these old vines, which 

 have been the pride of the city, are just now anything but 

 attractive. 



It is a well-known fact that many varieties of tree fruits 

 which in the extreme north would perish in a hard winter if 

 root-grafted, can Ije grown successfully if top-grafted on very 

 hardy varieties. Dr. Hoskins finds that the Sops ot Wine Apple 

 is a common failure with him when root-grafted, but wlien 

 grafted on the Peach Apple it endures the winters perfectly, and 

 has borne profusely for many years, though here and there a 

 limb has died and been removed. 



Winter cabbage, which was very cheap until recently, now 

 brings twenty cents a head, a price as high as that asked for 

 new Florida cabbage. New slring-beans cost thirty-five cents 

 a quart, and $1.25 a half-peck is asked for peas. Large bunches 

 of asparagus bring fifty cents. Romaine lettuce from Ber- 

 muda costs fifteen cents, chervil ten cents for a small bunch 

 and dandelion fifteen cents a quart. Small heads of hot-house 

 cauliflower may be had for forty and fifty cents apiece, and 

 cucumbers grown under glass cost eighteen cents each. 



Professor Jordan, of the Maine Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, has been making some tests which show the folly of 

 o-rowing the large southern Corn in the nortliern parts of the 

 country to be cut for fodder or for ensilage. This tall-growing 

 Dent Corn makes a great bulk, but the season is not long 

 enouo-h to allow it to ripen. When it is cut in an immature 

 state analysis shows that the Maine Flint Corn, which matures 

 perfectly, is worth more than the southern Corn, pound for 

 pound, judging simply by the per cent, of dry matter. It 

 is also shown that the quantity of dry matter in an acre of Corn 

 at maturity was two and a half times greater than it was at the silk 

 period thirty-seven days before, and that the starch and sugars, 

 which are the most valuable compounds, increase more rap- 

 idly than the less important constituents, so that the mature 

 plant is of better quality than at any previous stage of growth. 



Owing to the universal observance of Holy Week in the 

 West Indies no pineapples have been received here for almost 

 a week, though nearly five thousand barrels are expected 

 within the next few days. The ripening of this fruit in Cuba 

 has lieen retarded by dry weather, and the crop is estimated to 

 be twenty-five to thirty per cent, less than that of last season. 

 Prices now are somewhat higher than a year ago, but it is ex- 

 pected will be considerably lower in a fortnight, when the sea- 

 son will be fairly opened. The stock of California Navel 

 oranges of the choicest lirands is about exhausted, and a car- 

 load of good fruit sold here at auction on Monday averaged at 

 wholesale the high price of $3.27 a box. Northern Spy and the 

 brighter Ben Davis are the showiest apples now in our mar- 

 kets, and high grades of these command $6.00 a barrel at whole- 

 sale. Strawberries are comparatively plentiful in supply, and 

 well-ripened fruit of good size may be had for forty cents a quart. 



When we think of the teeming population which now fills 

 many portions of our country west of the Rocky Mountains, 

 and remember how famous, all over the world, is their singu- 

 lar beauty, and their incomparable value to the tourist, the 

 health-seeker, the agriculturist and the horticulturist, as well 

 as the miner, it is interesting to read what so intelligent a 

 statesman as Daniel Webster thought of them just fifty years 

 ago, and to know that his views were shared by many other 

 prominent public men of the time. In a speech delivered in 

 the United States Senate in 1844, with regard to the proposal 

 that a mail service should be established between Missouri 

 and the Pacific coast, Webster said : " What do we want with 

 this vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, 

 of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus 

 and prairie-dogs ? To what use could we ever hope to put 

 these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impen- 

 etrable, and covered to their bases with eternal snow } What 

 can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three 

 thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless and uninviting, with 



not a harbor on it ? What use have we for such a country? 

 Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the public 

 treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer Boston than 

 it is to-day." 



The tendency to use plants in flower for house and church 

 decoration at Easter was stronger this year than ever, and was 

 conspicuously manifested in the increased size of the speci- 

 mens offered. Of course, there was a great array of Lilies, and 

 plants were valued according to the number of flowers they 

 carried, eacli flower being valued at twenty-five cents. Some- 

 times several bulbs had been grown in one receptacle, and 

 these masses, when exceptionally well-flowered, often com- 

 manded, with the fancy baskets in which they stood, $10.00. 

 There were Dutch bulbous plants. Hyacinths, Tulips and Daf- 

 fodils, in abundance ; Violets and Cyclaniens in pots, and As- 

 tilbe in great quantities, including some of the newer varieties 

 under various names, all very beautiful, but none of them supe- 

 rior to the type, which, after all, has an airy grace which the 

 more compactly flowered plants do not possess. Among 

 many other shrul)s forced into bloom. Hydrangeas, Cytisus 

 and Azaleas were far the most numerous. Fine Hydrangeas, 

 with ten or a dozen heads of flowers, often commanded $10.00. 

 Trim little well-flowered plants of Cytisus could be had for 

 $2.00, and larger ones, the price rapidly increasing with the 

 size, cost $30.00, and even $50 00. Plants of this last grade had 

 stems two inclies in diameter and were six feet high and 

 nearly as much across. The Azaleas sold for $4.00 for well- 

 flowered plants a foot across, to $100 for densely flowered 

 specimens five feet and more in diameter, and there is a story 

 of an exceptionally large and well-flowered plant, some eight 

 feet in diameter, which sold for $500. Singularly beautiful 

 plants of Acacia paradoxa commanded $50.00. The clear yel- 

 low of these flowers and the deep green of the leaves made 

 this altogetlier the most pleasing and showy of the yellow- 

 flowering plants. Among the other flowering shrubs, speci- 

 mens of the tree Pasony, Reine Elizabeth, were very effective. 

 Our native Laurel, Kalmia latifolia, Andromeda speciosa and 

 A. Japonica, Lilacs, Snowballs, Boronias, Metrosideros were 

 more rarely seen, and the price for these varied according to 

 their quality and size. 



The fungus which spots the leaves of the Quince and pro- 

 duces the black spot on the fruit is nearly always present, and 

 this is especially true when the trees are standing in sod. It 

 is from the effect of this disease that the leaves of the Quince 

 often begin to fall in August and in early September, while, of 

 course, the foliage ought to persist until the fruit has ripened, 

 for the loss of the leaves deprives the fruits of nourishment 

 at the time when they are completing their growth. When 

 the leaves die before their time the fruit remains small and 

 immature. This defoliation also prevents the tree from stor- 

 ing up energy for the next year's crop. But not only is the 

 fruit stunted before it is fully grown, but the fungus also attacks 

 the fruit itself, causing cracks and lop-sided growth, as in the 

 case of pears when attacked by the same fungus, Entomos- 

 porium maculatum. In a late liulletin on the Quince in west- 

 ern New York, Professor Bailey gives the results of experi- 

 ments to show that this fungus can be held at bay by spraying 

 with the useful Bordeaux mixture. On the 25th of June, last 

 year, when the leaves in a Quince orchard had been already 

 badly marked, this mixture was sprayed on so abundantly that 

 all the foliage and limbs appeared deep blue when the appli- 

 cation liad dried. It was repeated on the glh of July, when, 

 although the disease did not appear to have progressed much, 

 the foliage remained equally blighted in the sprayed and un- 

 sprayed portions of the orchard, and the fruit upon the sprayed 

 portions was browned and discolored by the treatment. The 

 experiments seemed so unpromising that nothing further was 

 done, but on the 21st of September a visit to the orchard 

 showed that the fruits on tlie sprayed rows were twice as large 

 as those on the untreated rows. They were yellower, less 

 fuzzy, uniform in size, and the russet discoloration had all 

 gone. Half of the foliage had fallen from the unsprayed trees, 

 and the remaining leaves were small and yellow. The foliage 

 on the sprayed trees was large and dark green and plainly 

 helping the growth of the fruit. Professor Bailey accounts for 

 the fact that the sprayed fruits were less fuzzy than the other 

 ones by supposing that this woolly covering, which is a living 

 growth on the surface of the fruit, was killed by something in 

 the application. The so-called moss, which is really one or 

 more species of lichen which had overgrown the trunks of 

 many trees, was also completely destroyed. Experience seems 

 to show that the spread of the spot may be wholly checked, 

 even after the leaves are conspicuously marked by it. Of 

 course, it is unwise to wait until the disease appears, and the 

 first application ought to be made soon after the blossoms fall. 



