230 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 380. 



northern part of the slate. Suitable resokitions of thanks were 

 passed to those who had contributed toward tlie success of the 

 meeting, notably to Mr. John Giftord, whose good nature and 

 pleasant courtesy was never ruffled by disappointments. 



Notes. 



London is constantly adding to its park area, and Lincoln's 

 Inn Fields has at last been secured as public property, and is 

 to be transformed into a public playground. The price paid 

 for this area was twelve thousand pounds down, and a pound 

 a year rent for the remainder of the time for which the lease 

 of the Fields has still to run— a period of some 600 years. 



The United States Consul at IVIessina reports that from No- 

 vember to the middle of iVIarch the export of oranges from 

 that port was about 340,000 boxes against only 95,000 boxes the 

 year before, and taking the season througii considerably more 

 than four times as many oranges were probably sent to the 

 United States as were shipped the previous year. Of course, 

 this increase was due to tlie failure of the Florida orange 

 crop. 



Mr. J. H. Hale writes to the Fruit Trade Journal, that after 

 a careful inspection of 100.000 Peach-trees m his orchard, he 

 finds no trace of disease or insect, so that the promise of per- 

 fect fruit from Georgia is fair. The dropping of the truit 

 is all over, and in some cases nature has thinned a little too 

 much, although generally it is necessary to do more thinning, 

 an operation which is essential if first-class fruit is to be 

 secured. 



It is estimated that in Georgia, Alabama and Florida about 

 22,000 acres of land will be "planted to Water Melons. This 

 means, with a favorable season, that 10.000 car-loads of melons 

 will Ue'shipped, and since an average freight train is composed 

 of twenty cars, five hundred train-loads or more must be 

 moved, which will make an average of twelve trains everyday 

 in the week for six weeks. Altogether, it will require unusual 

 activity to get tliese mdlions of melons started on their journey 

 to northern markets. 



The Globe tfowers, which range in color from the palest 

 citron or almost white to deep orange, need no commenda- 

 tion as they are now to be found in almost every garden of 

 hardy lierbaceous plants. According to The Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, Dr. Stuart, of Chirnside, Scotland, has succeeded 

 in crossino- TroUius Europeus on our American wildTrollius, 

 which does not deserve the name of Globe Flower, since the 

 pale o-reenish yellow sepals do not incurve, nor is the tiowerat 

 all showy. Some of these crosses, however, are said to be re- 

 markable, since they are of large size, of a deep color, 

 and so double that they are said to look like orange-colored 

 Roses. 



Suo-ar corn from Bermuda now costs fifty cents a dozen 

 ears f peppers from New Orleans, which have been coming in 

 for a'week, seventy-five cents a dozen, and large egg-plants 

 from Florida seventy-five cents each. Mushrooms, on ac- 

 count of the plentiful supply due to the hot weather, fell within 

 a week from $1.50 to thirty-five cents a pound. They sold on 

 Monday for sixty cents. South Carolina now supplies okra ; 

 Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey are sending peas, and Long 

 Island furnishes beets and carrots. The scarcity of vegetables 

 several weeks ago after the unseasonably cold weather led to 

 various experinients, and yesterday some hot-house tomatoes 

 arrived from the Isle of Guernsey, too late to command the 

 highest prices. 



A bulletin on Chrysanthemums lias been prepared by Michael 

 Barker, of the Cornell Experiment Station. It is chiefly a record 

 of the habit of the leading varieties on the market in 1894, and 

 it gives an account of the behavior of the more prominent ones 

 of the two hundred kinds tested. The report is written from 

 the standpoint of the florist rather than of tlie amateur gar- 

 dener. Mr. Barker concludes that for the purposes of Ameri- 

 can growers American varieties are superior, as a rule, 10 

 those of foreign origin. The Ijest ones tested at Cornell for 

 commercial purposes, among the yellow varieties, were 

 Euc^ene Dailledouze and Major Bunnaffon ; white, Mayflower 

 and Marie Louise ; pink, Mrs. E. G. Hill and Laredo ; bronze, 

 Charles Davis and Ingomar. 



European critics, according to their mood, have long pitied 

 or scorned American architecture for its persistent use of 

 wood as a building material, even in structures of considera- 

 ble size and pretension. It is curious to find, therefore, that 



wooden buildings of certain sorts are nov7 becoming the 

 fashion in England, where cheapness does not recommend 

 them as it does in this country. The new move has been 

 inspired, however, not by the example of America, but by that 

 of Scandinavia, where many fine old public buildings and 

 churches, as well as private houses, are wholly constructed of 

 wood. The Prince of Wales, we are told, is interested in an 

 Anglo-Norwegian company created to bring wooden structures_ 

 into fashion in Great Britain, and is having a number of pic- 

 turesque examples, in the way of houses and lodges, erected 

 on his own estates at Sandringham, and tlie greater part of 

 Mar Lodge, the autumn residence of his daughter, the Dirchess 

 of Fife, has been constructed of wood. 



In The Speculum, a journal published by the Michigan Ag- 

 ricultural College, Professor Beal gives a history of eleven 

 trees which were planted on Arbor Day, 18S7 with a good deal 

 of ceremony. There were elaborate exercises in the chapel ; 

 the trees were planted, one in memory of each of the four 

 classes, the different fraternities, the baseball nine, etc., and the 

 President of the college, as the procession passed from tree 

 to tree and saw that they were properly placed, guaranteed 

 that each one should be well cared for. Professor Beal 

 takes up the history of each tree, and in summing up their 

 present condition finds that only three of them are thrifty, four 

 are feeble, three are quite dead and one is about to die. None 

 of the living ones are marked by any label, nor is the history 

 of any of them to be found in the report of the President or in 

 the college paper. Judging from this. Professor Beal is prob- 

 ably right in saying that the chief value of an arbor day, such 

 as the one celebrated in 1887 at the Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege, was sentimental and that the sentiment was ephemeral. 



One of the most attractive floral displays ever made in an 

 American garden was seen in the Arnold Arboretum last 

 week, when the Lilacs were in bloom. About one hundred 

 and twenty varieties of Syringa vulgaris were in flower. The 

 collection occupies a wide bed, stretching for more than nine 

 hundred feet up a rather steep slope, along one of the princi- 

 pal drives, and the color of the flowers is well brought out by 

 a high green slope behind and parallel with the bed. Among 

 the most attractive of the varieties in this collection are Marie 

 Lagrange, white ; Rubra insignis, dark red-purple ; Trianoni- 

 ana, purple ; Madame Briot, red-purple ; Geheimath Heyder, 

 pale reddish blue (very large compact panicle) ; Alba grandi- 

 flora, white ; Charles X., dark red-purple (an old variety, but 

 still one of the very best) ; Eniil Liebeg, pale blue ; Bertha 

 Danimann, white; Virginalis, white; Ambroise Verschaffelt, 

 flesh color ; Gigantea, mauve ; Carsli, dark purple-red ; Maxima 

 Cornu, pale blue (double) ; A. Lavall^e, pale blue (double) ; 

 Lamarck, pale blue (double) ; Ludwig Spath, dark red-purple 

 (very late) ; Philamon, dark red-purple ; Alice Macguery, pur- 

 ple-red ; La Tour d'Auvergne, dark red-purple (double, very 

 large compact panicle) ; Felicite, pale flesh color (semi- 

 double) ; Madame Moser, white ; Tournefort, dark purple in 

 the bud, opening bright blue (double). 



Large and bright purple-black Tartarian cherries, from Cali- 

 fornia, cost at retail twenty-five cents a pound, while immense 

 cherries known as Centennial, almost equal in size to the apri- 

 cots now coming from that state, cost forty cents. This showy 

 variety is a California seedling fruited for the first time in 1876. 

 It is of an amber color, freely splashed with dark crimson. Its 

 meaty llesh is remarkably sweet and of excellent flavor, and 

 while the fruit is juicy it has the good market qualities of keep- 

 ing well and of carrying in good order. The best of several 

 small lots of cherries from North Carolina compare unfavora- 

 bly with those from California, the highest price for these be- 

 ing twenty cents a pound. California peaches have already 

 been seen here in small advance lots, a box containing eighty 

 fruits selling for $4,00 at wholesale. The season for citrus 

 fruits from the Paciflc slope is nearly ended, and as they come 

 in refrigerator-cars they quickly melt when exposed to the 

 heat. The few Mandarins remaining in the retail fruit-stores 

 are offered at thirty cents, selected Navel oranges at sixty to 

 seventy-five cents, and large shaddocks at $2.00 a dozen. 

 Huckleberries from North Carolina are quite plentiful and of 

 fair quality for the time of year; the best bring twenty-five 

 cents a quart. A few native plums and some peaches came 

 from Georgia last week, fmt were not sufficiently ripe to bring 

 good prices. Musknielons are coining from Florida, but very 

 few of them are of the best quality. Except occasional lots of 

 Russets from the interior of New York state, no more apples 

 are likely to arrive. The barrel stock on liand is being divided 

 into baskets holding something more than a half bushel. Ben 

 Davis is the latest red apple offered. 



