250 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 382. 



An experimental plantation of trees has been made at a high 

 altitude on the Crown Lands of Wales, under the direction of 

 Mr. E. Stafford Howard, Her Majesty's Commissioner of 

 Woods and Forests. If this experiment results favorably the 

 commissioners in charge will plant trees over mucli larger 

 areas in the Crown Lands, antl it is supposed that landowners 

 generally will begin extensive plantations for the improvement 

 of their estates. 



It is stated in 77/;? Gardeners' Chronicle that a Thuringian 

 "Rose-grower has raised a variety of the Marifchal Niel Rose 

 whose" ffowers are white, excepting the inner petals, which 

 are at first a yellowish wh'ite, and afterward a creamy while. 

 These flowers bear some resemblance to tliose of Niplielos, 

 and they have all the good points of tlie Marechal Niel, in- 

 cluding its fragrance, while the plant has handsome foliage 

 and vigorous growth. 



Mr. E. G. Hill, in the last Florists' Exchange, pronounces 

 the Rose Mrs. W. C. Whitney one of the freest and most per- 

 sistent of all the free-blooming Roses, giving large, bold buds 

 of elegant finish and chaste form. The leaves are large, 

 leathery and very glossy. He also says that Crimson Rambler 

 has proved hardy in the trying climate of Indiana, and tliat it 

 will probably come nearer to filling the glowing description of 

 the catalogues than most of the new varieties which have been 

 pictured for a few years past. 



Mr. William Thompson, the well-known seedsman of Ips- 

 wich, England, writes to The Garden concerning Incarvillea 

 Delavayi, to which plant we have referred in another column 

 of this issue. Mr. Thompson's plant has been flowering in 

 the open border where it has stood the brunt of the zero 

 weather last winter. It has two stems, eacli of which bore 

 twelve or thirteen Howers shaped like those of a Gloxinia, with 

 a tube two and a half inches long and a limb two and a half 

 inches across, being of a delicate rose or rosy pink color, with 

 a yellow throat streaked with purple. 



Vigorous efforts are now being made in Baltimore to pro- 

 vide the city with an art commission similar in character and 

 responsibilities to those which have already proved so useful 

 in other large towns. It is proposed to appoint an unpaid com- 

 mission which "shall approve or disapprove designs for mon- 

 uments, statues and buildings to be erected by the city," and 

 shall consist of the Mayor and of six other members, ap- 

 pointed one each by the Park Commissioners, the Baltimore 

 Architectural Club, the Maryland Historical Society, the trus- 

 tees of the Johns Hopkins University, the Peabody Institute and 

 the Maryland Institute. 



About the only compensation for the destruction of Orange- 

 trees and other tender vegetation in Florida by the freezing 

 weather was the check it gave to certain insect pests which 

 hitherto had been very destructive there. We read, however, 

 in the English papers that severe frosts in that country have 

 had a contrary effect in most cases, and that snails and ground 

 insects have been more than ordinarily destructive. The rea- 

 son of this seems to be that many of the insect-eating birds 

 which helped to keep these pests in check by feeding in early 

 spring and through the winter in open weather on snails and 

 the c'p's of insects were also killed. A great many of our own 

 birds which pass their winters in the middle states were also 

 killed, and it is not improbable that their loss will be felt in the 

 increase of insects injurious to vegetation. 



A year ago we gave an account of the ceremonial payment 

 of a Red Rose to the heirs of Baron Henry William Steigelfor 

 the church and cemetery in the borough of Manheim, Penn- 

 sylvania, which the Baron gave to the congregation. Fearing 

 that the property might at some time be claimed by his heirs, 

 there was a proviso in the deed that an annual rental of one 

 Red Rose should be paid for it. From an elaborate account 

 of this ceremony in a recent issue of the Manheim Sun, this 

 Rose festival has come to be one of the most interesting events 

 in that part of Pennsylvania. The oldest descendant of Baron 

 Steio'el, Mrs. Rebecca Boyer, of Harrisburg, the great grand- 

 daughter of the Baron, who is now eiglity-seven years old, 

 received the tribute from the pastor of the church. There was 

 much music and oratory and historical reminiscence with a 

 display of old tapestry and lloral decoration of the most lavish 

 character. 



The practice seems to be growing in England of providing 

 gardens for instruction in connection with schools. Usually a 

 rod of ground is set apart for each pupil, though sometimes a 

 larger area is furnished, and it is prepared for them by deep 

 digging or trenching and manuring. Sets of tools, with sheds 



for them, are furnished, and when it is necessary the garden 

 is fenced in, and seeds are usually furnished at the start. Very 

 often the schoolmaster is a good amateur gardener, in which 

 case the young gardeners are placed under his immediate 

 control, otherwise they are in charge of good local gardeners, 

 who act as teachers, and, although the instruction is usually 

 confined to vegetable-culture, so much of the groundwork of 

 general gardening is taught that it is hoped that boys so trained 

 will be well grounded, at least, in the essentials of the cultiva- 

 tion of plants. 



One of the most famous and most beautiful public prome- 

 nades in the United States is the Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, 

 beginning in Lincoln Park and prolonged for the most part in 

 full sight of the lake, for a distance of twenty-five miles under 

 the name of the Sheridan Road. It is now proposed to con- 

 tinue this drive, with its adjacent ornamental features, as far 

 north as the suburb of Evanston, a further distance of four- 

 teen miles, and eventually to the city of Milwaukee. If the 

 project is carried out, park boards will be formed in the dif- 

 ferent counties through which the drive will pass, and the 

 right will be conferred upon them to condemn any property 

 they may require. In some places the shores of the lake here 

 rise into bluffs from forty to eighty feet in height, diversified 

 by steep ravines ; and, of course, this means unusual pictur- 

 esqueness for that part of our country. 



The newly established American School of Architecture in 

 Rome lias removed from its temporary quarters to a perma- 

 nent home in the building so well known to travelers as the 

 Casino dell' Aurora, from the famous frescoes by Guercino 

 which it contains. It stands on the Pincian Hill, not far from 

 the Villa Medici (the home of the French students who win 

 the Prix de Rome), on an isolated plot of ground which once 

 formed part of the celebrated Ludovisi Gardens. Its grounds 

 cover about 80,000 square feet, and were laid out in the seven- 

 teenth century by Lenotre ; they contain many magnificent 

 old trees and command a fine view over the campagna beyond 

 tlie city wall ; and it may be expected that young American 

 architects who study amid such surroundings will greatly help 

 to spread in their own country a true sense of the importance 

 of gardening art, not as a mere accessory to architecture, but 

 as a sister art of equal rank and indispensable utility. 



It is well known that seed-potatoes which are stored for late 

 planting often become soft, while much of their nutritive mat- 

 ter is exhausted in developing sprouts which must be broken 

 off in planting. The first sprout is always the strongest and 

 thriftiest, but it often happens that these sprouts have to be 

 removed several times before the potatoes are planted, and 

 each time some of the vitality of the tubers is lost. A compar- 

 ative test was made by Professor Tait at the Michigan Experi- 

 ment Station last year, when two equal lots of potatoes were 

 taken, one being left in the cellar, the other spread in a dry, 

 well-lighted, moderately warm room. On April 20th, both lots 

 were planted side by side and the plants from the unsprouted 

 seed came up first, looked the best throughout the season, 

 and produced a greater amount of potatoes and a greater 

 proportion of large ones with fewer ill-shaped tubers. Of 

 course, it hardly needed an experiment to demonstrate the 

 superiority of unsprouted seed, but since no one can afford to 

 grow anything but the very best crops it would seem to be 

 worth while to take every precaution to prevent sprouting, or 

 to secure second-crop seed from the south, which is rarely 

 affected in this way. 



Alligator pears, from the United States of Colombia, are 

 offered in some of the fancy fruit stores at thirty cents apiece. 

 This fruit of Persea gratissima, a small tree common in the 

 West Indies and the Mauritius, has the form and size of a large 

 pear. In the countries where it is native it is valued as a 

 dessert fruit. Here it is mainly bought by Cubans and Span- 

 iards and is used as a salad. Peaches from Georgia now sell 

 for twenty-five cents a quart. They are much smaller and 

 lack the distinct aromatic fragrance of the larger California 

 fruit, but they are really of excellent quality. The old Illinois 

 variety, Alexander, is as yet the only sort coming from Cali- 

 fornia, a greenish white fruit which so early in the season 

 lacks its lieep red flush. They sell for sixty cents a dozen. 

 Besides the small red native plums, which are still coming 

 from Georgia, the market is receiving several choice varieties 

 from California. The first lot received were Clymans, a sort 

 originated many years ago in Napa Valley. They are a mot- 

 tled reddish purple, covered with a showy blue bloom, and 

 sell now for thirty cents a dozen. A highly colored blue plum 

 of good quality, Silva's Koning Claudie, or Miller's Early, and 

 the large dark purple Tragedy Prune complete the list. 



