26o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 383. 



Ijy Mr. John L. Gardner, of Brookline. This group was taste- 

 fully arranged with small plants of Cocos VVeddeliaua and 

 Maidenhair Ferns, and produced a really charming effect. The 

 Botanic Garden of Harvard College exhibited a large and ex- 

 ceedingly interesting collection of Howers of hardy herbaceous 

 perennials, and Miss C. N. Endicott and Miss C. E. Hewitt 

 showed 109 species of wild native plants in tiower, including a 

 number of alpine species from the White Mountains, not 

 often seen on exhibition tables or by the dwellers in cities. 



Strawl)erries generally showed the effects of the severe win- 

 ter and May frosts. Mr. J. S. Fay, however, whose Roses were 

 by far the best in the exhibition, as they have been now tor 

 several years, sent from his wonderlully productive garden at 

 Wood's HoU, on Cape Cod, a basket of Marshall l>erries that in 

 size and color were as remarkable as any strawberries we have 

 ever seen. 



Notes. 



Coreopsis grandiflora has become one of the most popular 

 of the yellow summer flowers, and large masses of them are 

 now among the most conspicuous features of the florists' 

 windows. 



Owing to the abundance and good quality of tomatoes now 

 arriving from the soutli and other points near by, those grown 

 in hot-houses command only fifteen cents a pound at retail. New 

 artichokes are coming in from southern France. Nearly all the 

 staple vegetables are now coming from Long Island gardens. 



Exhil)its of wild Howers have made conspicuous features at 

 several of the Rose shows lately held in Oregon. In Portland, 

 the abundance and beauty of these exhibits of native flowers 

 are said to have surprised the visitors by their attractiveness, 

 and at Salem there were nearly five hundred collections on 

 exhibition, one exhibitor, Miss Catharine Beckner, showing 

 ninety-five varieties. 



The Swamp Magnolia, or, as it is sometimes called, the 

 Laurel Magnolia, is now flowering in Central Park, and the 

 beauty and fragrance of its globular white flowers, set in 

 the thick, deep green foliage, attract a good deal of attention. 

 After the Howers fall the conical fruits, which are green first, 

 soon become rosy-pink, and as the carpels split open they show 

 coral-red, berry-like seeds. The leaves hold on late in the 

 autumn, so that it is among the most attractive of our smaller 

 native trees all the year through. 



In a bulletin prepared by Mr. U. P. Hedrick, of the Michi- 

 gan Experiment Station, it is stated that there are over a 

 hundred and fifty named varieties of native Plums scattered 

 throughout the country, and experimenters are annually intro- 

 ducing new seedlings. These have been classified into groups, 

 and lines with some accuracy have been drawn about them, 

 but the intermediate forms have become so numerous, owing 

 to natural crosses, that it is difficult to make any classification. 

 The fruit of some of these varieties comes into market three 

 weeks before those of the European varieties. The trees are 

 not particular as to soil, and large growers who want a variety 

 of fruits, and the general farmer who likes trees which are free 

 from diseases and from insects, will make no mistake in plant- 

 ing such varieties as Wild Goose, De Soto, Miner, Rolling- 

 stone, Weaver and Newman. To our own taste there is a 

 sprightly flavor about some of these wild plums which is not 

 to be despised even when compared witli the more refined, 

 but somewhat characterless, taste of the best European and 

 ■ Japanese varieties. 



The June number of The Forum contains an interesting arti- 

 cle by Mr. E. V. Smalley on the Future of the Arid West. 

 In speaking of the enormous area between the Rockies and 

 the Sierra, he says that we ought to give over deluding our- 

 selves with the idea that this vast vacant expanse is to be the 

 reserve land for future generations to fill up, just as the 

 fertile plains east of the Mississippi have been filled. In the 

 narrow bottom-lands where there are running streams, which 

 make irrigation possible, strips of land can be reclaimed which 

 will yield an immense quantity of forage, grain and fruit, and 

 ultimately these valleys may present the appearance of con- 

 tinuous towns from one end of the canals to the other, while 

 the facilities for social intercourse, education and interchange 

 of thought will develop in these dense settlements a high 

 grade of rural civilization. But we must not lose sight of the 

 fact that these will always be separated by broad areas of 

 irreclaimable lands, which will be useful, at the best, for pas- 

 turage, and in some regions will remain an absolute desert. 

 In order to show the proportion of reclaimable land to the 

 entire area Mr. Smalley makes the following striking compari- 

 son : A single furrow run across a twenty-acre field will repre- 



sent all the area that can ever, by the largest enterprise and 

 most liberal expemfiture, Ije rescued for cultivation in this arid 

 region. The remainder of the field will represent the area that 

 will always remain in its present condition, the realm of ro- 

 mance and adventure and hardihood, from which the cowboy, 

 the hunter, the prospecter and the pack-train will not soon 

 disappear. 



Some years ago the Federal Government expended 56o,ooo 

 in planting Beach Grass along the ocean side of the tip of Cape 

 Cod, in an effort to prevent that drifting inward of tlie beach 

 sands which threaten Provincetown with entire destruction. 

 But the work was undertaken upon too small a scale, and the 

 inhabitants of the town did not realize that the growth of the 

 grass would have to be fostered, so that most of it has per- 

 ished and the advance of the sand drifts continues. The state 

 of Massachusetts has, however, now taken the matter in hand, 

 through its Harbor and Land Commission, and Mr. Leonard 

 W. Ross, of Boston, has been retained as advisory forester. 

 Mr. Ross proposes to adopt expedients similar to those 

 successfully begun more than a hundred years ago to save 

 lands on the shore of the Bay of Biscay ; and expense will not 

 be spared, for the harbor of Provincetown is the only one 

 that affords shelter to mariners along many leagues of stormy 

 coast. His method will be based upon that by which Nature 

 herself once defended the point of the promontory. Herthick 

 plantations of Beach Grass were backed by low forests of Pitch 

 Pine, which were cut off for fuel by the early settlers. These 

 will be renewed, and, according to the Boston Transcript, a 

 nursery has been already established for the propagation of 

 the Scotch Broom, Genista Scoparia, which, with Silver 

 Poplars, White Willows and Locusts, and an undergrowth of 

 smaller plants, will be used to form wind-breaks. Austrian 

 and Scotch Pines will be tried, and also the Maritime Pine, the 

 Alder, the European White Birch, the Hornbeam, the Cock- 

 spur Thorn and the Tamarix. 



Red currants now make a pleasing show among small fruits 

 in market, and red and blackcap raspberries, from Maryland 

 and New Jersey, are already plentiful and cheap, though the 

 earliest ones began to arrive only a few days ago. Blackberries 

 and huckleberries from North Carolina cost twelve cents a 

 a quart. Green gooseberries are even cheaper, but straw- 

 berries of good quality, now that their season is nearly ended, 

 command twenty cents a quart box. New apples, Astrachans, 

 from Georgia, are already in market. Watermelons are abun- 

 dant, one hundred and sixty-two car-loads having come here 

 from Florida and Georgia during last week. They sell for fifty 

 cents, while selected muskmelons bring fifteen to twenty cents 

 each. Twenty-two car-loads of California cherries, peaches, 

 plums, and a few pears were sold here last week. Some boxes 

 of large Tragedy prunes were bid up to $6.00 at the wholesale 

 auction, this being the only blue plum now offered, except the 

 small Koning Claudie. The showy Japanese Botan plum is 

 coming from California and from Georgia. Those from the 

 western coast are larger, of more even size, and bring consid- 

 erably higher prices. The fruit is a dark yellowish-red, with 

 white bloom and of delicious flavor. The Royal, consid- 

 ered the leading apricot in California, makes up the bulk 

 of this fruit now coming here. This old French variety, 

 which has long been a favorite for canning and drying, is of a 

 dull yellow color with an orange cheek faintly tinged with red. 

 Another variety now offered is the large early Montgamet, a 

 new kind distributed a few years ago by the California Nur- 

 sery Company. This promising fruit sells for Ji.oo a box 

 more than the smaller Royal. 



Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn, M. D., died in his home at 

 Strabithie, in Fife, Scotland, on the 19th of May last. In 1854 

 he was appointed Professor of Botany in the Madras Llniver- 

 sity, and was exceedingly active in laying the foundation of 

 the Indian- Forestry Service, the inception of which was due 

 to his zeal, intelligence and executive force. Dr. Cleghorn was 

 the first Conservator of Forests of the Madras Presidency, but 

 left India in 1869 and returned to Scotland, where he filled for 

 a short time the chair of Botany in the University of Glasgow. 

 He retained his interest in botany and arboriculture until the 

 end of his life, and was an active member of the Scottish Ar- 

 boricultural Society, which he served as president for several 

 years, and of the Edinburgh Botanical Society. In 1S61 Dr. 

 Cleghorn published in London The Forests and Gardens of 

 South India, a work abounding in practical information. He 

 was also the author of a large number of papers upon botani- 

 cal and dendrological subjects and of a number of biograph- 

 ical sketches of famous botanists. The genus Cleghornia, of 

 the Dogbane family, established in his honor by Wight, is now 

 referred to Baissea. 



