3o6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 388. 



now very often seen in our gardens, although it is easy to 

 culti\rate and the flowers are very lieautiful, with clear 

 pink corollas three or four inches across, marlied within at 

 the base with purple longitudinal stripes ; they are solitary 

 on long stems from the axils of the leaves, and keep on 

 appearing from the end of June through the summer, or as 

 long as the plants continue to grow. The leaves are 

 oblong-ovate, crenate, wedge-shaped at the base and long- 

 stalked, and in rich vi^ell-drained soil the plants will grow 

 to the height of about two feet. Although, perhaps, most 

 attractive on the plants, which should be used in masses, 

 the flowers last a long time when cut, and are well suited 

 to arrange in vases. 



Iris Japonica. — This Iris, also known as I. Chinensis and 

 I. fimbriata, is valued, wherever known, as a very attractive 

 greenhouse perennial. It has been in cultivation about a 

 century, but is still a plant too seldom seen, especially as it 

 is attractive in leaf as well as flower. The dark green 

 leaves are sword-shaped, somewhat lax, and borne in fan- 

 shaped clusters. The plants usually flower in early spring 

 on stems as long as the leaves, and these, with the many 

 heads, form a true raceme. The individual flowers fade with 

 the day, but are quickly succeeded by others from the three 

 or four flowered spathes. They are very beautiful ; the 

 color is a delicate light blue, with orange-yellow crest 

 and markings of the same color on a white ground on the 

 falls. This ground is bounded by a row of lavender lines 

 and dots, which are darker in hue than the body color. 

 The segments are also beautifully fimbriated on all the 

 edges, and are spread out Mora;a-like. The style crests are 

 also deeply cut and fimbriated. The cultural requirements 

 of this Iris seem to be the growth, from flowering time, 

 in open, rich soil, with some peat and sand and good 

 drainage, in order to produce well-matured plants in the 

 early year. 



Bravoa geminiflora. — This twin-flowered Amaryllid is a 

 tuberous-rooted plant from the mountains of central Mexico. 

 As it occurs at high altitudes it would probably be hardy 

 here with slight protection. It has narrow leaves one and 

 a half feet long, and flower-spikes six inches to a foot longer. 

 The flowers are borne in distant pairs on opposite sides of 

 the stem. They are an inch long, narrow, trumpet-shaped, 

 and orange-red in color. They are drooping and show 

 little of the lighter inner color which the protruding anthers 

 also serve to hide. This plant is interesting rather than 

 showy or ornamental. 



PiNUS Koraiensis and p. parviflora. — Pine-trees small 

 enough not to outgrow, without continual mutilation, the 

 limits of a small lawn are not very numerous, although 

 there is a demand for such plants to take the place of large 

 trees, like the Austrian Pine and the Norvi-ay Spruce, which 

 are often planted in spaces only a few yards square, and, 

 of course, have to be rooted up long before they reach half 

 their natural size. There are, however, two small Pines 

 from north-eastern Asia which are well suited to decorate 

 small lawns in this country, and it is a pity that they are 

 so little known and so rarely planted. They are Pinus 

 Koraiensis and P. parviflora, species with five leaves in the 

 leaf-cluster, like our White Pine, short cones with thick 

 scales, and large edible seeds. P. Koraiensis is usually not 

 more than thirty feet high when fully grown, and forms a 

 broad round-topped cone, with its lower branches resting 

 on the ground. The leaves are pale green, and as they do 

 not fall until the end of three or four years, the appearance 

 of the tree is more leafy and much denser than many of the 

 other White Pines which lose their leaves much earlier. 

 This density of foliage and the light orange-red color of 

 the young shoots distinguish this Pine, and make it an ex- 

 ceedingly attractive object. It is very hardy as far north, 

 at least, as New England, and there are already several 

 specimens in this country from twenty to twenty-five feet 

 in height. As its name implies, P. Koraiensis is a native 

 of the Corean peninsula, where it is said to be abundant, 

 as it is in the Manchurian coast regions. Like several 

 other trees, it was carried to Japan nearly a thousand years 



ago by Buddhist priests, and is still occasionally planted in 

 their temple gardens. From these cultivated trees the spe- 

 cies was first described and figured by Siebold and Zucca- 

 rini in their Flora of Japan. 



Pinus parviflora is a somewhat larger tree ; it grows 

 sometimes on the mountains of northern Japan to the 

 height of sixty or seventy feet, overtopping the for- 

 ests of deciduous trees with its handsome head of long 

 graceful, somewhat pendulous, branches, and reliev- 

 ing the monotony of the sky-line just as our White 

 Pine stands like a sentinel over the sylvan landscape of 

 eastern America. The leaves of P. parviflora are short, sil- 

 very white in color, and much clustered on short branch- 

 lets springing from the long flexible branches, which form 

 broad distinct whorls about the stem. There are speci- 

 mens of this tree in the eastern United States about twenty 

 feet high which are every year covered with cones, but 

 they show no disposition yet to produce the tall naked 

 trunks found in the Japanese forests, and still retain their 

 lower limbs. These are shorter than some of the more vig- 

 orous branches above them, so that the shape of the young 

 tree is obconical and very irregular, the branches on one 

 side sometimes growing much longer than those on the 

 other. This Pine is able to resist the most severe cold ; it 

 is extremely picturesque in habit, which in its young state 

 is entirely unlike that of any other Pine-tree, and it is de- 

 lightful in color. The cones, however, which are produced 

 in profusion and turn nearly black after the seeds are shed, 

 do not fall for several years, and somewhat disfigure the 

 appearance of the tree, which is otherwise one of the most 

 satisfactory of all the conifers of moderate size that can be 

 grown in the northern United States. 



Cultural Department. 



Air Drainage in Orchards. 



THE presence of a large body of water is a protection to 

 orchards, but only wliile it is open water. As soon as it 

 is sealed by freezing it is no longer a protection ; and as rivers 

 and lakes occupy depressions in the eartli's surface, their im- 

 mediate vicinity is subject to a lower temperature than more 

 elevated territory, in consequence ot what is popularly called 

 tlie setting of the cold air into the lowest spots. The realiza- 

 tion of this fact came to me slowly. My "Old Place" is close 

 to Lake Memphremagog, which is a decided protection against 

 frosts so long as the lake remains open ; yet I learned that 

 on the surrounding hills some varieties of Apples, and even 

 a few Pears, could be successfully grown, winch, with me, 

 were destroyed by the test winters. 



In the six years that I have been in possession of an upland 

 farm, two to three miles from the lake, I have had an oppor- 

 tunity to note these facts more fully, and to study the subject 

 more thoroughly. In the country about Lake Champlain, the 

 deeper parts of which often remain unfrozen nearly all winter, 

 the Baldwin Apple is grown with success, though with some 

 risk of injury to tlie trees in abnormally cold winters ; but 

 Lake Champlain lies nearly a thousand feet lower than Lake 

 Memphremagog. 



The efforts which have been made in the past thirty years 

 to extend orcharding into the mountain regions of this state 

 have been costly ; but by patience and perseverance, and by 

 the introduction of the tree-fruits of Russia, the principal diffi- 

 culties have been measurably overcome. Still, as yet, very 

 few of our orchardists fully understand this matter of air 

 drainage — the fact that low valleys are colder when it is cold, 

 as well as warmer when it is warm, and the consequences 

 wliich follow therefrom. Not only do we lose more trees by 

 winter-killing in the valleys, but in time we find that even the 

 hardier trees, which are not killed, and for some time are ap- 

 parently not injured, are gradually weakened, and thus decline 

 in thrift and vigor. This decline is becoming more and more 

 manifest as time passes, and it tends more and more to push 

 orcharding back into the hills. Antagonizing influences, how- 

 ever, are tound in the fact that the hill farmers — with excep- 

 tions, however — have commonly less capital, less confidence 

 in fruit-growing, and are farther from the markets and from 

 transportation facilities. The last obstacle, however, will, I 

 believe, be soon overcome by branch lines of railway, of nar- 

 row-gauge and cheap ec[uipment, with electric propulsion 



