320 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 389. 



truth that the Rose has hardly begun to be appreciated in its 

 native country. 



New parsnips, sweet-potatoes, okra, tomatoes, oyster-plant 

 and egg-plants are now coming from New Jersey, cauliflower 

 from the Catskill region of this state, and lettuce from Boston. 

 English or Windsor beans sell for thirty cents a half-peck in 

 the pods. Taragon costs seven cents for a small bunch, and 

 nasturtiums seventy-five cents a quart. 



The white-flowered Sweet Pea, Emily Henderson, was the 

 earliest variety to bloom this year in a collection of more than 

 fifty named sorts. There is a special strain of the Blanche 

 Ferry, known as Extra Early, which blooms under most con- 

 ditions slightly in advance of Emily Henderson, but the flow- 

 ers are not white and the plant is not a persistent bloomer, so 

 that about its only merit is that of extreme earliness. 



Last year small consignments of California canned fruit 

 were sent to Egypt and Ceylon by the way of Hong Kong, but 

 the freiglit was too high to make the venture profitable. Large 

 orders, however, have been received again for this fruit, which 

 is highly prized by foreign tourists on the Nile and by rich 

 English planters and army officers in Ceylon, and this year it 

 will go direct to London by sailing vessel and thence to Alex- 

 andria and Colombo. 



According to a dispatch to TJie Tribune of this city, ten mil- 

 lion feet of pine and fir lumber are now being loaded on the 

 Pacific coast, or are on their way to South Africa, for use in 

 timbering the deep mines. This lumber is said to be much 

 superior in length and strength to that from the Baltic region, 

 which held a monopoly of the market until two years ago. 

 The first shipments were made by sailing vessels, but several 

 steamers are now regularly engaged in the trade. 



The last number of The Orchid Review contains a portrait 

 of a strikmg Cypripedium which is in all probability one of the 

 natural hybrids which occur so rarely in this genus, only two 

 others being recorded. The plant is called C. x Littleanum, 

 and its foliage, broad dorsal sepal, nearly horizontal petals, 

 and the shape of the lip indicate C. Lawrenceanum as one of 

 its parents. Mr. Rolfe believes the other parent to have been 

 C. Dayanum, and gives some ingenious reasons in support of 

 his theory. At all events, it is to be hoped that a cross will be 

 attempted between these two plants with a view to reproduc- 

 ing something like the present fine hybrid which bears a 

 striking flower, measuring five and three-quarter inches from 

 tip to tip of the petals, and having a dorsal sepal nearly two 

 inches broad. 



Skilled gardeners do not need to be reminded that this is the 

 season for moving the bulbs of Lilium candidum or other 

 perennial plants wjrose tops die after flowering and which then 

 put forth new leaves to remain green all winter. It may be 

 worth while to remind amateurs and beginners that the middle 

 of August is the safest time to move the large and fleshy roots 

 of many early-flowering perennials, like Pa?onies, whose leaves 

 do not die down. .When transplanted at this season they will 

 put forth enough new roots before the cold weather sets in to 

 safely establish them and insure their flowering next year. 

 Coniferous trees can also be safely moved in late August, after 

 the new growth has hardened, but, unless there is some special 

 reason for transplanting them now, it will be found safer on 

 the whole to postpone the operation unfit early spring. 



On the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley, near Los 

 Gatos, California, is a factory in which red and white wine grapes 

 are crushed and their juice turned into what is called "grape- 

 food," that is, the juice is concentrated without fermentation. 

 Fifty tons of grapes are treated every day, and the process of 

 manufacture is described by a correspondent of Harper's 

 Weekly as follows : " A small but constant stream of fresh 

 juice flows into the upper end of a copper cylinder nineteen 

 feet long and two feet in diameter and inclined at a slight angle. 

 This cylinder revolves slowly in a hot- water jacket kept heated 

 to 150 degrees, Fahrenheit. The juice forms a film on the 

 interior of the cylinder, the water evaporates from it under the 

 heat, the vapor is drawn away by rapidly revolving exhaust- 

 fans, and the juice, which has been but sixty seconds in pass- 

 ing through the cylinder, trickles from its lower end in a warm 

 syrupy stream reduced to one-quarter of its original bulk, but 

 retaining all its original elements except the water." 



A correspondent of The Rural New Yorker, whose Grape- 

 vines were frozen back this spring, writes that he broke off all 

 the new shoots and shortened in the wood. The result was that 

 the vines treated in this way put out new shoots from adven- 

 titious buds which grew vigorously witli clean bright leaves, 

 showijig canes of rich shining color, while canes left for 



comparison remained decrepit and crooked. Of course, a 

 comparatively small amount of fruit set, and this was on 

 shoots from the accessory buds at the nodes rather than from 

 the adventitious ones. If the breaking out of the parfiy dor- 

 mant accessory shoots had been deferred until after the frost, 

 at least half a crop of fruit might have been obtained from tlie 

 shoots of these duplicate buds, which seem to be provided for 

 such a crisis as this in the life of the vines. But why should 

 the breaking off the frozen shoots be such an advantage ? Is 

 it possible that the sap which is disorganized by freezing 

 causes injury to the vine — a sort of blood-poisoning — when 

 taken up into the circulation ? 



The best Elberta peaches from the south are now rivaled 

 by large specimens of the juicy white-fleshed Stump the World 

 and the showy Belle of Georgia, the choicest of which bring 

 seventy-five cents to one dollar a dozen. Niagara and Delaware 

 grapes, from the south, cost twenty cents a pound, and Black 

 Hamburgs, from Newport hot-houses, $1.00 to $1.25; Black 

 Muscats, from California, are already seen on the sidewalk 

 fruit-stands, but they are small and uninviting. The first To- 

 kays, from the same state, arrived during the latter part of last 

 week. Choice plums, as Columbia. Egg, with Burbank, Kelsey 

 and other Japanese varieties, and German prunes bring 

 twenty-five cents a dozen in the fancy-fruit stores, and nec- 

 tarines twenty-five to forty cents. Alexander apples, from 

 California, cost forty cents a dozen. California seedling oranges 

 are now among the best offerings of this fruit and sell at retail 

 for sixty cents a dozen. Jenny Lind melons, from New Jersey, 

 sell at three for twenty-five cents ; large Anne Arundel canta- 

 loupes, from Maryland, bring twenty cents each, and good 

 specimens of the salmon-fleshed Christianas command twenty- 

 five cents. 



In the last number of Meehans Monthly the editor tells an 

 interesting story of being summoned to hold an inquest over 

 a dead Sugar Maple-tree. It was supposed to have been de- 

 stroyed by a leak in the city gas-main near its roots, but an 

 examination convinced Mr. Meehan that the tree had died lit- 

 erally from sun-stroke. This Maple had been planted on the street 

 about twenty-five years, and was some four feet in girth. 

 The trunk, however, instead of bemg cylindrical, was shaped 

 like a triangular prism, a peculiarity owing to the fact that on 

 three sides of it the inner bark and wood had been kflled, 

 wliile the outer bark continued to cover up the injury, so that 

 the only living wood was at the angles of the trunk. Practically, 

 no more than one-third of the surface of the trunk was alive, 

 and when the exceedingly warm weather of last month came 

 the limited number of ducts were not sufficient to supply the 

 moisture needed to meet the rapid transpiration from so large 

 a surface of foliage, consequently the leaves willed and the 

 tree died. Mr. Meehan adds the counsel that whenever the 

 trunk of a tree takes on this angular form it should be exam- 

 ined under the bark, and if the flatter portions are found dead, 

 the bark and the decaying part of the wood should be wholly 

 cut away and the denuded part painted to check the rotting. 

 In time healthy wood may grow over such a scar and the life 

 of the free may thus be eventually saved. 



Mr. W. K. Dexter, of St. Louis, has offered to present 250 

 acres of land at Hiawatha Lake to the people of Hennepin 

 County, Minnesota, as a public park. The donor's purpose is 

 to have the tract preserved in its natural state, and he there- 

 fore makes it a condition of the gift that no landscape-artist 

 shall be allowed to touch it. Mr. Dexter evidently entertains 

 the mistaken belief that landscape-art and formal gardening 

 are identical terms, or, at least, that landscape-gardening 

 means primarily the destruction of natural beauty to make 

 room for something that is artificial. Perhaps, too, he has 

 not considered the fact that the highest beauty of this wild 

 tract will never be discovered until some real artist studies out 

 a practical scheme for making its key-points inviting and 

 accessible, nor that its original charm will surely disappear as 

 it becomes frequented unless provision is made for restoring 

 what is worn away and maintaining and developing its essen- 

 tial elements, a work vi'hich also requires the highest artistic 

 taste and training. When Mr. Dexter gives himself thoroughly 

 to a study of the problems of design and maintenance, which 

 must be solved if his praiseworthy and public-spirited purpose 

 is to be carried out to the best advantage, he may still feel 

 inclined to resent any suggestions from the class of landscape- 

 gardeners whose loftiest aim is to arrange tlower-beds and 

 plant purple Barberries and golden Elders on suburban lawns, 

 but he will welcome the advice of some true artist in land- 

 scape, who will be certain to have a broad appreciation of 

 Nature and a respect for her simplest as well as her noblest 

 manifestations. 



