330 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 390. 



Notes. 



According to the Journal of Coiitmcrcc, the first new evap- 

 orated apples from the south are ah-eady on the market, and 

 also some small lots of southern sun-dried apples. New dried 

 huckleberries are offered, to arrive, at nine and a half and ten 

 cents a pound. 



It is many years since sweet corn has been so uniformly 

 good and free from worms as this season. Well-grown, evenly 

 grained ears sell for twenty cents a dozen. Sweet Spanish 

 peppers and Knob celery (Celeriac) are among new vegetables 

 now coming from this section, and considerable quantities of 

 asparagus still find sale along with more seasonable products, 

 at twenty-five cents a bunch. 



We have often called attention to the Spiked Loosestrife, 

 Lythrum Salicaria, a plant which has become so thoroughly 

 naturalized in damp places throughout all the north-eastern 

 United States that most persons consider it a native. The 

 plant has a tendency to vary, and some strains are superior to 

 others, but the tall spikes of dark purple tfowers, from four to 

 six feet high, are always effective, especially on the borders of 

 water, still or flowing, or where they can have a background 

 of foliage. In parks and private grounds of suitable e-xtent 

 they are very useful and among the most striking of late 

 summer-flowering plants. 



The Geneva Experiment Station offers to distribute to per- 

 sons in this state buds of the Lutovka Cherry, which was 

 imported some twelve years ago by Professor Budd, of Iowa. 

 The tree is of the Morello type, with firm fruit, of a sprightly 

 acid flavor, about the size of an English Morello cherry, simi- 

 lar in size to that fruit, but with flesh not as dark. Professor 

 Budd says that this Cherry is grown largely in Poland and 

 Silesia as a roadside tree. It has been grown in Geneva for 

 seven or eight years, and has proved very productive of fruit, 

 which ripens as late or later than the English Morello. It has 

 been grown to some extent in the west, and seems to be wor- 

 thy of extended trial as a late sour cherry. 



It has been for a long time held that chemical analysis of 

 soils gives very little practical information as to their value. 

 Dr. E. W. Hilgard, however, believes that it is time to abandon 

 the denunciation of the so-called mistakes of Liebig, since his 

 views are now being justified one after another, with the ex- 

 ception of his under-estimation of the need of nitrogenous 

 fertilizers. Writing for the American Agriculturist, Dr. Hil- 

 gard says that a study of virgin soils has convinced him that 

 certain characteristics ascertainable by analysis invariably 

 translate themselves by definite effects upon natural and culti- 

 vated vegetation. The tendency of modern research is to the 

 effect that cultural results run so closely parallel with those of 

 analysis, that the results of the experiments with different fer- 

 tilizers can be predicted from a proper understanding of the 

 analysis. 



According to the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 

 the true Opium Poppy can be easily and successfully grown 

 in that country, where, in favorable seasons, the plant will 

 flower in about fifteen weeks from the time of planting. As 

 soon as the flower falls the capsule is slightly cut across one 

 side in the afternoon to let out the milky juice. About four 

 wounds are made. The next morning the milky juice will 

 have hardened into a thin gum, which is scraped off with a 

 blunt knife and transferred from the knife into a clean tin ves- 

 sel. The unwounded side of the capsule is operated on the 

 following afternoon. The collected gum or opium is made 

 into thin cakes and carefully dried in the shade. The work of 

 opium collection is one which can be done by careful women 

 and children. When nothing but the seeds or heads are re- 

 quired the Poppy is planted broadcast and hoed outer thinned 

 to a distance of nine inches apart. About 40,000 heads can be 

 gathered to the acre, and when dried they are worth about five 

 dollars a thousand. The seed is rich in oil, very nutritious, 

 with an almond flavor, and is good food for consumptives. It 

 brings twenty-five cents an ounce in Sydney. 



The tornado which swept through Bergen County, New 

 Jersey, three weeks ago did great injury to the well-known 

 experiment-grounds of Mr. Carman, editor of T/ie Rural New 

 Yorker, and every one will sympathize with the feeling of loss 

 and desolation which is expressed in his description of the ruin 

 so suddenly wrought among the beautiful groves and woods 

 that made this rolling country so attractive. "We walk over 

 to Einwood, our experiment-field," he writes, "and look 

 about as one in a dream. We have note-book in hand, as in 

 previous seasons, but there are no notes to take. They have 



all been taken. The grove of Oaks, Chestnuts, Beeches, 

 Maples, Birches and Tulip-trees, with its undergrowth of thou- 

 sands of natural flowers and more than a thousand introduced 

 shrubs and hardy herbaceous plants, so enjoyable and restful 

 during the heat of the day, is now a mass of broken and splin- 

 tered timber, kindling wood, huge roots, sections of trees that 

 could not have been rendered more suggestive of havoc and 

 ruin if they had been thrice struck by lightning." It is twenty- 

 three years since Mr. Carman built his house and laid out tlie 

 Rural grounds, and it is natural that he should feel attached to 

 the place and to the surrounding country by many endearing 

 associations. But the tornado has so changed everything that 

 he declares it almost impossible for him to realize that it is 

 the same country and the same home. 



Seedling oranges continue to come from California by the 

 car-load. Some fancy St. Michaels and Mediterranean Sweets 

 from that state last week brought as much as $3.70 to $3.85 a 

 box at the wholesale auctions, and the highest price reached 

 by Rod! fruit, the popular summer Mediterranean orange, was 

 $2.60. With the end of the Mediterranean shipments of 

 lemons at hand, fancy Majori fruit sold for $6.75 a box last 

 week, and anticipated advances may reach the extreme prices 

 of a year ago when Rodi lemons sold here for $7.62 j4. California 

 fruit during the early part of the season sold so low as hardly 

 to cover freightage, and a larger proportion of the fruit is now 

 being kept at home to be dried and canned and made into 

 wine. Sixty-five car-loads of California pears, plu ms and peaches 

 were sold here last week, including also a few nectarines, 

 early grapes and Seckel pears. The Georgia peach season is 

 now past, and with the short supply from California, and the 

 Delaware and New Jersey crops not yet marketable, those 

 from North Carolina have brought exceptionally high prices. 

 Baskets containing less than two dozen good Elbertas, on Mon- 

 day, commanded ji.oo. The scarcity of this fruit from near- 

 by states has also made a temporary rise in prices of Pacific 

 coast peaches, the best of which now bring $1.50 for a box six 

 times the size of the Carolina package. Among the large 

 variety of plums, Fellenberg, known also as the Large German, 

 Swiss or Italian prune, is distinct and attractive. The form is 

 oval and pointed and the color dark purple, enriched with 

 abundant dark blue bloom. Another showy prune now fre- 

 quently seen is the so-called Gros prune (Grosse Prune d'Agen, 

 English Pond's Seedling or Hungarian prune). This fruit is 

 very large, of a reddish violet color and suffused with bloom. 

 Crab apples, large and showy, cost fifty cents for a ten-pound 

 basket. 



The Boston Park Guide is a compactly printed pamphlet of 

 some seventy pages, with a full series of official maps and 

 plans and a score or more of full-page illustrations, represen- 

 tative landscapes and structures in different portions of the 

 park system. The work has been prepared by Mr. Sylvester 

 Baxter, who was secretary of the prehminary Metropolitan 

 Park Commission, and it includes not only a description of the 

 parks of the central city, but those of the suburban munici- 

 palities which make up the metropolitan district, known as 

 the Greater Boston. The entire area of these public reserva- 

 tions amounts to rather more than 14,000 acres. Few cities 

 e.xcel Boston in the beauty and variety of the landscapes which 

 surround it, and perhaps no city in the world has taken such 

 wise and comprehensive action to preserve so much of the 

 characteristic scenery about it for llie recreative requirements 

 of its coming population. No one is more competent to write 

 intelligently on this subject than Mr. Baxter, and he has ren- 

 dered a service, not only to every one who proposes to visit the 

 parks of Boston, but to all who take any interest in the ques- 

 tion of providing pleasure-grounds adequate to the needs of 

 our growing cities. This little monograph sets forth so graph- 

 ically the different uses and purposes to which the various 

 parks, small and great, are adapted ; it describes so clearly the 

 vital connections which unify the whole into a single organic 

 system ; it points out so accurately the controlling motives of 

 the designs of the various divisions, both from an artistic and 

 a practical point of view, that it will be useful to readers every- 

 where, and will be one more influence to help in the creation 

 of a sound public opinion in favor of ample park spaces for 

 our cities. Incidentally and inferentially this little book plainly 

 points out the necessity of securing a master of design when 

 any park or system of parks is to be planned. Any one who 

 reads and appreciates what has been accomplished for Boston 

 by the study of a true artist, will realize what Boston would 

 have lost and what any other city will lose when such work 

 is entrusted to some journeyman. The book is published by 

 the author at 255 Washington Street, Boston, and is sold for 

 twenty-five cents a copy. 



