340 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 391. 



must have been derived ; and this truth, which should be 

 self-evident, Dr. Bonavia's book helps greatly to establish. 

 We may merely note, as one of his most important and 

 attractive deductions, the way in which he traces the 

 fieur-de-lis, so long regarded as a floral emblem and as 

 one of rather late European origin, back to the " luck- 

 horns " of Assyria, showing us every step in the transition 

 by means of pictures as well as of words, and showing us 

 that, even in old Assyrian times, this transition had led up 

 to the fully perfected forms of the fleur-de-lis — to the pre- 

 cise forms in which it is employed to-day. 



Notes. 



Some idea of the literary activity of the scientific staff of the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew appears in tlie fact that last year about 

 three thousand printed pages of botanical and horticultural 

 matter emanated from that establishment. 



A summer meeting of the American Forestry Association 

 will be held at Springfield, Massachusetts, in connection with 

 tlie forty-fourth meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, beginning on Tuesday, September 

 3d, at two o'clock in the afternoon, and continuing through 

 Wednesday. 



Clethra alnifolia is still in full bloom, and, although natu- 

 rally a swamp plant, it takes quite as kindly to cultivation 

 as almost any shrub. This plant and its variety tomentosa, 

 which blooms still later and keeps in flower until frost, are 

 both very handsome native shrubs, with first-rate foliage and 

 pure white, fragrant flowers. Almost every year we have 

 commended them to planters, but this advice can hardly be 

 repeated too often. It they were rare and expensive foreign 

 plants they would be much better known in gardens than they 

 now are. 



Among the varieties of Apples which will flourish in the 

 north-west the Hibernal is strongly recommended by the su- 

 periiitendent of one of the stations in Minnesota. The trees 

 are robust and in good condition after having been set eight 

 years ; the fruit is large and ripens well together on the tree ; 

 it is equal to the Oldenburg for all culinary purposes, and in 

 the proper season is relished as a dessert apple. The tiee also 

 has a great value as stock to be top-worked with more tender 

 varieties, as it makes a smooth union witli many kinds and is 

 inclined to push them into early bearing. 



In the interior of Florida the best pineapples are grown 

 under a cover consisting of narrow strips of board set a few 

 inches apart on stringers and high enough to allow a man to 

 walk under it. This structure is weather-boarded on the 

 north and west sides to protect the plants from cold winds, and 

 the cover excludes some of the hot sunshine in summer. 

 Under this shading the flowering can be controlled to some 

 extent, and pineapples can be made to ripen nearly every 

 month in the year. They are said to be much larger and to 

 have a better flavor than those grown in the open ground. 



A new vacuum process of canning fruits in glass has lately 

 been introduced from Europe among the packers of the Pacific 

 coast, and according to Mr. Charles H. Shinn, writing in the 

 American Agriculturist, the tin can appears to be doomed. 

 All tlie deleterious gases generated in cooking the fruit, and 

 even the air, are extracted under this new process, so that fer- 

 mentation is reduced to a minimum. No solder is used, and 

 each jar is opened by making a puncture with a pen-knife, 

 after which the cover can be lifted off entire. The fruit is 

 solid-packed — that is, a can contains ninety per cent, of fruit 

 and ten per cent, of syrup, instead of being two-thirds fruit and 

 one-third syrup, as was formerly the case with tin cans. In 

 this way there is a saving of freight charges, while the superior 

 attractiveness and healthfulness of fruits packed in glass is 

 evident. Formerly the use of resin, acid, solder and hot iron 

 scorched the syrup, and since the aperture in the top of the tin 

 cans was so small that the fruit was often crushed and cut 

 when being placed in the cans, the syrup was for this reason 

 cloudy. By the new' method the syrup will be clean and clear 

 and cheaper grades of fruit will be almost as good as the higher 

 ones, especially where the difference is only in the size of the 

 fruit. 



Last week the corner-stone of the new hall for the Pennsyl- 

 vania Horticultural Society was laid in Philadelphia, and 



among the papers placed within the box sealed up in the 

 stone were records of the Florists' Club, prepared by Mr. Ed- 

 win Lonsdale, and a history of the Horticultural Society pre- 

 pared by Dr. J. E. Mears, Vice-President of the society. From 

 an interesting resume of these papers, published in the Phila- 

 delphia Ledger, it is said that this society, the first of its kind 

 in America, received its charter in 1832, but was organized as 

 early as 1837 as an outgrowth of the Agricultural Society which 

 was organized in 17S5. Its presidents, from Horace Binney, 

 the first one, down to the present time, have all been men of 

 distinction in the community ; and its corresponding secre- 

 taries, David Landreth, Jr., John B. Smith, Thomas C. Percival, 

 William D. Brickie, Thomas Meehan, Charles P. Hayes and 

 Edwin Lonsdale, have all been leading authorities in horticul- 

 ture. The society is well known throughout the country for 

 its admirable exhibitions and for its progressive spirit. The 

 new building will be the fourth one which has been known to 

 Philadelphians as Horticultural Hall. The dimensions of 

 the large assembly room will be seventy by one hundred feet 

 on the second floor and will seat eleven hundred people. 

 The friends of horticulture will unite with us in wishing that 

 the staunch old society may enjoy a long career of pros- 

 perity and usefulness in its new home. 



A few Alligator pears are to be found in fancy-fruit stores 

 and command thirty to thirty-five cents apiece ; Strawberry 

 andSugarloaf pineapples, from Havana, bring $10.00 a hundred 

 at wholesale, and in spite of the abundance of home-grown 

 fruit, good Aspinwall and Port Limon bananas sell readily for 

 $1.00 to $1.50 a bunch. Peaches of high quality are rather 

 scarce since the Georgia crop has disappeared from the mar- 

 ket, but some fine yellow-fleshed Crawfords are now coming 

 from the Delaware peninsula, and the best ones command 

 $1.50 to $2.00 a basket at wholesale. The practice of market- 

 ing peaches in liaskets of smaller size, which can be handled 

 like grape baskets and transported in large carriers, is growing 

 in favor, and no doul.)t we shall soon see the last of the old- 

 style basket. Hand-picked Duchess of Oldenburg, Graven- 

 stein and Maiden's Blush bring the highest prices among 

 apples. Fine Le Conte, Bartlett and Clapp's Favorite pears, 

 from New Jersey and Maryland, dispute the market with the 

 beautiful fruit from California, but the east now has nothing to 

 match the Bradshaw, Columbia, Purple Duane, Yellow Egg, 

 Hungarian and Victoria plums from the Pacific coast. 

 Muscat and Tokay grapes are coming from California 

 in quantities, while Delawares, Moore's Early and Wor- 

 dens, from up the river, are now supplanting the Con- 

 cords and Niagaras from the south. Hard bright huckleber- 

 ries are still sent from the Pocono Movmtains, and command 

 at wholesale ten cents a quart, and blackberries from New 

 Jersey are worth as much. The warm weather, with season- 

 able rains, has pushed forward melons and all kinds of vege- 

 tables in such abundance that the market is fairly glutted with 

 them, and the same condition seems to be found in many 

 other parts of the country. A recent dispatch from California 

 states that one day last week five hundred crates, each contain- 

 ing thirty fine canteloupes, from the Sacramento Valley, were 

 dumped into the Bay of San Francisco because they could not be 

 disposed of to the wholesale dealers for ten cents a crate. This 

 certainly seems a criminal waste, especially when we are told 

 that a good muskmeion could not be bought at a retail stand 

 in San Francisco for less than twenty-five cents. Some way, 

 surely, ought to be devised by which poor people could get 

 some of this fruit at a reasonable rate, even if the business of 

 the middlemen should suffer to some extent. 



Henri Baillon, the distinguished French botanist and Profes- 

 sor of Botany in the Faculte de Medecine of Paris, died on the 

 2ist of July in his sixty-seventh year. Baillon was one of the 

 most learned, industrious and prolific of the modern French 

 botanists and the chief apostle of the theories of his country- 

 men, Adanson and Payer. Unfortunate infirmities of temper, 

 which led him into severe and sometimes unjust criticisms of 

 his contemporaries, somewhat impaired his usefulness. He 

 did, however, an immense amount of good work, and much 

 of it of permanent value, and will always live in his classical 

 Histoire dcs Plantes, his chief work, which, unfortunately, he 

 did not quite complete ; in his Dictionnaire de Botanique ; and 

 in his studies of the Madagascar Flora, upon which in late 

 years he has been chiefly engaged. He also wrote much upon 

 medical botany and on the flora of the neighborhood of Paris, 

 and was author of a Traitc dc Botanique. Adansonia,'a.\owvm\ 

 of botany, now discontinued, was edited and largely written by 

 him. 



