350 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 392. 



Late Crawfords, Stump and the like will be at their best in 

 Connecticut during the first half of September. 



A good many of the hardy Speedwells have little ornamental 

 value, but, as the season of its flowering has come around, we 

 once more call attention to Veronica longifolia, var. subsessilis, 

 which is altogether the most showy of the herbaceous kinds 

 and one of the best of summer flowers. It is more compact 

 and robust than the species and surpasses it in the color of its 

 flowers. It grows two or more feet high, is bushy, and liears 

 bright amethyst-blue flowers in terminal and axillary spikes 

 six or eight inches long. Like other Veronicas, this plant 

 enjoys a warm and sunny place and rich soil. Even in small 

 gardens, vi'here there is room for only the best plants, a space 

 should be kept for this Veronica. 



The Trumpet-weed or Joe Pye-weed (Eupatorium pur- 

 pureum) is one of those sturdy composites v/hich make an 

 important feature in our late summer scenery along water 

 borders and in moist woodland glades. Under favorable con- 

 ditions it grows ten feet high or more, with a compound 

 corymb of flowers often two feet long and almost as thick 

 through. These immense heads, with their purplish scales 

 and flesh-colored flowers on the tall stems, several of virhich 

 grow from a single root so as to form large masses, make 

 altogether an impressive picture. Although so large, this can 

 hardly be called a coarse plant, as it is pleasing in appearance 

 even when examined close at hand. 



A law has been enacted in Michigan which compels the 

 owners of fruit-trees and vines to spray them with appropriate 

 insecticides and fungicides under penalty of a fine not exceeding 

 fifty dollars, or imprisonment not to exceed sixty days, or both. 

 The evident purpose of this law is to compel negligent farm- 

 ers to do then- full share in suppressing injurious insects and 

 plant-diseases, a work which can only be done by cooperation. 

 Three commissioners appointed by the selectmen of any town- 

 ship are authorized to notify farmers whenever insect or fun- 

 gous pests are found in their orchards or vineyards, and if 

 farmers fail to spray their trees or vines the commissioners 

 are to do the work at the expense of the town, which can 

 recover costs from the owner. 



There is a law in Ohio which directs the superintendents of 

 county or township roads to cut Thistles, Wild Parsnips, Bur- 

 docks and other noxious weeds that are grovv'ing along the 

 highways between the fifteenth and thirtieth days of June, 

 the first and fifteenth days of August, and the fifteenth and 

 thirtieth days of September each year. The experiment sta- 

 tion of that state has recently sent out a bulletin for the 

 especial use of road officers in order to secure information as 

 to the condition of the borders of roads and railroads, and to 

 ascertain to what extent the law is enforced which provides 

 for the early and repeated cutting of noxious plants. Enact- 

 ments of similar character have been passed in many of the 

 states, but we never yet have seen such a law enforced over 

 any considerable area. 



All persons who care to inform themselves as to the amount 

 of protection agauist injurious insects which is given to our 

 fruit-trees by birds, ought to read the bulletin of Mr. E. H. 

 Forbes, lately published by the Massachusetts Board of Agri- 

 culture. It is very plainly shown here that birds do a very 

 useful work in destroying the eggs of many kinds of insects, 

 and that the most dangerous pests of orchards, like canker- 

 worms, bark-scale lice and tent caterpillars, are largely held in 

 check by our common song birds, and that one of the best 

 ways to secure a fruit crop is to encourage birds to live in our 

 orchards. It is very evident that the winter birds which eat 

 the eggs of insects ought always to be encouraged to inhabit 

 our fruit orchards, and that the summer birds which teed upon 

 larva; are also of great value, and they should be protected 

 and fostered until they become abundant. 



The gardens of New Jersey and Long Island are now fur- 

 nishing most of the vegetables that the markets of this city 

 demand, and, owing to exceptionally favorable weatlier, the 

 supply is so ample that buyers can usually get what they want 

 at their own figures. A few choice products like well-grown 

 Brussels sprouts command fancy prices, but a dozen bunches 

 of the best new carrots sell for twenty-five cents at retail ; 

 extra cauliflower, from ten to twenty cents a head ; Romaine 

 lettuce, five cents a head, and Boston lettuce, fifty cents a 

 dozen ; egg-plants, five to ten cents each ; red cabbage, ten 

 cents a head ; okra, thirty cents a hundred ; Lima beans and 

 green peas, sixty cents a peck; Hackensack melons, $1.50 a 

 dozen, and so on through the list. The fruit season is also at 

 its height, and the markets and street stands never looked 



more beautiful. California is sending late Crawford peaches. 

 Heath Clings, Orange Clings and McDevitts, while high-grade 

 red and yellow kinds are coming from Maryland, Delaware ami 

 New Jersey. The Hudson River vineyards are supplying 

 Delaware, Niagara and Worden grapes. Virginia is still send- 

 ing some line Concords, and the Ives is already ripe in New 

 Jersey. A few Damsons and Reine Claude plums are coming 

 from western New York, but beautiful Bradshaws, Kelseys, 

 Burbanks, Fellenbergs, Columbias and Coe's Late, from Cali- 

 fornia, make the great bulk of plums now sold. Of the dozen 

 kinds of apples in the market the highest prices are brought 

 by Alexanders, followed in order by Duchess of Oldenburg and 

 Gravensteins. Great numbers of pears are coming into the 

 city, but prices for the better kinds rule high because many of 

 them are going into cold storage. 



The woodpeckers have been subjected to much adverse 

 criticism by farmers and fruit-growers, and Professor Beal, 

 assistant ornithologist of the Department of Agriculture, who 

 has been studying them, has recently published a preliminary 

 report on the food of these birds, from which it appears that 

 some of the species, at least, destroy many injurious insects. 

 From an examuiation of the stomachs of 679 of these birds of 

 seven species it was found that three-quarters of the food of 

 the downy woodpecker consists of insects, few of which are 

 useful, while it eats practically no grain. The hairy wood- 

 pecker also eats a trifling amount of grain, but it eats many 

 beetles and caterpillars. The flicker, more commonly called 

 the high-holder in the middle states, is a great destroyer of 

 ants, and, although it eats some fruit, a great proportion of this 

 is wild berries. Altogether, it would be hard to find three 

 other species among our common birds with fewer harmful 

 qualities, and they should be protected in every way. Every 

 farmer and landholder should especially try to preserve the 

 flicker, which species is most liable to destruction. The red- 

 headed woodpecker consumes more beetles in proportion 

 than any of the others, but some of these are of thepredaceous 

 species, and this should be set down against the bird. It has 

 a taste for corn, too, and for fruit. The red-bellied wood- 

 pecker does damage to oranges in certain localities in Florida, 

 but eats quantities of ants and beetles. One bad trait of the 

 yellow-bellied woodpecker is its fondness for the sap and 

 inner bark of trees, but it is not probable that forest-trees are ex- 

 tensively injured ; the bird, however, hasa taste for Apple-trees, 

 too, and it might do much harm to orchards. The pileated 

 woodpecker is more exclusively a forest bird than any other, 

 and its food is mainly of forest products, such as the larvse of 

 wood-boring Ijeetles and the wild fruits. It is emphatically a 

 conservator of the woods. 



The Hale Orchard Company planted more than a hun- 

 dred thousand Peach-trees on six hundred acres of land, near 

 Fort Valley, Georgia, in the autumn of 189! and the spring 

 of 1892, and the resident superintendent, with thirty or forty 

 negro assistants and sixteen mules, has kept the orchard 

 thoroughly cultivated for three years. The early frost of 1894 

 destroyed the prospects of fruit at the first blossoming, and 

 this year about fifty men were employed during April and 

 May thinning out the surplus frLiit. By the 20th of June 

 three hundred and fifty hands and sixty mules v^ere kept 

 employed in picking, packing and moving four thousand crates 

 every day. Owing to the destruction of the orange crop in 

 Florida last winter, numbers of extra workers on fruits applied 

 for labor, so that there was an abundance of the best kind of 

 help. In the marketing season something like three hundred 

 bushels of overripe, ill-shapen and scarred fruit are rejected 

 every day, and the perfect peaches are graded by women and 

 girls and packed in four-quart baskets, six of which fill a car- 

 rier. The crates when labeled are hauled to the railroad in 

 spring wagons with canvas covering to protect them from dust 

 and rain, and at the station they are loaded into refrigerator 

 cars which hold from 525 to 600 crates each. The cost of pick- 

 ing, packing, freight, etc., amounts to $500 a car, so that the 

 eighty carloads of fruit sent north from this one orchard 

 during the season cost for marketing $40,000. Mr. J. H. Hale, 

 who gives these figures in the American Ag>-iciilturist, says that 

 the leading peach in that section is the Elberta, but extra-early 

 sorts like Alexander are also largely grown. The first really 

 good peach to ripen is the Tillotson, which comes on about 

 the middle of June. After this the best peaches are St. John, 

 Mountain Rose, Lady Ingold, Elberta, Belle of Georgia and 

 Late Crawford, which rounds out the season about the first of 

 August. The peach crop of Houston County alone gives 

 employment to three thousand people, and all the roads lead- 

 ing to the railroad-stations are lined during the picking season 

 every day with wagons of every sort hauling fruit to market. 



