^6o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 393. 



repeated tale of fertilization by insects and by wind was never 

 more briefly or graphically told than in this little volume. 

 Very clearly, too, in the chapter on Stems and Branches is 

 it set forth how the different parts of the plant have devel- 

 oped, and how all these parts have been united together in 

 so many ways to form a single organized community. In 

 the chapter on Plant Biographies, which follows the sepa- 

 rate consideration of the various elements of plant-life, 

 some specimen lives of individual plants are taken up and 

 traced through from the cradle to the grave with all their 

 vicissitudes. Altogether, the book is an excellent one to 

 put in the hands of any inquisitive young person. It will 

 not discourage them by showing them how impossible is 

 the task of discovering all that is to be learned in the 

 structure and life of any one species, or even of a sin- 

 gle tiny weed, but it will rather stimulate them to personal 

 investigation, with the assurance that "even the little 

 episodes in plant-life which they can pick out piecemeal 

 are full of romance, of charm and of novelty.'' 



Notes. 



The large ripe yellow cucumbers that are occasionally seen 

 in the markets at this season are used by German families, 

 who make a mustard pickle of them. They cost only a cent 

 or two apiece. 



In a paper on Chrysanthemums read at the late Florists' 

 Convention, Mr. E. G. Hill said that if he were limited abso- 

 lutely to twelve varieties he would grow Viviand Morel, E. 

 Dailledouze, Philadelphia, Mrs. H. Robinson, M. Richard Dean, 

 George W. Childs, Ivory, H. L. Sunderbruch, H. W. Rieman, 

 Niveum, Queen and R. Mclnnes. 



Dr. William Albert Setchell, who is now Assistant Professor 

 of Botany in the Sheffield Scientific School, has been selected 

 to fill the chair of Botany in the University of California, which 

 was made vacant by the resignation of Professor Greene. The 

 people of California are to be congratulated on securing (he 

 services of a man who, while yet in early life, has won such an 

 enviable position among the biologists of the country. Pro- 

 fessor Setchell was elected a member of the Botanical Society 

 of America last week. 



One can hardly overestimate the value of our native Sun- 

 flowers at this season. Tall varieties, like Helianthus orgy- 

 alis and H. Ma.ximilliani, bloom later in the season, but such 

 species as H. rigidus, with its rich orange yellow flowers, and 

 H. mollis, with a yellow disk as well as yellow rays and soft 

 white woolly foliage, are both striking plants. The first of 

 these when well established makes a shapely mass four to si.x 

 feet high, while the other is smaller and so distinct that it is 

 worth a place in any collection of perennials however select. 



The prices of lemons are, perhaps, influenced more by the 

 weather than those of any other fruit, and during the swelter- 

 ing days of last week extraordinary figures were quoted. 

 Majoris sold for as much as $9.00 a bo.x at the wholesale auc- 

 tions, and choice Sicily lemons brought $7.75. The difference 

 in prices between lemons and oranges is most marked at this 

 season, the best Rodi oranges now costing $3.75. A car-load 

 of California oranges sold here on August 30th averaged 

 $2.76 a box, wholesale, an unusually high price for this fruit so 

 late in the season. 



Every one is familiar with the Swamp Rose Mallow, so often 

 seen in the salt marshes, where the delicate pink or white 

 flowers have a singularly beautiful effect when surrounded by 

 tall grasses. As we have often explained, this Rose Mallow, 

 like many other plants which naturally seem to take to the 

 water, thrive equally well in good garden-soil anywhere. Just 

 now great masses of this Hibiscus Moscheutos, live or six feet 

 high, are strikingly effective in the hardy-flower garden in 

 Prospect Park, Brooklyn, even among our other stately 

 autumn-flowering plants like the Silphiums and Sunflowers. 



Professor Slingerland, of Cornell University, writes in the 

 Rural New Yorker that tincture of Grindelia, diluted with three 

 times its bulk of water, has been used successfully as a remedy 

 for poison from Rhus Toxicodendron. This diluted tincture 

 should be applied as soon as the irritation is felt and before the 

 characteristic pustules appear. If used two or three times an 

 hour at this stage of the poisoning the irritation will be checked 

 and no pustules will Ije formed. If not applied until the pus- 

 tules appear it will prevent the formation of new ones and 



check the spread of the disease to other parts, and the pustules 

 already formed will simply run their course. 



Mr. J. Woodward Manning, in urging the planting of hardy 

 herbaceous plants for florists' use, at the Pittstjurg Convention, 

 recommended as the best six white-flowering plants : Achillea 

 (The Pearl), Centaurea montana alba, Euphorbia corollata, 

 Lathyrus latifolius, Pyrethrinn uliginosum. Double Lychnis 

 vespertina ; the bestsixyellow-floweringplants : Buphthalmum 

 salicifolium. Coreopsis lanceolata, Doronicum plantagineum, 

 var. excelsum, Helenium Hoopesii, the Double Helianthus 

 multiflorus, Hemerocallis Tlumbergii ; the best six blue plants : 

 Campanula Carpathica, Delphinium Chinensis, Platycodon 

 grandiflorum, Scabiosa Caucasica, Veronica amethystina, V. 

 longifolia subsessilis ; and the best of pink or red : Centaurea 

 declinata, Heuchera sanguinea, Malva Alcea, hybrid Pyre- 

 thrums, Lychnis flos cucuh plenissima, Silene virginica. 



During the first six months of the current year more than ten 

 million bunches of bananas have been sold in the United 

 States, and since about sixty vessels are engaged in carrying 

 this fruit to our markets, and from fifty to a hundred men are 

 employed in unloading each cargo as it arrives, the banana busi- 

 ness now probably takes rank as the leading tjranch in the fruit 

 trade. The great increase in the consumption of bananas is 

 due to the fact that the country fruit-stores can dispose of them 

 more readily than that of other kinds of fruit on account of their 

 cheapness, and many country merchants have built ripening- 

 rooms for the fruit when received by them in a green state. 

 According to the Fruit Trade Journal, the arrangements for 

 receiving and discharging cargoes are more systematic in 

 New Orleans than any other port of this country. The vessels 

 there unload immediately on arrival at any time of day or 

 night, and the railroads give special attention to shipments, so 

 that the banana trains often leave New Orleans and make as 

 good time as passenger trains to their destination. In 1891 New 

 Orleans for the first time received more bananas than New York, 

 but already in the first half of the year her importations ex- 

 celled those of New York by more than 800,000 bunches. 

 Mobile ranks as the third port in the number of bunches re- 

 ceived, while Philadelphia and Boston compete closely for 

 the fourth place. 



The extremely hot weather of the past week has hurried the 

 ripening of Bartlett pears, and large quantities are now in the 

 markets. The crop is unusually lieavy this year, and much of 

 it is being carried in cold storage. Large highly colored Bart- 

 letts are now coming from the Hudson River orchards, and 

 these sell at a considerable advance over the cloudy colored 

 pears from New Jersey. Fancy Bartletts command $2.25 a 

 barrel in the wholesale markets ; Clapp's Favorite brings the 

 same price, and choice Seckels sell for J2.50. Lower grades 

 of these sorts and of Beurre d'Anjou, Buerre Clairgeau, Shel- 

 don, etc., are plentiful, and can be had as low as seventv-five 

 cents and a dollar a barrel. Apples are even more abundant, 

 and all but hard red varieties are selling at a disadvantage. 

 Hand-picked Alexanders and Gi'avensteins sell for the highest 

 price — $2.00 a barrel. Peaches from Maryland, Delaware and 

 New Jersey are of a good average quality, and the supply has 

 not been excessive. Sevenly-five cents to a dollar and a quar- 

 ter a basket was the range of prices for really good fruit on 

 Saturday. Delaware, Concord, Worden and Niagara grapes 

 from western New York have now succeeded the southern 

 product, and a five-povuid basket of any of these varieties may 

 be had for fifteen cents. The first Cape Cod cranberries are 

 already here, and have sold by the barrel for $6.50. The 

 demand, however, is small and uncertain so early in the sea- 

 son. The Cape Cod crop is estimated to be twice as 

 large as that of last year, and the New Jersey crop is 

 also larger. California plums are offered in moderate 

 enough quantity to maintain good prices, $1.00 a box being 

 the average wholesale price for good sorts. Among showy 

 kinds are the delicately colored Silver prune, the golden Egg 

 plum, the deep purple German prune, the very large deep red 

 Gros prune and the small Hungarian plum, of a lighter shade. 

 Peaches are considered above the usual quality, and prices are 

 fair, considering the eastern competition. California Bartlett 

 pears are in demand at high prices, notwithstanding the large 

 local supply, and showy Seckels are also in favor at good 

 prices. Among western coast grapes are Rose of Peru, with 

 large round black berries, the yellow medium-sized Chasselas 

 de Fontainebleau, Black Morocco, the popular Black Hamburg, 

 the large broad-shouldered bunches tapering to a point. Tokay 

 grapes of rich color sell for $2.50 in double crates on the docks. 

 Forty-four car-loads of California fruits were sold here in five 

 days of last week against sixty-seven car-loads during the cor- 

 responding days of last year. 



