414 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 399. 



Naturally the producers showed their best fruit. But, as 

 they all knew, this year a very high average sample of 

 fruit had been produced in a great many parts, and he 

 thought that in these days farmers must look, not to the 

 great staples of their industry, but to various branches of 

 small cultivation. Something, at all events, might be done 

 more than is done in fruit-growing and fruit-drying. 



As I have said in previous letters upon the cultivation of 

 fruit in England, no exhibitions are needed to prove that 

 the best can be grown here. This is demonstrated in the 

 gardens of the wealthy, where there is no stint of labor and 

 other accessories. But to grow and sell fruit at a profit is 

 the great difticulty in these days of foreign competition. 

 There are many ways of losing money, and we are still 

 searching for fresh ones. The cultivation of fruit in Eng- 

 land for protit is an old, well-trodden way, and I am 

 inclined to the opinion that the now recommended drying 

 of fruits is only a bypath in the same direction. 



It has been suggested in a paper recently read before the 

 British Association that as growers of farm and garden 

 produce have difficulty in selling it the state should under- 

 take the duties of collecting and selling. A pertinent sug- 

 gestion was made to the effect that if the Government could 

 market the produce at a profit, why not let them undertake 

 its cultivation as well.? The poor farmer and market gar- 

 dener would then be relieved of all anxiety and worry and 

 could become a state-paid official ! It would, no doubt, be 

 a gain to the revenue if Government could take the place 

 of the middleman, w^ho always gets a large share of the 

 proceeds. 



The premier prize for eighteen sorts of cooking and 

 dessert apples grown in the open air was won with the fol- 

 lowing : Lord Derby, Peasgood Nonesuch, Alexander, 

 Stone's, Bismarck, Belle Duboise, Belle Pontoise, Gas- 

 coigne's Scarlet Seedling, Washington, Mere de Menage, 

 Warner's King, Cornish Aromatic, Ribston Pippin, Wealthy, 

 Baumann's Red, Winter Reinette, Cox's Orange Pippin and 

 the Queen. This collection came from Maidstone, in Kent, 

 and was remarkable for size and rich color. 



The best collection of a dozen sorts of dessert pears com- 

 prised : General Todleben, Duchesse d'Angouleme, Pitmas- 

 ton Duchess, Marie Louise, Marechal de la Cour, Brock- 

 worth Park, Doyenne du Cornice, Beurre Bosc, Beurre 

 Superfin, Gansel's Bergamot, Madame Treyve and Beurre 

 Ranee. These also came from a garden in Kent. 



The best peaches were Nectarine Peach, Sea Eagle and 

 Princess of Wales. The first collection of plums consisted 

 of splendid examples of Monarch, Golden Drop, Jefferson's, 

 and Bryanston Green Gage. The best Damsons were Clus- 

 ter King, Prune and Farley. 



Pot-grown specimens of fruit-trees were splendidly ex- 

 hibited by Messrs. T. Rivers & Son, Sawbridgeworth, the 

 number and finish of the fruits borne by each small tree 

 planted in a ten-inch pot being at least equal to the best 

 possible trees grown in the open ground. 



Messrs. Sutton & Sons exhibited a grand collection of 

 tomatoes arranged on a screen, each sort being represented 

 by about a square yard covered with heavily laden stems, 

 showing the character of the sort much better than when 

 selected fruits are placed upon dishes. 



The largest and handsomest apple shown is Peasgood 

 Nonesuch, and it was represented by hundreds of fine fruits. 

 Next to this in point of interest and attractiveness is the 

 recently acquired Bismarck, which is astonishingly prolific 

 and of taking appearance. The two best of all dessert 

 apples, Ribston and Cox's Orange Pippins, were well 

 shown. Prizes were awarded for the best methods of 

 packing fruits for market. Three papers were read, 

 one on each day, the first being by Mr. Bunyard, the 

 Maidstone nurseryman, on New Varieties of Fruit ; the 

 second was on Pruning Fruit-trees, by Mr. A. H. Pearson, 

 the Chilwall nurseryman, and the third was a prize essay 

 on Fruit-growing for Profit. These papers will be pub- 

 lished in the society's journal. 



New Orchids. — Masdevallia Lawrencei is the name under 



which Dr. F. Kranzlin describes a plant which he had re- 

 ceived from Sir Trevor Lawrence, but which Mr. Rolfe 

 described in 1S80 under the name of M. gattulata as a new 

 species allied to M. Tovarensis, but with flowers only half 

 as large and colored yellowish white, with spots of purple. 

 It flowered in the Glasnevin Botanic Garden, its origin 

 being unknown. As a garden-plant it has little value, 

 except to those who make a specialty of Masdevallias. 

 Dr. Kranzlin's reason for the proposed new name is that 

 Reichenbach had already used the name Guttulata for 

 another species published in 1877. " If we go on in this 

 way we shall have to invent a new Linnfeus, wipe out the 

 past, and begin all over again." 



Odontoglossum aspidorhinum is a new species described 

 by Mr. F. C. Lehmann, of Popayan, in The Gardeners 

 Chronicle as remarkably floriferous. He says, "not only 

 does every pseudo-bulb produce two flower-spikes at one 

 time, but they do so for two, and even three, years in suc- 

 cession." He has seen small plants bearing from twenty 

 to thirty flower-spikes, forming a semiglobular flowering 

 mass of great beauty. The pseudo-bulbs are two inches 

 long ; the leaves are narrow and six inches long, and the 

 flov\'er-spikes are from twelve to eighteen inches high, each 

 bearing from nine to fifteen flowers, which are about an 

 inch and a half across ; the sepals and petals small and yel- 

 low ; the lip panduriform, fringed and pointed, white, spotted 

 with lilac-crimson. It is a native of Colombia, where it 

 grows at a high elevation on trees on the eastern declivi- 

 ties of the western Andes of the Cauca. 



Messrs. Low & Co., of Clapton, have lately flowered plants 

 of a Denclrobium imported by them from north Borneo, 

 and which was submitted to Kew for name. Mr. Rolfe 

 has described it as a new species, and he has given it the 

 very appropriate name of Sanguineum in allusion to the 

 crimson color of its flowers, in which respect it is unique 

 in the genus. D. sanguineum is allied to D. crumenatum, 

 and has slender stems about a yard long, swollen at the 

 base ; the leaves are linear oblong, and the flowers, which 

 are axillary and solitary, are an inch long, with obovate 

 crimson petals and sepals, the lip being small, wavy, white, 

 with purple lines and spots. Mr. Rolfe thinks that if the 

 plant proves easy to cultivate and flower it will find favor 

 as a garden Orchid. No doubt, the hybridizer will be in- 

 terested in it in any case. „, „,. 

 London. W. Watson. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Yucca Whipplei. 



IN spring and early summer the dry hillsides of south- 

 western California are made glorious with the tall, 

 narrow, stout-stemmed panicles of this plant, which often 

 rise to the height of ten or fifteen feet above the rosettes 

 of its narrow pale-green leaves. The habit and general 

 appearance of this "Yucca, when it is in flower, is shown in 

 the illustration on page 415 of this issue, made from a pho- 

 tograph taken in the neighborhood of Pasadena, where 

 Yucca Whipplei is exceedingly abundant on the low foot- 

 hills of the mountains. Less imposing in habit, of course, 

 than the arborescent species which are so common on the 

 deserts of the south-west. Yucca Whipplei surpasses all the 

 knovi'n Yuccas in the height and beauty of its panicle of 

 flowers. To the botanist, too, it is a plant of peculiar 

 interest as the only representative of a section of the genus 

 (Hesperoyucca) distinguished by the rotate and spreading 

 perianth, the small acute filaments, didymous transverse 

 anthers and peltate, stalked stigma of the flower, the three- 

 valved capsular fruit and thin seeds. 



The Witch-hazel in full flower, while its yellow leaves are 

 falling in October, reminds me of the earliest spring. Its 

 blossoms smell like Willow catkins, and in color and fragrance 

 they belong to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid 

 falling leaves and frost that tlie eternal life of nature is un- 

 touched and all the year is spring. — Thorcaii. 



