October 23, 1S95.] 



Garden and Forest. 



421 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Offich : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — The Year-book of the Department of At^icuUure 431 



A Season with tlie Native Orchids.— II Rt~'. E. J. Hill. 422 



Notes on some Arborescent Willows of North America. — III. (With 



figures.) M. S. Belb. 423 



Plant Notes 423 



Cultural Department :— Lilies E. O. Orpet. 426 



Carnations and Chrysanthemums T. D. Hatfield. 427 



Notes on Apples Profcsso7- S. A. Baich. 428 



California Irises % N. G. 428 



Aglaonema commutatum A^. y. R. 428 



Correspondence : — Garden Motes from Southern California . . . C R. Orciitt. 428 



Bulletins and the Experiment Stations 5. R. 429 



How to Exterminate Cat-tails T. 429 



Railway-station Gardens E. H. B 429 



Recent Publications 429 



Notes .V. 429 



Illustrations : — Sali-\- alba X lucida, Fi;^. 57 424 



Salix nigra ^< alba, Fii?. 58 '. 425 



The Year-book of the Department of Agriculture. 



THIS is the first of a new series of agricultural publica- 

 tions to be issued under the act of January 12th, 1895. 

 What was formerly called the annual agricultural report, 

 and distributed by Congressmen, consisted of the adminis- 

 trative report of the Secretary of Agriculture, together with 

 those of the chiefs of the bureaus and divisions in his de- 

 partment, and to these were added some detailed accounts 

 of the investigations conducted by members of the scien- 

 tific staff. Since the details of the executive business at 

 Washington have little permanent value, the new act 

 directed that the scientific monographs designed for the in- 

 struction of the people should be separated from the business 

 matter and published in this Year-book for the improve- 

 ment and education of farmers and other readers- Assistant 

 Secretary Dabne)', who has compiled this volume, says in 

 its preface that it represents only imperfectly the ideal of 

 what such a book should be. The law under which it has 

 been prepared was not enacted until after the usual time for 

 filing the report under the old rule, and many of the papers 

 had been prepared and submitted in the usual form. Under 

 the circumstances the only thing to be done was to select 

 from the matter in hand the most deserving papers which 

 represent a variety of work in different lines carried on by 

 the various divisions of the department, and to adapt them 

 to the purposes of the new publication. It would, there- 

 fore, be unfair to criticise the book for any shortcomings, 

 and, indeed, it may be said that, considering the limited 

 opportunities for making such a compilation, it is a most 

 creditable performance. The book contains the report of 

 the Secretary of Agriculture for 1894, which would have 

 been better if I\Ir. Morton had been able to restrain himself 

 from making political speeches whenever he has an oppor- 

 tunity. The second part, or the great bulk of the 

 book, consists of a series of papers which have been 

 prepared generally by chiefs of bureaus and their assist- 

 ants, and these are discussions on a wide range of 

 subjects related more or less closely to agricultural 

 and horticultural practice. All of these have genuine 

 value, and they represent the results of the latest re- 

 search by men of recognized scientific standing. The 

 book concludes with a brief series of useful reference tables 



on such subjects as the composition of foods for man and 

 of feeding stuffs for animals, the fertilizing value of dif- 

 ferent foods and the methods for suppressing insects and 

 fungus diseases and weeds. 



The view we have always taken is that the legitimate 

 way for the Government to aid agriculture is not by dis- 

 seminating seeds or by actual help in stainping out plant 

 diseases or suppressing insects or by helping to introduce 

 new economic plants or improved fruits, but rather to 

 increase the efficiency of the farmer by augmenting his 

 knowledge. But the Government must at first acquire 

 knowledge in order to disseminate it, and to this end 

 expert talent of the first order is needed not only at the 

 head of each division of the department, but of all the 

 experiment stations, which are now vitally connected with 

 the department. These are the men we must trust to make 

 the experiments which farmers cannot make for them- 

 selves, since they have neither the time nor the training 

 nor the means at command to carry them out successfully. 

 Whatever these skilled workers may discover in science or 

 practice that is new and useful should be furnished to the 

 farmers in such a form that they can read, digest and apply 

 it practically to the problems which they are called to 

 face in their business. Of course, much of this interchange 

 of thought is directly carried on between the stations and 

 the farmers of the various states. There are also many 

 publications, more or less elaborate monographs, issued 

 from the various divisions of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, but this new book, as we understand from the preface, 

 is meant to be a summary of the researches and discoveries 

 of the year, so that the series v\'ill ultimately become a 

 standard book of reference for American farmers. 



It is still the habit of some newspapers to sneer at the 

 scientific work done in the various divisions in the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture ; but this is only the survival of a 

 judgment formed at a period when the chief activity of the 

 department was manifested in the distribution of seeds of 

 common vegetables and ornamental plants, and pretty bad 

 seed at that. But some of the research now made in the 

 various divisions will take rank with the best scientific 

 work in the laboratories of the world. Horticulturists are 

 naturally more directly interested in the studies made by 

 the divisions of vegetable pathology and of entomology, 

 because in recent years science has rendered such material 

 aid in the incessant war which has to be waged against 

 insects and fungi. But it should he remembered that there 

 are other fields where systematized investigation can be 

 quite as helpful. The forage interests of the country, for 

 example, are of enormous value. The hay crop alone is 

 worth $600,000,000, and this, of course, does not take into 

 account the cash value of the pasture on grazing-lands. 

 More than fourteen million animals are now feeding on 

 native grasses in our vast western ranges, and we can, 

 therefore, realize the vital necessity of securing, if possible, 

 new and better forage plants. The study of grasses 

 attempts to familiarize the people of the country through 

 bulletins and leaflets with the best means of preserving our 

 most nutritious native grasses, and the most promising 

 projects for introducing improved and useful forage plants 

 from foreign countries is a work which must prove of ines- 

 timable value, and this is now carried on by Professor Lam- 

 son-Scribner, chief of the Division of Agrostology. What is 

 accomplished for agriculture in the Weather Bureau, in the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, in the divisions of Chemistry, 

 of Pomology, of Botany and of Forestry can easily be 

 understood. Besides all this, the office of Experiment Sta- 

 tions, where the bulletins and reports not only from our 

 own stations, but from institutions for agricultural inquiry 

 in foreign countries, are sifted and compiled and published 

 in convenient form, is constantly furnishing material, so 

 that there will be no lack of matter to fill a book every 

 year which will be indispensable to practical farmers and 

 gardeners. 



This first volume may lack the balance and complete- 

 ness which can be reasonably hoped for in its successors, 



