510 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 408. 



shaped, with a rich red-brown, warty and very hard shell. 

 It requires a smart blow from a heavy hammer to burst 

 this shell, since it is nearly l;alf an inch thick in places. 

 The nut is, perhaps, three inches in length at its longest diam- 

 eter, and the chamber has a smooth satiny lining and incloses 

 a soft, pure white kernel of a rich nutty tiavor and covered with 

 a brown skin. There are four of these seeds, or nuts, in the 

 spherical fruit of the Caryocar, which is as large as a child's 

 head. The tree itself often reaches a hundred feet in height, 

 and its hard wood is very much prized for durability. 



At this time of holiday display few places are more attractive 

 than the shops where the finest fruits are sold. Even our com- 

 monest fruits, like applesand pears, when at their very best, all 

 even and perfect in form and color, make a feast for the eye, 

 while their fragrance, with its suggestion of their delightful 

 taste, makes a combination most grateful to the senses. By the 

 help'of cold storage many of the late autumn pears are still 

 offered, but none of them are more beautiful than the attrac- 

 tive yellow Beurre Boscs from Boston with one flushed cheek 

 and dots and streaks of cinnamon. Not quite so handsome, 

 but larger, is the Duchess ; but there is no need to go through 

 the list, for nothing can be more beautiful and few perfumes 

 are more delicate than their musky or aromatic odor. Per- 

 haps the most ornamental among the apples is the glossy little 

 Lady Apple with a red cheek on a lemon-yellow ground. 

 Very attractive, too, is the crimson-shaded, light green York 

 Imperial, the dark red Winesap, from Virginia, and the 

 perfectly shaped King. Neat-looking strawberries can be had 

 for seventy-five cents a basket, and Black Hamburg grapes, 

 with berries almost as large as a plum, cost $2.00 a pound. 

 Nectarines, from Rhode Island hot-houses, of fair size and good 

 color, are worth a dollar a dozen, while tlie occasional grape-fruit, 

 borne on the few remaining trees in Florida which escaped 

 the freezing weather last winter, commands $2.50 a dozen. 

 Pomegranates of unusual beauty, their leathery rinds just tinged 

 with an orange-red, bring $2 00 a dozen, while prickly pears 

 of a delicate flesh-color and tufts of small pink spines are 

 quite as handsome as any other fruit and may be had for fifty 

 cents a dozen. The Japanese persimmons are larger, more 

 beautiful and better-flavored than any ever seen in this city 

 before. It may be that the best varieties are just becoming 

 sufficiently plentiful to be marketed in quantity. At all events, 

 there are three or four kinds on sale quite distinct in shape, 

 some of them being round or flattened, others egg-shaped 

 or conical, some a rich yellow and others a deep red, and 

 there are dozens of them together which average at least 

 three inches in diameter, with a luscious pulp and a marked 

 flavor which makes them quite superior to the commoner 

 kinds which are somewhat undecided and characterless in 

 taste. 



The staple variety of Blackcaps for evaporating is the Ohio, 

 although the Gregg is properly crowding it out in many of the 

 best berry sections. Tliis latter variety is valuable because it de- 

 mands better land and belter cultivation than that under which 

 the Ohio will thrive. It, therefore, has a salutary and stimu- 

 lating effect upon the grower, and when it has this good care 

 it is an abundant and sure cropper. The red varieties are sel- 

 dom evaporated, because there is little demand for them ; they 

 require too much time on the tray, and too many of them are 

 needed to make a pound. The Cuthbert is the only red berry 

 which is evaporated. The Shaffer is the only purple berry that 

 is dried in any commercial quantity, Ijut it is hardly profitable 

 to handle since it loses too much in the process. The new 

 Columbian Raspberry is rather more vigorous in growth than 

 the Shaffer, has a longer season, is firmer, with more uniform 

 drupelets, and will probably be better than the Shaffer for dry- 

 ing. The amount of fresh l>erries required for a pound of 

 the cured product is variable. On an average a little more 

 than three quarts, say four pounds, of Blackcaps, are needed to 

 make a pound of evaporated fruit, and in moist seasons four 

 quarts are usually required. At the end of the season, when 

 the berries are small and dry, two quarts may make a pound, 

 while from four to five quarts of red berries are needed. When 

 evaporated raspberries were first put upon the market thirty 

 to forty cents a pound were common prices, but as these were 

 clearly excessive they fell as production increased. From 

 sixteen to seventeen cents a pound has been the average price 

 for the past three or four years, and there is profit in these 

 prices when there is a good crop, but there are many fields in 

 which twice this price would not leave any margin over ex- 

 penses. All these details are found in the interesting Bulletin 

 No. 100 of the Cornell Experiment Station, to which allusion 

 was made in a recent editorial article. According to Pro- 

 fessor Bailey, some growers hold that the berries should 



go into the evaporator when the price falls below eight cents a 

 quart, while others sell them until they fail to net seven cents. 

 An efficient evaporator has a good effect both upon the mar- 

 ket and the grower. It keeps the surplus green fruit out of 

 commerce and informs the buyer that he must keep prices up 

 to the paying level or he cannot get the fruit. It makes the 

 grower, in a measure, independent of (he market, and more 

 than that it leads him to save windfair apples and surplus 

 berries and other material which would go to waste. 



Mr. M. S. Bebb, the accomplished salicologist, and, since the 

 death of the Swedish botanist, Andersson, in 1880, the best 

 authority on the difficult genus Salix, died on the 5th instant 

 at San Bernardino, California, where he had gone from his home 

 in Illinois a few weeks ago, in the hope of obtaining relief from 

 the pulmonary troubles from which he has been a sufferer for 

 several years. 



Michael S. Bebb was born on December 23d, 1833, in Butler 

 County, in south-western Ohio, then nearly a wilderness, where 

 his grandfather, Edward Bel)b, a Welshman, had been one of 

 the first settlers in the fertile valley of the Miami River. His 

 father was a teacher and then a successful lawyer in Hamilton, 

 the county town to which the family removed in 1835, and in 

 1846 was elected Governor of Ohio. A garden well-stocked 

 with flowering plants and fruit-trees surrounded the Bebb 

 mansion in Hamilton, and here the future botanist, while still 

 a boy, acquired his first knowledge of plants, learning labo- 

 riously, without the aid of a text-book, the rudiments of the 

 science from a copy of Torrey's Report upon the Flora of 

 New York, which had accidentally come into his hands. In 

 1850 Governor Bebb retired from politics and moved to a large 

 tract of land which he had purchased in the Rocky River val- 

 ley in northern Illinois, near the present town of Fountaindale. 

 Here the lad's love of botany was confirmed by the acquisition 

 of other botanical books and by the acquaintance which he 

 made five or six years later with Dr. George Vasey, then of Illi- 

 nois, and for many years before his death the botanist of the 

 Department of Agriculture of the United States. This acquaint- 

 ance led to an interchange of specimens ; and about this time, 

 too, he visited New England, where he met several men of 

 science who confirmed liim in his intention to devote himself 

 seriously to the study of botany. During the War of Seces- 

 sion Mr. Bebb accepted a position in the Pension Bureau in 

 Washington, which he held for several years, and then, re- 

 turning to Illinois, he purchased the paternal homestead at 

 Fountaindale and settled down to botany, and especially to the 

 study of Willows. The largest and most complete collection 

 of these native and exotic plants which has been made in the 

 United States was planted by Mr. Bebb at this time on land 

 near his house, but, unfortunately, was destroyed a few years 

 ago when he had taken up his residence in Rockford, Illinois. 

 Smce 1874, when he descril)ed his first Willow in The Ameri- 

 can Naturalist, all the collections of these plants made in 

 North America have been studied by him. He described the 

 Calilornia species in Brewer & Watson's i?^?/^;?/ of California, 

 the south-western species collected by Rothrock in the sixth 

 volume of IVheeler's Reports, tlie Colorado species in Coul- 

 ter's Manual of Botany of the Rocky Mountain Region, and 

 the species of the eastern states in the last edition of Gray's 

 Manual. He has determined the Willows collected by the 

 officers of the Geological Survey of Canada in all parts of Brit- 

 ish America, and has contributed to botanical journals many 

 papers upon the American species of the genus, including an 

 important one published in The Bulletin of the Torrey Botani- 

 cal Club, upon the Willows of the White Mountain region of 

 New Hampshire. His latest publication appeared only two 

 weeks ago, when he described a new species of Willow from 

 Washington in the columns of this journal, which he has en- 

 riched during the last months of his life witha series of papers 

 devoted to a discussion of the specific rank, distribution, etc., 

 of several of the least-known and most interesting tree Wil- 

 lows of the continent. It was Mr. Bebb's intention to have 

 elaborated in the form of a monograph the results of his long 

 and careful researches upon American Willows ; and during 

 the last year he has devoted as much time as his failing 

 strength would permit to reexamining for this purpose the 

 mass of material which he has gathered in his herbarium. 



Mr. Bebb will be known to science as an acute and enthusi- 

 astic botanist, but those who have met Ir ;t remember 

 him first of all as a delightful companion. I ; ; jagenerous, 

 high-minded man, with great dignity and l';:.V, ,/ fy of manner, 

 and one who always inspired respect as wefl , affection. To 

 a very wide circle of naturalists with whom he has been a 

 helpful and unselfish co-worker his death will be felt as a 

 personal loss. 



