520 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 409. 



as glossy as that of the EngHsh Holly, is smooth, rich green 

 and very attractive. 



A seedling Apple from north-western Arkansas, which at- 

 tracted some attention at the World's Fair, is highly praised 

 by the fruit-growers of that state. It is called the Senator, and 

 Mr. Carman, of The Rural New-Yorker, to whom one of the 

 fruits has been sent, describes it as a red apple on a greenish 

 yellow ground and sprinkled with grayish dots. The flesh is 

 yellowish while, stained with pink, of a sprightly and intense 

 apple flavor, agreeably blending the acid and the sweet. It is 

 said to be about a month later than the Jonathan apple — that 

 is, it should be picked about the first of October in north- 

 western Arkansas. A new apple of good size, good color and 

 very good quality is worth trying in other sections of the 

 country. 



A recent number of The Garden contains an illustration of 

 the fruit of Physalis Franchetti, a new Japanese Winter Cherry. 

 P. Alkekengi is well known for its cherry-like fruit inclosed 

 within the balloon-shaped calyx ; the fruit of this new variety 

 is similar in structure, as large as a duck's egg, and is said to 

 be a charming shade of red or orange-vermilion. These in- 

 flated calyces, being translucent, have the appearance, when set 

 in the light, of diminutive Japanese lanterns hanging among 

 their own soft green leaves. The variety was introduced from 

 Japan a year or so ago by Mr. J. Veitch, of Chelsea, London, 

 and fruited luxuriantly this autumn on his trial grounds. Like 

 the old-fashioned Winter Cherry, it has some value in cookery, 

 but it is chiefly for ornament that it will be valued in our gar- 

 dens and for autumnal and winter decoration. 



Dr. D. Morris, Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens at 

 Kew, sailed from this port on Thursday for tlie Bahama 

 Islands, where he is to investigate the plantations of Sisal 

 Hemp and other industries in the British West Indies. While 

 in this city Dr. Morris delivered a lecture under the auspices 

 of the New York Botanical Garden in the hall of the Museum 

 of Natural History. This lecture was a sketch of the great 

 botanical establishment with which he is connected, giving an 

 account of its different departments, a description of its mu- 

 seums and galleries and a sketch of its general administration, 

 and more particularly of the influence of Kew upon scientific 

 botany and the development of horticultural industries in the 

 colonies. The discourse was illustrated by excellent lantern 

 views, and gave much pleasure and instruction to a large 

 audience. 



The Agricultural Gazette, of New South Wales, states (hat 

 there is still living at Kenmore, in excellent health, Mr. Charles 

 Ledger, the man who forty years ago, after most perilous ad- 

 ventures, introduced the variety of Cinchona Calisaya known 

 as Ledgeriana into the island of Java, and not much afterward 

 introduced a flock of alpacas and other animals from South 

 America into Australia, which have been of priceless value to 

 that country. Messrs. Howard & Sons, the great quinine 

 firm, says that the supply of Peruvian bark from Java is 

 almost all from the Ledgeriana trees, the only complaint 

 against this variety being that it has turned out so rich that the 

 trees are supplying too much quinine for the world to con- 

 sume. Perhaps the quantity of bark which is now produced 

 every year from seed furnished by Mr. Ledger cannot be short 

 of ten million pounds, and to him, more than any one else, 

 perhaps, is due the fact that quinine has been brought within 

 the means of the very poorest. 



The cabbage maggot, which is the larva of Anthomyia 

 Brassicee, is a destructive pest of the Cabbage in Europe, 

 where it sometimes destroys entire fields of young plants. 

 But, although it has been occasionally noticed in this country 

 for the past fifty years, it has rarely appeared in such alarming- 

 numbers as it has during the present year on some of the 

 truck-farms of North Carolina. If the maggots appear in the 

 seed-bed a dressing of lime or muriate of potash should be 

 given to the soil, or else enough of the kerosene emulsion to 

 wet the ground one inch deep. If plants in the field are 

 attacked a hole should be made near each plant with a sharp 

 stick about an inch in diameter and as deep as the roots of the 

 plant, and filled with the kerosene emulsion. If this does not 

 moisten the soil on all sides of the plant a similar hole on the 

 opposite side should be filled. The emulsion should be made 

 of half a pound of hard soap, one gallon of water, and one 

 gallon of kerosene oil, diluted with nine times its bulk of cold 

 water before using. When properly made this emulsion does 

 not hurt the plants, but if any of the free oil rises to the top it 

 should not be allowed to touch the leaves. 



Thomas Andrew Knight, of whom a brief account is given 

 in another column, was among the first to realize that the gar- 

 den Pea could be improved by cross- fertilization, and as long 

 ago as 1787 he crossed the flowers of one of the common 

 white peas then in cultivation with the pollen of a gray pea, 

 and was so pleased with the results that a few years later he 

 introduced Knight's Tall Green Marrow and Knight's Dwarf 

 Green Marrow, perhaps the earliest examples of improved 

 seedlings, which now are numbered by hundreds. This was 

 the beginning of the advance toward the wrinkled section, the 

 different varieties of which are now almost exclusively planted 

 for home use. In a lecture on the garden Pea and its varie- 

 ties by Mr. A. J. Deal, and reported in The Journal of Horti- 

 culture, it is said that in England the Ne Plus Ultra is looked 

 upon as the best-flavored pea, although some of the sorts with 

 dark green pods, like the Duke of Albany, Autocrat and Sut- 

 ton's Late Queen, surpass it in this respect. The Pea most 

 grown for the London market is Telegraph. Very probably 

 the tall Peas, that is, those exceeding three or four feet high, 

 will be banished, as well as the round-seeded kinds. 



It seems to be settled that underground irrigation is practi- 

 cable in western Kansas, where the water is pumped from the 

 so-called underflow. Of course, the method is not practicable 

 in open soil and a porous subsoil, for the water will not spread 

 laterally in a soil lacking capillarity, nor will it rise to the sur- 

 face, but will run away and be lost. But in a soil of fine tex- 

 ture, containing silt or clay mixed with fine sand, the water 

 will spread in every direction, and when applied through tiles 

 fifteen or twenty inches below the surface all the water is util- 

 ized. In the hot summer months much water is lost when 

 applied in ditches ; at leastan inch of water will evaporate from 

 freshly moistened soil in less than three days. When the water 

 enters the ground below the surface no crust is formed and 

 there is no need to cultivate after each application, for the sur- 

 face keeps dry and acts as a mulch. Another advantage of 

 this system is that pumping can be kept up all winter, and wind 

 power can be used during the months when the most wind 

 prevails. According to The Kansas Farmer, subirrigation has 

 been tried, not only for vegetables, but to some extent for 

 field crops and for orchards, although for the latter purpose it 

 has failed in California, from the fact that the roots of the trees 

 ultimately filled the tiles and stopped the waterflow. In Kan- 

 sas tiles are laid closely in level ditches and cement is poured 

 over the joints, leaving but a small aperture at the bottom, 

 and it is hoped that the tree-roots can be kept out. Experi- 

 ence alone will tell. Certainly it seems that subirrigation 

 would be a good method for the disposal of sewage in coun- 

 try places, and in this way help to get rid of the expensive and 

 dangerous cesspool. The waste-pipe from the house could 

 be connected with a system of tiling in the vegetable garden 

 or elsewhere ; water and fertilizing material could thus be put 

 where they are needed and the cesspool could be done away 

 with. 



It is well known that Cannas were rarely planted except in 

 botanical gardens twenty-live years ago, when Monsieur 

 Anne'e, of Passy, France, began to obtain crosses between 

 the different species. After that time great advance was made 

 until the race of large-flowered plants was obtained by Mon- 

 sieur Crozy. In the last number of The Gardeners' Chronicle 

 Mr. Edouard Andr^ speaks of still another race, which he calls 

 Italian Cannas, produced by Messrs. Dammann & Co. at their 

 grounds, near Naples. Monsieur Sprenger, a member of this 

 firm, concluded that by constantly interbreeding the large- 

 llowered varieties nothing novel or more remarkable could be 

 secured, and he, therefore, has been experimenting with som.e 

 new blood, employing for this purpose the Canna flaccida, a 

 species of the southern United States, of medium height and 

 large flowers, with one specially developed petal. His first 

 success was a plant named Italia, from seed of Madame Crozy, 

 fertilized with a fine variety of C. flaccida. The flower 'is 

 of unusual size, of a golden vermilion color, and the pecu- 

 liarity of it is that it is flattened so as to resemble a Ktempfer's 

 Iris or a Cattleya. Another variety, Austria, was produced the 

 same year, bearing yellow flowers, shaded with purple. In 

 1894, Atalanta, America, Burgundia and Aliemaniana, all 

 plants distinct in foliage and fiOwer, were selected from thou- 

 sands of seedlings, and a dozen named varieties of new forms 

 and colors have been produced this year. The illustration of 

 a single flower of Italia shows that it is very interesting in form 

 and about five and three-quarter inches across. American 

 hybridizers have been producing some fine Cannas, and they 

 will not be slow to avail themselves of this new departure and 

 make experiments in the same direction. 



