268 



Garden and Forest, 



[Number 224. 



have many other Roses. [Queen's Scarlet, Hermosa, Monsieur 

 E. Y. Teas are now in bloom, and the old-fashioned Giant of 

 Battli;s has a few flowers of glowing crimson. 



Weigelas, Rhododendrons and Pffionies of the Officinalis type 

 are our most showy May flowers. One great double Pseony 

 is the color of the Giant of Battles Rose, and is magnificent at 

 this time. I think it is Paeonia officinalis rubra. 



Spiraea Cantoniensis, often called S. Reevsiana, is still very 

 pretty, and so are the earliest Deutzias (D. gracilis). But it is 

 for the Feast of Roses that the garden waits. 



Rose Bi-ake, West Va. Danske Daiidridge. 



The Raisin Industi"}^ in California. 



FROM a carefully prepared article by T. Goodman in 

 the Overlafid Monthly for May, we make the follow- 

 ing extracts : 



The picking of raisin grapes requires more care, and is a 

 slower operation than the gathering of other varieties. The 

 clusters, cut from the vine carefully, one by one, all imperfec- 

 tions and bad berries trimmed off, are then arranged regularly 

 on the trays, so that all will have a fair exposure to the sun. 

 If heaped, or overlying each other in the least, the drying of 

 the under bunches will be greatly retarded. 



To make good raisins the grapes should undergo a kind of 

 fermentation in the first stage of curing, which gives them a 

 puffed appearance, and fills the air with a pleasant fragrance. 

 From ninety to one hundred degrees in the shade is the tem- 

 perature most favorable for this process. After the fermenta- 

 tion has ceased, and the grapes have taken on the shriveled 

 appearance characteristic of raisins, the sun can do them no 

 harm, however hot.. 



To facilitate the drying, and render it uniform, the trays are 

 reversed after three or four days, in order that the trays to the 

 northward may be exposed to the south. When the upper side 

 has become well cured, which may be anywhere from a week 

 to two weeks, the raisins are turned. The reverse side does 

 not require as strong exposure as the other. 



The total time of curing varies greatly — from ten days, or 

 less, in hot weather, to a month or more under unfavorable 

 conditions. Raisins cured in about fifteen days are the best. 



When the bulk of the raisins is properly cured the work of 

 taking them up is begun. For this purpose the trays are col- 

 lected and piled in stacks of fifty or more, and sweat-boxes, 

 each holding about one hundred pounds when filled, placed 

 alongside them. Three grades are 'usually made — extra fine 

 bunches for Dehesa, or Imperial Clusters ; ordinary bunches 

 for London Layers ; and imperfect bunches and loose berries 

 to be run through the stemmer. Bunches not sufficiently dried 

 are laid on the trays and exposed to the sun again. 



Those put in the sweat-boxes are never uniformly dried, 

 some being overcured, and some not cured quite enough. 

 To equalize them and soften the stems, which are very brittle 

 when taken from the trays, they are placed in a cool room and 

 allowed to remain for a certain period, during which the stems 

 become flexible, and the undercured raisins impart their ex- 

 cess of moisture to the overdried ones, the operation result- 

 ing in a perfect uniformity throughout the whole mass, and a 

 moist softness and elasticity to be gained by no other means. 

 The raisins, at this stage, undergo some completing and crown- 

 ing process, not fully understood, accompanied by the emission 

 of a fragrance of indescribable richness. This equalizing — or 

 sweating as it is commonly called — is one of the most essen- 

 tial operations in raisin-making, and it should last ten days at 

 the very least. Haste to get the crop to market has led to a 

 neglect of this necessary process, much to be regretted. Rai- 

 sins are purposely overdried, taken directly from the field, 

 steamed and packed immediately. A continuance of this prac- 

 tice will do incalculable harm to the raisin industry. 



A few extensive growers pack their own crops, but the bulk 

 of the packing is now done by establishments organized espe- 

 cially for the purpose. These ordinarily buy the raisins in the 

 sweat-boxes, but in some instances they purchase the crop 

 upon the vines, picking and curing it themselves. The pack- 

 ing-houses are mostly located in the towns. Some of them 

 employ more than five hundred hands. Women and girls come 

 to the town from all directions during the packing season, 

 parfies of them renting houses or living, gypsy-like, in tents. 

 Earnings range from $1.25 to $3.00 a day. 



The raisins are then pressed and slid into the packing-boxes. 

 They are made in three sizes, quarter, half and whole boxes, 

 holding respectively five, ten and twenty pounds. The last 

 is always understood when speaking of a box of raisins, the 

 others one-half and quarter boxes. The top layer is sur- 



rounded with ornamental paper in addition to the plain white- 

 The packer's label is placed over this, the. printed cover nailed 

 on, the edges' nicely trimmed, and the box is ready for market. 



Less care is required with loose raisins ; and it is here that 

 the greatest improvement has been made on the Spanish 

 method of packing. A combined stemmer and grader has 

 been perfected by which large quantities are handled with very 

 little labor. The raisins are fed from a hopper into the space 

 between a woven wire cylinder revolving within a larger cylin- 

 der of the same material, where they are broken from their 

 stems ; they then fall into a fanning-mill, by which the stems 

 and dirt are blown away, after which they pass through a series 

 of screens that grade them into as many different sizes as are 

 desired. The better grades of loose raisins are packed in 

 boxes with paper and labels, giving them an appearance nearly 

 as attractive as that of layers ; the inferior qualities are gener- 

 ally shipped in sacks. 



The cost of labor prevents Cahfornia from competing with 

 Spain in some of the niceties of the raisin business. It would 

 not pay us to trim and nurse the grapes upon the vines, in 

 order to secure perfect bunches and large berries, nor to 

 handle the clusters by the stems only. But with the excep- 

 tion of such fancy work, comparison with our great rival will 

 be all in favor of California. Our grapes are more meaty and 

 have a richer flavor, and our raisins are better cured, and will 

 keep twice as long without deteriorating. 



New or Little-known Plants, 



Boltonia latisquama. 



OF the small genus Boltonia, consisting of only three 

 species, all confined to the territory of the United 

 States, the most desirable as a garden-plant is Boltonia 

 latisquama, of which a figure made from one of Mr. Faxon's 

 drawings is published on page 271 of this issue. 



Boltonia principally differs from Aster in the character 

 of the appendix to the fruit or pappus, and, from the horti- 

 cultural point of view, the plants of this genus are like tall 

 loose-flowered perennial Asters. 



Boltonia latisquama is a stout plant with thick striately 

 angled stems, which attain a height of three or four feet, en- 

 tire sessile leaves, which near the ground are large and 

 broad and gradually decrease in size on the upper part of 

 the stems, and broad, flat showy heads of flowers an inch 

 and a half across with violet-hlue ray-flowers. 



It was discovered about thirty years ago, near the mouth 

 of the Kansas River, by the late Dr. C. C. Parry, who sent 

 it to the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, from whence it was 

 distributed. In cultivation this handsome plant is very 

 hardy and in good soil grows rapidly, soon forming broad 

 clumps which in early autumn are covered with flowers. 

 It is one of the best garden-plants of its class, and one of 

 the most beautiful, hardy, tall-growing and late-flowering 

 perennial plants in cultivation. 



New Orchids. 



RoDRiGUEZiA LiNDENi, Cogn. -^Described as a new spe- 

 cies, but in reality only a form of the ancient R. pubescens 

 of Lindley, an elegant and very free-flowering little spe- 

 cies. — Journal des Orchidees, iii., pp. 10, 12, fig. i. 



CiRRHOPETALUM Amesianum, Rolfe. — A pretty little species, 

 native of Dutch India, introduced by Messrs. Linden, of 

 Brussels, with whom it has recently flowered. It produces 

 umbels of six to ten flowers, the united lateral sepals being 

 light rosy purple with yellowish white margins and apex, 

 the rest of the flower being yellow except the brownish 

 red lip, and the ciliee of the sepals and petals. — Lindenia, 

 t 314. 



Stauropsis Warocqueana, Rolfe. — A very distinct species, 

 introduced from New Guinea by Messrs. Linden, of Brus- 

 sels, and flowered in the collection of Monsieur G. 

 Warocqu6, of Mariemont. It has a branching panicle, on 

 which the numerous flowers are closely packed, their 

 color light buff-yellow, with numerous light red-brown 

 spots, and the lip white with some rosy spots. — Littdenia, 



^'1^2' ' R. A. Rolfe. 



