348 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 230. 



large stones form the skeleton or frame-work in the design of 

 old Japanese gardens. Not only is every stone chosen with 

 a view to its particular expressiveness of form, but every stone 

 in the garden or about the premises has its separate and indi- 

 viduarname, indicating its purpose or its decorative duty." 



The weekly exhibition at Horticultural Hall, in Boston, on 

 Saturday, was not large, but the fruits and vegetables dis- 

 played were unusually fine. The spikes of double Hollyhocks 

 shown by J. S. Fay and N. T. Kidder were of the best quality, 

 and some of the newer Sweet Peas were very interesting, on 

 account of their delicate colors. The herbaceous plants sent 

 by Rea Brothers and the wild flowers collected by Mrs. P. D. 

 Richards added much to the interest of the exhibition. 



Some of tlic Bush Honeysuckles make a beautiful display at 

 this season with their bright-colored fruit. The old Tartarean 

 Honeysuckle is one of the very best of shrubs for the north, 

 as it will endure the severest winters. It has an admirable 

 habit, flowers abundantly, and its different varieties bear crim- 

 son or yellow berries, which have now ripened to their richest 

 coloring-. Lonicera Morowii, from Japan, is fairly loaded with 

 bright red fruit clustered among leaves of liglit green, while 

 the branches of L. Ruprechtiana bend under the weight of its 

 berries of the same color, although covered with a slight 

 bloom. This last shrub comes from Manchuria. The beau- 

 tiful fruit of all these Honeysuckles, coming at a season 

 when flowers in the shrubbery are rare, gives them especial 

 value. 



The preference which English buyers show for foreign- 

 grown apples is not very encouraging for this industry in 

 England. The growers wish to have their apples protected by 

 imposing an import dtily upon the foreign-grown product. 

 One journal answers this by saying that it would be hard to 

 force housekeepers to make their puddings with apples which 

 are high-priced but of inferior quality. At a recent banquet of 

 the British Fruit Growers the proposition was made that all 

 apples exposed for sale be marked " Foreign " or "English." 

 This proposition was enthusiastically received. In this man- 

 ner English protectionists will not be obliged to buy apples 

 which have the misfortune of having been grown under a 

 foreign sun. In spite of English opposition to foreign-grown 

 fruit the papers continue to announce the arrival of successive 

 shipments, all of which sell rapidly. It is estimated that about 

 240,000 bushels arrived during the spring months, all coming 

 from Tasmania. Six weeks are required for transportation. 



In his description of a trip down the Danube, Mr. Frank 

 Millet says, in the July number of Harper's Magazine, that at 

 Hirsova, near the Russo-Bulgarian frontier, the river " divides 

 into a number of branches which enclose and intersect with 

 sinuous windings a great irregular marsh twelve or fifteen 

 miles in width. The shortest of the sluggish branches of the 

 river skirts the eastern limits of the Roumanian plain, and 

 paddling into this narrow channel we found ourselves in a 

 short half-hour in a region quite unlike any we had yet seen. 

 Both banks are low and covered with tall Reeds alternating 

 with Willow-patches. The only habitations are little fishing- 

 stations, and these are miles apart. The fishermen's dwell- 

 ings are hovels of the rudest kind, built of mud, thatched with 

 reeds, and surrounded by fences of the same material. The 

 botanist whose duty it was to gather drift-wood brought back 

 from his rambles a great bouquet of wild flowers — Melilot, 

 Loosestrife, Convolvulus, Blue Veronica, Chicory, Tamarisk, 

 Snapdragon and many others." 



A correspondent, in speaking of our commendation of 

 the Prairie Rose (Rosa setigera), writes that he has examined 

 all the nursery catalogues he can find, and no one seems to 

 have this plant on sale. We see no reason why this plant, 

 which is one of the handsomest of all single Roses, should be 

 neglected by commercial growers, especially since it has the 

 advantage of flowering as late as almost any other single- 

 flowered Rose except the R. foliolosa from Texas. We re- 

 cenfly saw it in a southern city trained over the veranda of 

 a cottage, where it made a more beautiful display tlian any of 

 the double-flowered Roses growing on the neighboring houses. 

 This is one good way to use the Prairie Rose, although it prob- 

 ably looks best when planted at the top of a bank and is al- 

 lowed to send down its long, vigorous and graceful shoots 

 irregularly to the bottom. It is a good subject to plant as a 

 single specimen on the margin of a lawn. If it is set in good 

 soil and with sufficient room its arching stems will form a 

 mass of foliage ten or twelve feet in diameter. It has been in 

 bloom now for three weeks, and its large clusters of pink 

 flowers show admirably against the pale blue-green fohage. 



Mr. James MacPherson writes to The Country Gentleman of 

 some fine trees at the old Moon Nursery, at Morrisville, Penn- 

 sylvania, which was established about fifty years ago. A Pin 

 Oak, which was planted some forty years ago by the father of 

 the present Mr. Samuel Moon, now girths eight feet and ten 

 inches four feet from the ground. A Bur Oak at the same 

 height, and thirty years old, has a circumference of seven 

 feet, and the Willow Oaks show as strong a growth. A Purple 

 Beech, thirty-five years old, girths eight feet and nine inches 

 three feet above the ground, and another specimen, only 

 twenty-five years old, is forty feet high and six feet in girth. 

 The Japanese Red Bud seems to have reached its maximum 

 development here, one specimen being fourteen feet high and 

 twenty-one feet in diameter, while Exochorda grandillora is 

 about the same size. These figures show that it ought not to 

 be a discouraging thing to plant trees, and, as Mr. MacPherson 

 well remarks, a young man who begins to plant when he gets 

 married may have trees to be proud of before his children 

 leave him. 



The Sierra Club, recently incorporated in San Francisco, is 

 a corporation formed to explore, enjoy and render accessible 

 the mountain-regions of the Pacific coast ; to publish authen- 

 tic information concerning them ; to enlist the support and 

 co-operation of the people and the Government in preserving 

 the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains ; to take, acquire, purchase, hold, sell and convey 

 real and personal property, and to mortgage or pledge the 

 same for the purpose of securing any indebtedness which the 

 corporation may incur ; to make contracts and transact other 

 business pertaining to the corporation and the management of 

 its property. John Muir is President, and Warren Olney is the 

 First Vice-President of the club. Applications for member- 

 ship may be addressed to the Secretary, William D. Amies, 

 University of California, Berkeley, California, the admission 

 fee being $5.00, while the annual dues, except for undergradu- 

 ates of colleges and members residing beyond certain coun- 

 ties in the neighborhood of San Francisco (which is placed at 

 $1.00), is $5.00. 



In an article entitled "Pestiferous Plants," in \.\\& Popular 

 Science Monthly, Professor B. D. Halsted says : "Tliefactis 

 patent that weeds are everywhere present, and the best means 

 ought to be taken to resist their greater prevalence. In this 

 warfare against them there is no weapon equal to a thorough 

 knowledge of the enemy — ^that is, an understanding of their 

 nature, their appearance in all stages of growth, their methods 

 of propagation and dissemination of the seeds. This knowl- 

 edge is much more highly appreciated in -Europe than here. 

 In Germany, for example, they have wall-maps upon which the 

 leading weeds are represented. Hung as these are upon the 

 school-room walls, a child, simply from daily seeing these life- 

 like colored drawings of the various pests, will learn their ap- 

 pearance and names. Some such method of instruction is 

 needed in this country, by which the children who are soon to 

 be our farmers and gardeners may become familiar with the 

 troublesome weeds even in advance of their advent, that the 

 proper means may be taken at once for meeting and destroy- 

 ing them. Editors of agricultural papers and professors in 

 agricultural colleges yearly receive many letters asking for the 

 simplest kind of information concerning many common 

 weeds, thus showing the general lack of knowledge upon this 

 important subject. To put a map of a dozen of the most de- 

 structive weeds upon the walls of every country school-house 

 in the United States is a great undertaking ; but, if it were 

 done, the next and succeeding generations of farmers would 

 be the better able to carry on the work of extermination. 

 There are a large number of farmers' clubs throughout the 

 country, and a great deal might be done by hanging a weed- 

 chart upon the walls of these halls, where farmers gather from 

 time to time for mutual improvement andabetter understand- 

 ing of the ways and means of a more profitable agriculture. 

 Weeds have been neglected in more ways than one, and just 

 so far as they are overlooked and left to themselves the greater 

 will be the curse. As we look over the premium-lists of our 

 thousands of county and state fairs we seldom see a prize 

 offered for the best collection of weeds. It seems incompati- 

 ble with our fitness of things to have a good collection of any- 

 thing that is bad ; and yet the fact remains that there is no 

 class of plants about which an increase of knowledge is more 

 imperative than these same ugly weeds. A few dollars ex- 

 pended in awards by each fair association would bring together 

 lists of plant pests, the exhibition of which would not only sur- 

 prise but greatly instruct those who see them. It is not less 

 important for the farmers of any district to know of the arrival 

 of a new weed than of the advent of a new fruit or grain." 



