384 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 233. 



Notes. 



Throughout Ihis month, in the woods and along the country 

 roads, the gracefid Clematis Virginiana, witli its wliite star-hive 

 blossoms, will convert every unsightly stump and ragged fence 

 into a bower of beauty. 



The little Rosa foliolosa of the south-western states should 

 not be omitted in a list of late-flowering Roses. It is of very 

 dwarf habit, and has so far not produced sufficient bloom at 

 the north to be showy. 



The American Trumpet Creeper (Tecoma radicans) has 

 been in bloom for a fortnight, while its Japanese relative, T. 

 granditlora, is just beginning to open its large showy blossoms. 

 The flowers of T. grandiHora are larger in size, richer and 

 purer in color, than those of the native plant (see Garden 

 AND Forest, Vol. iii., p. 393). Both plants are constantly visited 

 by humming-birds through their long blooming season. 



On the road from Khandala to the famous Cave of Karli, in 

 India, says Miss North, in her recently published Recollections 

 of a Happy Life, she came upon "a splendid tree of Jonesia 

 Asoka full of orange-flowers and delicate leaves. The priest 

 of the temple found me one fine flower growing through a 

 honeycomb full of honey, which had been built round its 

 stem. This was a very curious thing." She adds : "Did the 

 buds push their way through the honey and wax, or was the 

 thing built quickly round them ? I never satisfied myself 

 which was the first perfected." 



In France the common name of the China or Indian Pink 

 (Dianthus Chinensis) is likewise "China Pink"; that of the 

 Clove Pink and its offspring, the Carnation (D. caryophyllus), is 

 " Florist's Pink," and that of the Sweet William (D. barbatus) is 

 " Poet's Pink." Another popular French title for the last- 

 named flower is "Ready-made Bouquet," which is charmingly 

 expressive, and is more musical in French — Bouquet tout 

 fait — than in English. And istill another is "Jealousy." Com- 

 paring this with "Sweet William," one is tempted to fancy that 

 some ancient story of a love-lorn maid may once have been cur- 

 rently connected with this flower in both France and England. 



There is nothing absurd in the idea that the removal of the 

 tassel from Indian Corn should increase the crop, provided 

 enough were allowed to remain to fertilize all the ears. The 

 development of the floral organs of a plant is a great strain on 

 its vitality, and the strength saved might be diverted profit- 

 ably, it would seem, to the development of the fruit. Experi- 

 ments on this point, however, have given varying results, and 

 some tests lately made at the Cornell Station show neither loss 

 nor gain in Corn production. It was found, however, that the 

 pollen and anthers in an acre of Corn contained 6.01 pounds 

 of nitrogen, or an amoimt equal to that in a liberal application 

 of a good commercial fertilizer. 



Writing her " Impressions of Alaska" in the June Bulletin 

 of the Torrey Botanical Club, Miss Cooley says, with regard to 

 the profusion of berry-bearing plants in the forest-region near 

 Loring : "We found strawberries, salmon-berries, tvi'o species 

 of trailing Rubus, R. stellatus and R. pedatus ; high blackberries, 

 low blackberries, a raspberry, and four species of gooseberries 

 and currants, all edible ; Sambucus racemosa, of which the 

 Indians are fond ; Viburnum pauciflorum ; Vaccinium Myr- 

 tillus and ovalifolium ; the red blueberry, V. parvifolium ; the 

 Salal, so highly valued ; a pleasant small cranberry and Vac- 

 cinium Vitis-Idasa, almost as good — enough for man and 

 beast — Klinget and bear and duck. I gathered nineteen of the 

 twenty edible berries which a Chilcat missionary told me are 

 to be found. Of these the salmon-berry, gathered in the sum- 

 mer and preserved for winter use in salmon oil, is most 

 valued. It is a large salmon-colored or orange raspberry, 

 very delicious when picked and eaten fresh from the bushes, 

 though disappointing if bought from the Indians on the vidiarf, 

 where the aroma of oil that pervades everything Klinget 

 clings to them." 



The formal lines of the Maguey plantations, writes Mr. Syl- 

 vester Baxter in a recent number of the A?iterican Architect, 

 running all over the landscape, often as far as the eye can 

 reach, give the country a sort of decorative appearance, but it 

 is too suggestive of tattooing to be picturesque. We use the 

 terms, barren and fertile of aspect, customarily, in an absolute 

 sense, the latter being associated with thick, dark soil and the 

 luxuriance of green meadows and flourishing Corn-fields. 

 Again, certain regions are proverbially known as barren, and 

 their aspect becomes identified with the mental imagery of the 

 word. Cape Cod, for instance, is one of these regions, but in 

 reality the sandy peninsula is one of the most fertile portions 



of the country, made so by its Cranberry-culture ; swamps, 

 once worthless, now bear hundreds of bushels of cranberries 

 to the acre. So with the Ihin-soiled peninsula of Yucatan, 

 which annually exports millions of dollars' worthof Henequin, 

 or Sisal Hemp. These dry, wind-swept high plains of the 

 Mexican table-land, bare and brown, desolate and barren as 

 they may look to the stranger, are also wonderfully fertile. 

 Some of these great estates are said to yield net revenues of 

 more than $100,000 annually, and the two railways, the Mexi- 

 can and the Interoceanic, derive a most lucrative traffic from 

 this region, running special pulque-trains into the capital 

 every morning. The other railway lines also get a considera- 

 ble traffic in carrying pulque from the capital to regions in the 

 interior where the beverage used to be an unknown luxury. 



In a letter contributed to The Nation, the organ of the Na- 

 tionalist party of Ireland, in 1849, Carlyle writes: "Every 

 patriotic Irishman — that is, by hypothesis, almost every Irish- 

 man now alive — who would so fain make the dear old country 

 a present of his whole life and self, why does he not, for ex- 

 ample, directly after reading this, and choosing a feasible spot, 

 at least plant one tree ? That were a small act of self-devo- 

 tion ; small, but feasible. Him such tree will never shelter. 

 Hardly any mortal but could manage that ; hardly any mortal, 

 if he were serious in it, but could plant and nourish into 

 growth one tree. Eight million trees before the present gen- 

 eration run out ; that were an indubitable acquisition for Ire- 

 land, for it is one of the barest, raggedest countries now 

 known ; far too ragged a country with patches of beautiful 

 park and fine cultivation, like shreds of bright scarlet on a 

 beggar's clouted coat — a country that stands decidedly in 

 need of shelter, shade and ornamental fringing, look at its 

 landscape when you will. Once, as the old chroniclers write, 

 'a squirrel (by bending its course a little and taking a longish 

 leap here and there) could have run from Cape Clear to the 

 Giant's Causeway without once touching the ground'; but 

 now eight million trees, and I rather conjecture eight times 

 eight millions, would be very welcome in that part of the 

 Empire." The editor comments upon Carlyle's fundamental 

 unacquaintance with Irish affairs, and points out how hopeless 

 it was to reforest a country where, if a tenant planted his tree 

 or sapling and tended it until it became a mature tree, the law 

 declared it to be the property of the landlord without a scrap 

 of compensation to the man who reared it. 



From Mr. Lafcadio Hearn's article, called " In a Japanese Gar- 

 den," published in the July number of Xhe Atlantic Monthly , we 

 quote the following : " The garden contains no large growths. 

 It is paved with blue pebbles, and its centre is occupied by a 

 pondlet, a miniature lake fringed with rare plants, and con- 

 taining a tiny island, with tiny mountains and dwarf Peach- 

 trees and Pines and Azaleas, some of which are, perhaps, more 

 than a century old, though scarcely more than a foot high. 

 Nevertheless, this work, seen as it was intended to be seen, 

 does not appear to the eye in miniature at all. From a certain 

 angle of the guest-room looking out upon it, the appearance is 

 that of a real lake-shore with a real island beyond it, a stone's- 

 throw away. So cunning the art of the ancient gardener who 

 contrived all this, and who has been sleeping for a hundred 

 years under the Cedars of Gesshoji, that the illusion can be 

 detected only from the zashiki by the presence of an 

 ishidoro, or stone lamp, upon the island. The size of 

 the ishidoro betrays the false perspective, and I do not 

 think it was placed there when the garden was made. 

 Here and there at the edge of the pond, and almost level with 

 the water, are placed large flat stones, on which one may 

 either stand or squat, to watch the lacustrine population or to 

 tend the water-plants. There are beautiful Water-lilies, whose 

 bright green leaf-disks float oilily upon the surface (Nuphar 

 Japonica), and many Lotus-plants of two kinds, those which 

 bear pink and those which bear pure white flowers. There 

 are Iris-plants growing along the bank, whose blossoms are 

 prismatic violet, and there are various ornamental grasses 

 and ferns and mosses. But the pond is essentially a Lotus- 

 pond ; the Lotus-plants make its greatest charm. It is a de- 

 light to watch every phase of their marvelous growth, from 

 the first unrolling of the leaf to the fall of the lasf flower. . On 

 rainy days, especially, the Lotus-plants are worth observing. 

 Their great cup-shaped leaves, swaying high above the pond, 

 catch the rain and hold it awhile ; but always after the water 

 in the leaf reaches a certain level the stem bends, and empties 

 the leaf v^'ith a loud splash, and then straightens again. Rain- 

 water upon a Lotus-leaf is a favorite subject with Japanese 

 metal-workers, and metal-work only can reproduce the effect, 

 for the motion and color of water moving upon the green 

 oleaginous surface are exactly those of quicksilver." 



