August 17, iiii)2.\ 



Garden and Forest. 



395 



grower and bears a wonderful flower, quite as b\g as the 

 Brugmansia. 



In the hmises I found a new Begonia species (tuberous), 

 with the haljit of Martiani, but with handsome spotted leaves 

 and pinkish stems. Many varieties of Orchids were in flower, 

 the most striking of which was a pure white form of Cattleya 

 Gaskelliana. The great collection of Cypripediums here 

 always gives nie a sense of confusion, it is so impossible 

 to comprehend tlie wonderful variety in the time at one's 

 disposal. When Mr. Manda casually picks up a small pot 

 graced with three or four leaves and remarks that it is the 

 other half of a plant which he has sold for $675, one muses on 

 his Hfty-cent specimens of the same genus at home and con- 

 cludes that only the Cypripedium fancier can do justice to the 



subject. ■ <v A? ^ / 



Elizabeth, N.J. J. N. Gerard. 



Home-made Linen. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — It is almost with a feeling of veneration that I 

 now spread my home-spun table-cloths to serve for din- 

 ner. They are the last of a trunkful of linen brought over 

 the Atlantic thirty years ago. Throughout this long periotl 

 they have lieen in constant use, but now, unless supplemented 

 by newer fabrics, their end is at hand. For more than fifty 

 vears the hands that so willingly spun and wove these threads 

 for others' use have been resting in the grave — hence the sa- 

 credness which attaches to these relics of a former genera- 

 tion. 



In the German household the love of lin'en is a passion. 

 During the French wars under Napoleon when, from every 

 town and hamlet, the terror-stricken people fled before the 

 approaching armies, before all else they sought to save their 

 many chests of home-spun linen, and when peace returned, 

 what had escaped the Argus-eyed enemy was tenfold more 

 precious, because of the horrors witnessed and the dreadful 

 pangs endured. And even to-day the German woman prizes, 

 far above rubies, her piles of snowy linen, the labor of many 

 happy hours. 



Here in this country the use and sale of imported linens 

 assume yearly larger dimensions. The people are learning 

 to realize its value and comfort as an article of wearing ap- 

 parel. The southern product, the cheaper cotton, supplies the 

 world's demand. Why may not the north add to its resources 

 by reviving this old and important industry, and raise, at least, 

 sufficient flax for home consumption ? The women, too, 

 would gain by its revival. Instead of spending time and 

 strength upon the almost worthless trash called bric-a-brac, 

 which cumbers rather than adorns their homes, they might 

 again possess their stores of home-made linen, which far sur- 

 passes in value and durability the best product of the machine. 

 We live only for a day. Why may we not go more slowly 

 and evolve a truer prosperity with its resulting tranquillity ? 



In European countries, when at certain seasons the traveler 

 turns his eyes over the landscape, he sees dotted here and there 

 fields of blossoming blue wdiich ripple in the summer sun- 

 shine like the waves of the sea. They are acres of blossom- 

 ing fla.x, sowed and cared for with surprising interest by the 

 members of the household to which it belongs. 



During a lifetime of observation one sees many changes in 

 the customs and sentiments of people and nations. As in 

 Bible days, there is a time for everything. The coming World's 

 Fair will offer a grand opportunity to show what feminine 

 hands abroad are doing in the seclusion of the home, from 

 the Hungarian peasant woman's world-famed embroideries of 

 home-spun linen to the lace-like products of the hand and 

 loom of working and genUe woman. The number and variety 

 of fabrics produced from this little slender-stemmed plant, in 

 itself so insignificant, are so enormous that it may be well 

 worth while to consider its re-introduction into our own 



country. 



Hartford, Conn. 



Wilhelviina Seli^er. 



Albinos among Orchids. 



To the Editor of GARDEN and Forest : 



Sir, — In your issues of March 23d and June 32d the occur- 

 rence of a white form of Habenaria psychodes is noted. Last 

 July I collected not H. psychodes, but H. fimbriata, on an open 

 hill-side bog near Tannersville, NewYork, where it grew in quan- 

 tities, and with it a white form as beautiful, if not more so, than 

 its rose-purple neighbors. The flowers were identical as far 

 as I could see, though possibly very slightly smaller. This 

 year, on July 23d, in crossing the same bog, I found the Habe- 



naria in full l)loom, the white-flowered form, as last year, 

 neither quite as large nor quite as abundant as the purple ones. 

 It is a very handsome species, growing here from one to two 

 feet tall among the Reeds and Grasses, the spikes often ten 

 inches long and nearly three inches thick. 

 Onteora, N. V. Anna Murray Vail. 



Local Plant Names in New Jersey. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — As our boasted civili/'ation progresses, and as railroads 

 penetrate fartlier and farther into the wild and remote corners 

 of our country, primitive conditions will be replaced by those 

 more complicated, and difl'erentiation and redifferentiation will 

 follow closely this process of evolutionary growth. The for- 

 ests will be destroyed for fuel and timber (to be renewed later 

 at great expense), the streams of limpid water will be damined 

 for irrigation purposes, and the cleared and irrigated land will 

 be cultivated. The customs of a simple and unsophisticated 

 people will suffer by the same ruthless hand of progress. 



I was very much impressed by this fact while traveling, 

 some time since, through the sparsely settled portions of 

 southern New Jersey. The farther I journeyed from the rail- 

 road and the deeper I penetrated into the lonely barrens and 

 swamps, the more unsuspecting of strangers the people bc- 

 caiTie, and the more hospitable. A man was harrowing a 

 piece of sandy peat soil, near his one-storied cabin, with a tri- 

 angular harrow, constructed of green limbs, into the frame- 

 work of which, at irregular intervals, through auger-holes, 

 were driven pointed sticks. An ox, attached to this primitive 

 agricultural implement by means of a clothes-line spliced 

 together and a bent stick as a yoke, was slowly breaking up 

 the soil for a truck-patch; the poor beast was switching its 

 tail in the vain endeavor to keep off the troublesome mos- 

 quitoes and the galling and persistent woodflies. This inter- 

 esting picture of man, ox and harrow recalled the descriptions 

 given of the early Aryan culture, when barley, wheat and flax 

 were planted, and the ground was stirred by a crooked branch 

 of a tree, tipped probably with the tine of a stag's antler, which 

 served crudely as a plow. 



Local names survive, as a general rule, in the process of 

 speech evolution, and bear evidence of the cultural stage and 

 inventive genius of a people in introducing new words for 

 new phases of nature, and to describe new animals, plants and 

 things. My purpose is to record in Garden and Forest a few of 

 the local plant names current in parts of southern New Jersey. 

 The fishermen along the Little Egg Harbor River call the Eel 

 Grass (Zostera marina) Tiresome Weed, for, as they pull 

 against the current in sailing to and from the ocean, the 

 " grass wrack " entangles their oars and retards their move- 

 ments. They also call the most beautiful of our spring 

 Orchids, Cypripedium acaule, " Whip-poor-will Shoe," which 

 is quite as poetical as Lady's-slipper. 



The common Pitcher-plant, Sarracenia purpurea (Side-sad- 

 dle-flower, Huntsman's-cup in Gray's Manual), is called lo- 

 cally in Cape May County " Dumb Watches." The beautiful 

 purple flower grows from the centre of the rosette of pitchered 

 leaves below, and after a time the purple incurved petals fall, 

 exposing the summit of the broad, expanded, petal-like stigma. 

 The five green sepals remain, and resemble, in the imagina- 

 tion of the peninsular New Jerseymen, a watch-case, and the 

 convex surface of the expanded stigma is likened by them, to 

 the face of a watch. This vegetable time-piece, with no hands 

 to point the hours of the day, without the constant tick, tick, 

 tick, is dumb. The whole plant is denominated, very signifi- 

 cantly and ingeniously, " Dumb Watch," or simply " Watch." 



A person interested in folk-lore might find an interesting 

 field for investigation and research among the simple, hospi- 

 table and intelligent inhabitants of the shore and inland towns 

 of the Pine-barren regions of southern New Jersey. 



Pliiladeiphia, Pa. J. iV. Harshberger. 



Notes. 



In vol. xvii. of the Botanical Gazette Mr. John M. Coulter re- 

 cently published a sketch of the life and labors of the late 

 Sereno Watson, with a portrait and a view of the interior of 

 the herbarium of Harvard Liniversity. 



The Rose, Gustave Piganeau, was sent out in 1889, but it 

 takes some time for a new variety to be fully tested. This 

 one is spoken of very highly by the English growers, and it 

 has held a very prominent place at the exhibitions there 

 this year. The flower is very large and yet it is good in form 



