432 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 237. 



collectors to meet it, and consequently old seed is often worked 



in with the new. 



The famous Black Hamburg- Vine at Speddoch carries more 

 than 500 clusters of grapes this year, and some of the larger 

 ones will weigh four or five pounds. Last year more than a 

 thousand pounds of fruit were cut from this vine, and the crop 

 this year will reach at least 1,200 pounds. The girth of the 

 vine, which was originally a cutting from the Hampton Court 

 Vine and set in the early part of the century, is now two feet 

 and four inches. 



It is stated in Meehans' Monthly that if Kieffer Pears are 

 gathered a little before they are mature and then ripened 

 slowly in a room that is cool and not too dry they will rank as 

 table fruit of the first quality. No doubt, rapid ripening im- 

 pairs the flavor of some pears, but persons who are familiar 

 with the Kieffer as it is found in the market, will find it hard 

 to believe tliat any skill can transform it into a dessert pear of 

 unexcelled quality. Its value for canning is generally acknowl- 

 edged. 



Just now the Spice-bush is very attractive, as its bright red 

 fruit shows through the rich green foliage. Indeed, it is 

 beautiful the whole season through. It is among the very 

 earliest of native shrubs to Ijloom ; its leaves are of a fresh 

 color, and free from diseases or insect attacks, and its fruit 

 gives it a new value in autumn. An occasional cutting back 

 will overcome its tendency toward a habit too open, but on 

 the borders of woods or shrubberies it needs no attention, and 

 is always satisfactory. 



In the early part of this century e.xtravagant expectations 

 were raised over the possible advantages of soil analysis, and 

 when these high hopes were found delusive a prejudice was 

 excited against all such analysis, which is not yet outgrown. 

 It is pleasant, therefore, to note that some scientists remember 

 that the study of soils inay have a practical bearing on agricid- 

 ture, and Professor E. W. Hilgard's report on the Relations of 

 Soil to Climate, lately published liy the Department of Agri- 

 culture, will be welcomed as a timely contribution to the 

 subject. 



The last bulletin of the New York Experiment Station re- 

 peats that there is no question as to the efHcacy of the Bordeaux 

 mixture as a preventive of the leaf-blight wliich has been so 

 destructive to Strawberries in many parts of the country this 

 yeai\ The young plants should be sprayed the first year as 

 soon as they become established, and the mixture should be 

 applied four times during the first season, and at least twice 

 before fruiting the second season. The mixture is now pre- 

 pared with only half the strength originally used, the formula 

 being two pounds of lime and three pounds of copper sul- 

 phate with twenty-two gallons of water. 



Urceocharis Clibrani is the name given by Dr. Masters to a 

 hybrid between Urceolina pendula and Eucharis grandiflora, 

 and originated by Messrs. Clibran, of Oldfield Nurseries, Al- 

 trincham, England. Judging from a figure in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle the flowers are curiously intermediate in form be- 

 tween the two parents, and they are very beautiful and inter- 

 esting. The flowers are borne on ascending stalks as in 

 Eucharis, not pendulous as in Urceolina. They are pure 

 white, borne in umbels, each one two and a half inches long 

 with a slender tube expanding into a cup-shaped limb. The 

 new hybrid promises to be of great decorative value. 



A Belgian horticultural journal, regretting the fact that 

 almost the only creepers used for the ornamentation of houses 

 in Belgium are the Grape-vine, the Ivy and the Honeysuckle, 

 recommends four others as especially desirable. These are 

 the Silk-vine (Periploca Gragca) of southern Europe and the 

 Orient, a twining shrub of the order Asclepeiadese ; the Chinese 

 Calystegia pubescens, which belongs to the Convolvulacese, 

 and is callen Bearbind in England, and two of our familiar 

 American creepers, the Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia Sipho) 

 and the pretty Groundnut (Apios tuberosa), which we seldom 

 cultivate, but constantly see growing wild along our woodland 

 fences, with its purplish clusters of vanilla-scented flowers, 

 doubly welcome as they appear late in the summer. 



Not many weeks ago the bridge joining Castle Island to 

 the mainland of Marine Park at City Point, in Boston, was 

 completed, and the island was thrown open as a public pleas- 

 ure-ground. It is twenty-one acres in extent, and, says the 

 Boston Herald, on the first Sunday after it was opened it was 

 invaded by many thousands of visitors, who filled it full in 

 every nook and corner. Nothing has as yet been done to give 

 it a park-like aspect, except to burn off its great crops of 

 weeds, leaving the ground for the moment black and bare. 



Plans for its adornment are not yet complete, but a drive-way 

 will be carried fi'om the bridge along the shore to a " con- 

 course," which will be built out into the water ; a shelter will 

 be built on the point now occupied by the hospital ; other de- 

 sirable buildings will be constructed, and trees in due number 

 will be planted. 



According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a gourd from 

 Japan is proving valuable for all purposes where a sponge is 

 used. This Luffa grows on vines twenty or thirty feet long, 

 and while young it is edible, and when cut up in slices like 

 Okra it is highly prized as a flavoring constituent in soups. 

 When fully grown the interior of the gourd becomes a fibrous 

 spongy mass, and this is separated from the shell and outer 

 flesh by boiling in water to which a large quantity of soda or 

 soap has been added. After being thus treated the resultant 

 fibre is dried, and then takes on a sponge-Hke appearance. It 

 lias been tested in the bath, in the household and in the stable. 

 The hottest water does not injure it. It is very flexible and 

 soft, and it is durable as well. The correspondent who has 

 been making the tests is very enthusiastic over the results, and 

 believes a beginning has been made in what will become a 

 very important industry. 



The last number of the Gardeners' Magazine contains illus- 

 trations of two of the hybrid Sweet-briers which have been 

 obtained by Lord Penzance, one of them, Lucy Bartram, 

 showing finely shaped flowers of an intense crimson, and the 

 other, Alice Bridgworth, being a pleasing shade of rose, while 

 the base of the finely shaped petals is white. The Eglantine 

 has been used both as the seed parent and the pollen parent. 

 When hybrid perpetual Roses are fertilized by the Sweet- 

 brier, the leaves of the resulting hybrid do not have the 

 fragrance of the pollen parent, but in many of the reverse 

 crosses the delicious fragrance of the foliage is retained. 

 Most of the crosses have single flowers, although some of 

 them have two rows of petals. In some cases they have 

 proved perpetual bloomers, and give a fine show of flowers in 

 autumn. Lord Penzance is experimenting with hybrids con- 

 taining Tea blood, and making crosses of many other kinds, 

 and the results obtained will be looked for with interest by all 

 who love the queen of flowers. 



Nicotine, the alkaloid which gives its special qualities to 

 the Tobacco-plant, says Monsieur Jules Rochard, of the 

 French Academy of iVledicine, writing recently in the Revue 

 des Deux Mondes, was discovered by Poseelt and Remann, 

 and first isolated by Vauquelin in the year 1809. " It is an 

 oleaginous liquid, colorless and transparent, which grows dark 

 and thick when exposed to the air. Its sharp, acrid odor is 

 like that of tobacco ; it is burning to the taste, and its vapor is 

 so irritating that breathing is a painful act in a room where 

 even one drop of it has fallen. . . . The different kinds of To- 

 bacco contain it in varying quantities. The black, oily tobacco 

 of the Antilles contains much more of it than the hght-colored 

 fragrant tobacco of Levantine countries. Its quantity increases 

 with the development of the plant, and varies according to the 

 tissues of its leaves, thin-leaved plants containing it in smaller 

 amounts than thick-leaved ones. The fermenting process 

 through which tobacco is passed volatilizes the nicotine in 

 part, and thus there is less nicotine in tobacco when it is ready 

 for consumption than there was in the dried but unprepared 

 leaves." 



The beautiful model of a typical French farm, which at- 

 tracted great attention at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, will 

 probably be surpassed next year at Chicago by a " model 

 Washington farm in miniature," which Mr. William L. La Fol- 

 lette. Superintendent of the Agricultural Department in the 

 exhibition of the state of Washington, intends to have pre- 

 pared. This little reproduction will include "farm-houses, 

 barns, fences and fields of growinggrain. There will be fields of 

 summer fallow with tiny gang-plows in the furrows, and 

 threshers, binders and all other farm-machinery will be shown 

 in miniature just as they appear while in use in the far west." 

 Mr. La Follette also proposes to erect a "a large cold-storage 

 safe with glass sides and neatly arranged shelving," in which all 

 the fresh fruits of Washington will be displayed during their 

 seasons. " The collectors in the state will keep a constant 

 supply going to Chicago by fast express. First the safe will be 

 filled with luscious strawberries, and from that on during the 

 succeeding seasons as the fruits ripen the cold-storage display 

 will include all varieties ripening from May ist to October 30th. 

 This manner of exhibiting fruits," we are told, "will excel any- 

 thing that can be procured in the way of preserved specimens, 

 although the Commission will have an ample display of all 

 kinds of fruits preserved by the most approved methods." 



