444 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 238. 



A writer in the Pomona Progress, basing his estimates on the 

 profits of his own Prune-orchard and the figiu-es given him Ijy 

 four of tlie most careful growers in Pomona Valley, California, 

 makes the rosy statement that ten acres planted with French 

 Prunes will, within ten years, yield an easy annual net income 

 of $5,000. The outlay for such an orchard during the first 

 four years will be something less than $3,000, including interest. 

 This outlay will be nearly equaled by the crop of the fifth year, 

 while a handsome profit is assured the next season. 



According to a California dispatch in The Tribu7te, a small 

 grove of Big Trees has been discovered in Placer County, on 

 the middle fork of the American River, not far from Forest 

 Hill. It was found by William W. Price, a botanical student 

 in Stanford University. He thinks that this grove, of which 

 only six trees are standing, marks the extreme northern limit 

 of the growth of Sequoia gigantea. Some of the fallen trees 

 measure twenty feet in diameter. The grove has probably 

 been saved from complete extinction by a dense growth of 

 Sugar Pines which surrounds it. 



The identification of nearly all Grasses at any time is a diffi- 

 cult task for nearly every one, even for most botanists. The 

 Grasses vary much, and in many instances they closely re- 

 semble each other. These difficulties suggested to Dr. Beal 

 a paper, which he read before the Society for the Promotion of 

 Agricultural Science, in Rochester, last month, entitled " How 

 to know our common Grasses of Pasture and Lawn before 

 they Flower." The paper was practically a key in which the 

 distinguishing characters were laid down of seventeen of the 

 more common Grasses, which are about all that the farmer is 

 likely to meet in his lawn or pasture for the first month or six 

 weeks of the growing season. 



In a letter to The World, of this city, Mrs. Van Rensselaer 

 states that the lawns and grass-plats about the private houses 

 in Chicago are exquisitely neat and green, and in the great 

 majority of cases they have not been decorated after the 

 fashion which prevails in some eastern cities. Occasionally 

 one sees a fine lawn defaced by gaudy pattern-beds or by 

 groups of tall foliage-plants or by ornamental shrubs hetero- 

 geneously scattered about. But, as a rule, there is nothing but 

 the quiet grass, or a line of trees and shrubs at the back hiding 

 the kitchen regions and the week's wash, or else there are one 

 or two great trees agreeably shading, without disturbing, the 

 pretty expanse of verdure. Owners of New York areas might 

 well go to Chicago to learn what to do to their tiny plots of 

 grass, and owners of Newport cottages would there be just as 

 usefully instructed in the great art of what not to do to their 

 larger lawns. 



Professor Georgeson, of the Kansas Agricultural College, 

 writes to the Industrialist that he is filling a small silo with a 

 portion of the Soy Bean crop in order to test its feeding value 

 when so preserved. He has four varieties, two of which are 

 so far advanced toward maturity that the leaves have begun to 

 fall, while in the others the seeds are only half-grown. The 

 plants were grown in rows thirty-two inches apart in loam of 

 only fair quality, which has not been manured, and the yield of 

 green plants is about five and one-third tons to the acre. The 

 growth has been made in exactly three months. Its feeding 

 value compares favorably with that of Clover and Alfalfa in 

 nutritive qualities, and the ripe beans are only excelled by oil- 

 meal. Cattle and hogs eat all parts of the plant greedily, and 

 even the dry bean-straw, thrown into the yard after the beans 

 were threshed out, was all eaten by the cattle. But, perhaps, 

 the quality which will be most highly appreciated in Kansas is 

 its power to withstand drought, so that not even the severe 

 drought of last year affected it disastrously. When all these 

 qualities become known. Professor Georgeson thinks it must 

 take a leading place among our fodder-plants. 



The strain or variety of Solanum jasminoides, which has 

 been distributed under the name Grandiflorum, is certainly a 

 most attractive climber for summer blooming. A plant of 

 this, procured in the spring of last year and set in the open 

 ground, spread over a trellis about eight feet high, and was 

 covered with flowers when cold weather set in. In October it 

 was cut hard back, lifted, placed in a twelve-inch pot, and kept 

 all winter in a cool room, where it received little direct sun- 

 light, and was sparingly watered. This spring the pot was 

 sunk in the ground, and the vine started away with vigor. By 

 midsummer it began to flower, and now it is more than twenty 

 feet long, covered with large clusters of pure white flowers 

 at the extremity of branchlets furnished with foliage of the 

 glossiest green. It is quite as attractive in its way as Clematis 

 paniculata now is, and this is paying it a high compliment. It 



makes an admirable window-plant in an ordinary living-room . 

 In Florida we have seen Solanum jasminoides covering a 

 large porch and blooming luxuriantly in February. It was 

 there called " Gloria," and it seems unfortunate that it has not 

 an appropriate and popularly accepted name besides its 

 clumsy scientific one. 



It is feared by the importers of seeds and bulbs that the pre- 

 cautions against cholera may kill or keep out of the country a 

 good many plants besides the comma bacillus. The long de- 

 lays at Quarantine in the close holds of steamships will injure 

 many seeds and bulbs and kill many living plants outright. 

 Besides this, a delay at this season of active opening of the fall 

 trade is most annoying, and it will cause much disturbance, if 

 not pecuniary loss. Many invoices have not yet left the other 

 side, and importers hardly know whether to countermand 

 their orders or allow the stock to take the chances of quaran- 

 tine delay, and what is still more dangerous, of quarantine 

 disinfection. It may be that some of the vapors used to de- 

 stroy cholera gernas will not kill Holland bulbs, for example. 

 But some of the processes in which hot steam is used to kill 

 the comma bacillus by sheer heat would be likely to cook 

 bulbs beyond all hope of germination. We hope the dangers 

 of the situation are not so serious as some have feared. Im- 

 porters will doubtless order shipment only from clean ports, 

 and if health officers use proper judgment in selecting their 

 modes of disinfection, seeds and bulbs ought to escape with- 

 out injury. But it is well worth while for the importers of 

 stock of this character to make a united effort to secure fair 

 treatment. 



There is nothing in our climate, soil or other conditions to 

 make the hybridizing of Roses more difficult in this country 

 than in Europe, and yet, as is well known, a great proportion 

 of the new Roses which have proved valuable to the com- 

 mercial grower and popular with amateurs have been im- 

 ported. One reason for this is that there are comparatively 

 few persons in this country who give their leisure to the culti- 

 vation and study of the queen of flowers — or of any other 

 flower, for that matter. Why commercial growers in this 

 country, when the sale of cut Roses is so enormous, have not 

 given more attention to the production of new varieties is 

 more difficult to answer. Mr. John N. May says they are too 

 busy, but he says further that they do not hesitate to buy and 

 try all the new varieties from Europe and pay high prices for 

 them, although hardly one in a hundred is worth anything in 

 this country for any purpose. Mr. May gives it as his view in 

 The American Florist thsit ii the new American Rose Society 

 were established with sufficient capital and income to offer 

 liberal prizes for, different classes of hybrids we should soon 

 have plenty of new Roses which would not only be good, but 

 the best for special purposes in this country. We have already 

 produced some good seedlings for cut flowers. Mr.Carman 

 has been experimenting and is hopeful of getting a Rose of 

 genuine value. Mr. Dawson has already scored some striking 

 successes, and we have no doubt that the seeds of many good 

 novelties are ripening- now. What we should like in addition 

 to such well-known classes as the Hybrid Teas would be a 

 still wider range of varieties, an extension of the work already 

 begun by experimenting with such distinct species as Rosa 

 rugosa, R. multiflora and the Sweet-brier. R. Wichuriana, 

 with its very distinct habit, is a promising subject, and, per- 

 haps, R. foliolosa. Certainly our Prairie Rose, R. setigera, is 

 worth crossing to gain fragrance and other good qualities, and 

 why not some of our other hardy wild Roses ? Farther south 

 what might we not hope to obtain in the way of open-air 

 Roses by using R. bracteata and the Cherokee Rose ? 



Catalog-ues Received. 



William Bull, 536 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, S. W., England; 

 Tuberous-rooted Plants and Bulbs. — J. VVilkinson Elliott, Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa.; Import Price List of Rhododendrons and Japanese 

 Plants. — Madison Square Garden Spring Flower Show, April, 

 1893 ; Schedule of Prizes offered for Orchids, Roses and other Flowers 

 and Plants. — Pape & Bergmann, Quedlinburg, Germany ; Bulbs and 

 Seeds for Fall Planting. — Pitcher & Manda, United States Nurseries, 

 Short Hills, N. J.; Bulbs, -Seeds and Plants for Fall Planting; Fresh 

 Imported Orchids. — George Ruedy, Colfax Nursery, Colfax, Wash.; 

 The Palouse Apple. — Russell Brothers, Highlands, N. C.; Native 

 Ornamental Trees, Shrubs and Plants of the Southern Alleghany 

 Mountains. — Stark Brothers, Pike County Nurseries, Louisiana, 

 Mo.; Fruit Trees, Small Fruits, Grape Vines, Ornamental Trees, 

 Shrubs and Roses. — Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie., 4 Quai de la MtSgis- 

 serie, Paris; Flower, Bulbs and Seeds for Fall Planting. — Thomas S. 

 Ware, Hale Farm Nurseries, Tottenham, London ; Flower and 

 Vegetable Seeds. 



