September 28, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



467 



Scab-proof Apples. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In the line of Professor Bailey's statements (p. 442) it is 

 deplorably true that in Wisconsin this season none of our 

 market apples are without injury from scab. Never were 

 prospects finer at blooming-time for a bountiful harvest of 

 apples than last spring, but in the latter part of June, the scab 

 fungus, stimulated no doubt by the cool, wet weather, spread 

 over our orchards in a surprisingly short time, causing almost 

 a total ruin of the prospective crop. The few apples that re- 

 mained on the trees are so badly scabbed that not many of the 

 samples shown at the state fair this year were unblemished. 



But in this season of almost omnipresent scab, Mr. George 

 J. Kellogg, of Janesville, Wisconsin, exhibited a well-laden 

 branch of a new seedling Apple, which, though grown in an 

 orchard in which the profuse bloom of last spring was almost 

 completely blasted by the scourge, had developed a fine crop 

 of apples that were as free from scab-marks as if no germs of 

 this disease had ever alighted upon them — a pleasing evidence 

 that scab-proof apples may not be among the impossibilities. 



The "squirt-gun" has, no doubt, come to stay, but I have 

 little hope that in seasons when we most need its help, that is 

 when profuse showers are frequent in the month of June, it 

 will ever be able to give us fair fruit. We must supplement 

 it by systematic breeding from scab-resistant varieties before 

 we shall escape damage from this most serious scourge of the 

 orchard. 



University of Wisconsin. ^- ^' ^^Jj- 



Recent Publications. 



Garden Design and Architects' Gardens. By W. Robinson, 

 F. L. S. London : John Murray, 1892. 



The illustrations in this little book are in themselves of suf- 

 ficient interest and value to justify its publication, and the au- 

 thor himself seems to consider them the essential part of the 

 work, if we are to judge from the sub-title, which states that it 

 is his purpose "to show, by actual examples from British gar- 

 dens, that clipping and aligning trees to make them 'harmo- 

 nize ' with architecture is barbarous, needless and inartistic. " A 

 proposition of this sort needs little argument to substantiate it, 

 and little argument will the reader find. Mr. Robinson's work, 

 in form, is principally a review of The Formal Garden in 

 England, by Bromfield and Thomas, with a short additional 

 criticism of Seddings' Gardett Craft, Old and New. In reality 

 it is an impassioned protest against some of the false doctrine 

 of these two works — and plenty of false doctrine do they set 

 forth. 



The first of these books has been already reviewed in these 

 columns. It is rather an attractive little treatise, and, begging 

 Mr. Robinson's pardon, it contains many pretty and interesting 

 pictures. The authors have our sympathy, too, so far as they 

 show a preference for old-fashioned, geometrical planting over 

 much of the formless fussmess of many modern gardens. The 

 fundamental error of the authors is, that they appear never to 

 have seen a good example of grounds that have been treated 

 " naturally " and at the same time artistically, or if they have 

 seen such places they do not appreciate their beauty. Indeed, 

 there is nothing in the book to show that the authors have 

 any feeling for natural beauty or any intelligent appreciation of 

 scenery. It is charitable to assume that they are quite desti- 

 tute of the original faculty to which the beauty of scenery ap- 

 peals, and the mistakes of their book are exactly of the kind 

 which would be made by a man with no ear for music, if he 

 should write a criticism of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The 

 lack of this special sense will account for the assertion tliat 

 landscape-gardening is essentially the abandonment of every- 

 thing like design. They can see no " order " or " balance " 

 except in the repetition of architectural lines and angles. It is 

 not strange, therefore, that they should fall back on etymology 

 and insist that the essential feature of a garden should be a 

 strong boundary line. 



Mr. Robinson's pictures need no additional text to show how 

 delightful to the eye the so-called natural style of planfing can 

 be made, even in connection with buildings, whetlier stately 

 or humble. And the text adds little to the force of the illus- 

 trations. Mr. Robinson's language is fervid, and at times per- 

 fervid, but a display of feeling does not always aid an argu- 

 ment. As has been already said, however, little argument is 

 needed to demonstrate the errors into which the two young 

 architects fell when they essayed to prove that one kind of 

 garden was essentially good, and all others essentially bad. 

 The fact is, that there are gardens of a good many kinds, and 

 gardens made to fulfill a good many different purposes. Mr. 



Robinson himself is the able advocate of a garden whose 

 "true use and first reason is to keep and grow plants which 

 are not in our woods, and are mostly from other countries 

 than our own." But, then, there are gardens whose beauty is 

 of the very highest type which were not designed with any 

 such motive. 



Bulletin 43 of the Cornell University Experiment Station 

 treats of certain "Troubles of Winter Tomatoes," two of which 

 are so obscure in their ways that growers often fail to recog- 

 nize them until the crop is ruined. One known as the winter- 

 blight was first described in Garden and Forest' last April 

 ([page 175) by Mr. E. G. Lodeman. The disease first appeared 

 in the winter of 1890-91, when only a few plants were affected, 

 and as they had borne one crop it was thought that they were 

 simply worn out. It became necessary, however, to carry a 

 dozen plants over the summer, and these were introduced into 

 the house when the forcing season opened last October. From 

 this stock trouble again spread, and in six or eight weeks it 

 had become serious, and there was no longer any doubt but 

 that a specific disease had to be contended with. The first in- 

 dication of the trouble is the dwarfing and fading of the leaves 

 and the appearance of ill-defined yellowish spots, whicli soon 

 become dark and the leaf curls, with its edges drawn downward, 

 so as to give the plant a wilted look. This injury causes the 

 plant to dwindle, fruit-production is lessened, and in some 

 cases the plant dies outright. The indications point to a bac- 

 terial origin for the disease, but this is not certain, and no 

 remedy has been found for it as yet. The disease travels from 

 plant to plant when they stand in separate boxes, even when 

 their tops do not touch. Experiments lead to the conclusion 

 that the best treatment for this blight is to remove all diseased 

 plants at once, and if it becomes serious, to remove all the 

 plants and soil in the house and start anew. The experiments, 

 too, emphasize the importance of starting with new plants and 

 fresh soil every autumn. When once the disease gets in a 

 house it seems fatal to success in forcing Tomatoes. 



The common blight which is associated with Tomatoes, 

 Cladosporium fulvum, appears as cinnamon-brown spots on 

 the under surface of the leaves. This fungus, however, is 

 rarely serious. It is apt to appear in late winter or early spring, 

 and often not until after the crop is nearly harvested. In such 

 cases the old plants should be burned as soon as the last fruit 

 is off. If it appears earlier, spraying with the ammoniacal car- 

 bonate of copper is to be recommended. 



Another serious injury of winter Tomatoes is the root-gall 

 which comes from nematodes. Many plants like Geraniums, 

 Coleus, etc., are subject to the attacks of these worms, and the 

 diseased plants or the soil in which they grew is often dumped 

 into the dirt-bin, and thus the trouble is propagated. In the 

 southern states these nematodes are serious enemies to plants 

 in the field and even to trees, but in the north they are con- 

 fined chiefly to indoor plants. This indicates that the freezing 

 of soil in houses which are attacked would be good treatment. 

 When these worms attack Tomatoes the root is swollen into a 

 shapeless mass which reminds one of the club-root of cabbage. 

 The trouble is likely to be worse in plants which are carried 

 over from one winter to another. In general appearance the 

 injured plants resemble those attacked by the winter-blight 

 except that the leaves are not spotted. The best treatment 

 for this disease is to remove plants and soil, wash the benches 

 and boxes with lye, and begin over again. It would, however, 

 be a great saving of time and expense if the soil could be 

 treated between crops with some material which would de- 

 stroy the worms. Lye, quicklime and bisulphate of carbon 

 have been tried unsuccessfully, but in boxes of earth which 

 were salted arid frozen no worms could be found. 



Notes. 



In consequence of the growing difficulty of procuring wood 

 suitable for the manufacture of matches, German factories are 

 now making them of compressed peat, which is said to be an 

 excellent subsdtute. 



According to a foreign journal, almonds are now counter- 

 feited as coffee-beans are imitated. The artificial almond is 

 made of glucose ; color and form are copied to perfection, and 

 the desired perfume is given byan application of nitro-benzine. 



Anjou, in the Department of the Maine and Loire, in France, 

 is a headquarters for the cultivation of medicinal plants. The 

 ground is a slaty schist, and such plants as Belladonna, Camo- 

 mile, Stramonium and Hyssop flourish well in it, and are grown 

 on a great scale, and, according to an account recently given in 

 Le jfardin, of Argenteuil, with large profits to their cultivators. 



