492 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 242. 



that in some of the places first planted certain of the selected 

 species have already attained a height of more than six feet. 



The leaves of Spiraja prunifolia remain on the shrub very 

 late in autumn, but they begin to turn among the first. They 

 change very slowly from glossy green to deep crimson, and 

 although the plant has a more whippy habit than most of the 

 Spirasas, for October coloring, it is one of the very best of 

 shrubs. 



A Portugal Laurel at Combermere Abbey, in Cheshire, is 

 said to be at least two hundred years old, and its branches 

 have rooted in every direction. It has the appearance of be- 

 ing a large mass of shrubbery instead of a single Laurel. In 

 places it is thirty feet high, and altogether it is a hundred feet 

 in diameter. 



The leaves of the Hickory are easily scorched by frost, and, 

 therefore, in seasons when freezing weather comes early, the 

 foliage turns brown and withers early. But in years like this, 

 when frosts are delayed, the leaves ripen to a clear lenion-yel- 

 low, so that the Hickory becomes fairly luminous and is one 

 of the most striking of our native trees, which are famous for 

 their autumn colors. 



A variety of Helenium autumnale, named Striatum, has lately 

 received a first-class certificate in England, and it promises to 

 be a welcome addition to our late-blooming hardy plants. It 

 is particularly interesting because of its colors. The disk is 

 spoken of as maroon and gold, and the florets are a rich red 

 striped with yellow. Autumn gardens contain so many com- 

 posites in which the prevailing color is yellow that this varia- 

 tion will be a pleasant relief. 



As the Memorial Garden, which lies between Longfellow's 

 Cambridge home and the Charles River, attracts so few vis- 

 itors that it is believed its commemorative character is not 

 generally recognized, it has been proposed to make this 

 clearer by the erection of some sort of a monument to the 

 poet. But, as the Longfellow family does not approve of this 

 scheme, preferring the unmarked quiet open garden, it is 

 probable that it will not be carried out. 



Some years ago an oak-trunk was found buried at a depth of 

 thirteen feet in a sand-pit at Musselburg, Germany. After ex- 

 amining the strata in which it had lain. Professor Geikie de- 

 cided that it was a rehc of the later stone age, and must be 

 some 6,000 years old. Yet the great trunk, which was no less 

 than five feet nine inches in diameter, was so perfectly pre- 

 served that It was worked into an elaborate chimney-piece, 

 which now ornaments a house in Edinburgh. 



A late bulletin of the Rhode Island E.xperiment Station gives 

 a word of caution to the purchasers of wood ashes. Analysis 

 of the ashes which is sold in that state shows that they vary 

 widely in chemical composition and fertilizing value. In some 

 instances they were of such a low grade that farmers were ad- 

 vised to demand of the dealer a guarantee. If farmers would 

 always insist on such a guarantee and order samples sent to 

 the state e.xperiment station, the quality of the ashes sold 

 would soon be improved and they would all contain such an 

 amount of phosphoric acid and potash as would make them 

 worth buying. 



At present the use of birch-bark as a writing material is 

 merely a diversion of the tourist, but in earlier years, as we 

 know, the Indians put it to serious service, while in Europe the 

 bark of the White Birch was an occasional writing material 

 before the invention of paper. In India one of the most 

 ancient of all writing materials was the bark of the Himalayan 

 Birch (Betula Bhojpattra), allusions to it being found in books 

 2,000 years old. To-day this substance is employed as a lining 

 for boots and shoes, but only charms and amulets are written 

 on it, because of its great durability. The magic words are in- 

 scribed upon a small bit, which is then enclosed in a bead of 

 gold or silver or brass, which is worn on the person. 



Since Cypress lumber is being dried by artificial means, the 

 product is much superior and the demand for it has largely 

 increased. Several large Louisiana mills, we are now told by 

 the Northwestern Lumberman, have been supplied with steam- 

 heat kilns, in which there is no ventilation and an extraordinary 

 dampness of the atmosphere. In this veritable sweat-box the 

 sap and natural juices of the timber are actually steamed or 

 boiled out of the fibre of the wood. The bottom of the kiln is 

 of sand, into which the drippings from the wood drop and satu- 

 rate it until it is converted almost into mud. After the heating 

 process is continued for a certain length of time the kiln is 

 opened, the air admitted, the moisture dissipated and the lum- 

 ber turned out to dry. 



The Gardeners' Magazine for September 24th contains an 

 engraving of the comparatively new Polyantha Rose, named 

 Turner's Crimson Rambler, which was brought from Japan a 

 few years ago and received a gold medal at the International 

 Horticultural Exhibition. The growth is very robust, and in 

 July, when the truss was selected for figuring, thousands of 

 plants which had been budded the previous summer had 

 made shoots ranging from six to eight feet high. The trusses 

 are produced in succession so that the display is maintained 

 over a considerable period. The color of this Rose is de- 

 scribed as a glowing crimson, and the truss figured contains 

 a mass of more than fifty flowers fully opened, besides numer- 

 ous buds all closely packed in a pyramidal mass. 



So few formal gardens exist in this country that it is worth 

 while to call attention to the picture of the one connected with 

 the old convent school for girls at Georgetown, near Wash- 

 ington, which is published in the Cosmopolitan Magazine for 

 October. This garden, which seems to have been laid out in 

 the early years of the century, is, if one may judge from the 

 picture, not a remarkable one in any way, yet it shows how 

 attractive may be a combination of naturally developed trees, 

 with systematically arranged paths, borders, grass-plots and 

 flower-beds. And, as has often been said in these pages, such 

 a combination might be made as beautiful and appropriate in 

 small grounds attached to dignified buildings as are our cus- 

 tomary attempts at landscape-gardening on a miniature scale. 



A note in one of the daily papers announces the sale to a 

 Baltimore syndicate of the Dismal Swamp Canal for the sum 

 of $10,000. This famous canal connects the waters of the 

 Elizabeth in Virginia and the Dismal Swamp with the Pasquo- 

 tauk in North Carolina and is twenty-three miles long. Its 

 construction was authorized by act of the Virginia Assembly 

 in 1787, and George Washington was its original projector. It 

 cost $1,500,000. The new owners propose to "improve the 

 waterways and develop the timber-lands," which are very valu- 

 able and include tracts of Cypress and other trees of large size. 

 With the exception of the main Jericho Canal and a few smaller 

 passages and Lake Drumniond, some ten miles in the interior, 

 the swamp is practically impenetrable on account of the dense 

 growth of Cane-brake. 



The report of the Director of the Kansas Experiment Station 

 contains an article on the contagious diseases of the chinch 

 bug, which is pronounced by Professor H. T. Fernald, in 

 Agricultural Science, one of the most valuable contributions 

 to economic entomology which has lately appeared, ranking 

 in importance with the introduction of the Vedalia into Cali- 

 fornia. The experiments were begun in 1889, and healthy bugs 

 placed in jars with diseased ones quickly became affected, 

 and the field-trials showed that when a number of these dis- 

 eased bugs were liberated where others were abundant the 

 disease spread rapidly. In 1891 fourteen hundred field-trials 

 were made, and more than three-fourths of these were so suc- 

 cessful that the saving of the crops was estimated at more than 

 $87,000, or $181 to each of the 483 farmers who tried the ex- 

 periments. In the opinion of Professor Fernald this report 

 marks the first apparently successful entrance of entomology 

 into an almost unknown field, where much progress is to be 

 hoped for. He believes that the culfivation of the natural 

 enemies of our insect pests and the keeping of stocks of them 

 on hand for shipment to infested areas is a line of work which 

 must prove of great value. Any one who bestows a little 

 thought on the relative advantages of insecticides applied by 

 hand on the one side, and of parasites which are able to pur- 

 sue their hosts from place to place and spread disease by in- 

 fection on the other, will see that the latter is theoretically, at 

 least, the most effectual and satisfactory. 



Catalogues Received. 



H. G. Faust & Co., S. W. cor. Front and Arch Streets, Philadel- 

 phia, Pa.; Wholesale Fall Catalogue. — Haage & Schjudt, Erfurt, 

 Germany; Seed Novelties for 1893. — W. B. Hartland, Cork, Ire- 

 land ; Daffodils and other Bulbs and Flower Roots. — Fred. W. Kei.- 

 SEY, 45 Broadway, New York ; Choice Hardy Trees, Shrubs and 

 Plants. — Harlan P. Kelsey, Linville, North Carolina ; Native Plants 

 of the Soutliern Alleghany Mountains. — Thomas Meehan & Sons, 

 Germantown, Phila., Pa.; Trees, Shrubs, Vines and E\^ergTeens. — 

 John S.vul, Washington, D. C; Wholesale Catalogue of Fruit, Ever- 

 green and Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Roses and Greenhouse Plants. 

 — Schlegel & FOTTLER, 26 South Market Street, Boston, Mass. ; 

 Fall Bulbs. — The Tottenham Nurseries, Ltd., Dedemsvaart, near 

 Zwolle, Holland ; Wholesale Trade-list of Conifers, Rhododendrons, 

 Roses, Herbaceous Plants, etc. — J. C. Yaughan, New York and J 

 Chicago ; Vaughan's Book for Florists, Wholesale Price-list of Seeds j 

 and Bulbs. 



