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Garden and Forest. 



[Number 244. 



masters, giving to the task the same care which they devote to 

 the preparation of young men for railway or hydraulic en- 

 gineering. . . . Tlie Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard 

 University has already arranged for the services of an in- 

 structor in this department, who will devote all his teaching 

 to matters connected with road-construction. ... If a dozen 

 of our engineering schools in different jjarts of the country 

 will provide similar syfetematic and continuous instruction, we 

 may hope, in the course of four or five years, to graduate 

 trained road-masters who are well informed in the scienceand 

 art of their profession." 



Notes. 



The Prussian Academy of Sciences recently voted a grant 

 of 3,000 marks to Professor P. Ascherson, to enable him to 

 issue a new edition of Koch's Synopsis florce Cerinania:. 



It is reported from St. Petersburg that the beautiful gardens 

 on the island of Fontanka, in the river Neva, were totally de- 

 stroyed during a terrible storm which occurred on the night of 

 September 23d, when the stream rose to a height of six feet 

 above its normal level. 



Among the special prizes at the Chrysanthemum Show, to 

 be held next week in Madison Square Garden, New York, is the 

 Garden and Forest Cup, valued at fifty dollars, and offered by 

 the publishers of this paper for the best vase of cut Chrysanthe- 

 mums containing six blooms of any one variety. 



Of hybrid perpetual Roses, Mrs. John Laing was exhibited 

 oftener this year at English exhibitions than any other variety, 

 and it is only excelled by Madame Gabriel Luizet and La 

 France in the number of times it has been staged during the 

 last three years. Among the Tea and Noisette Roses, The 

 Bride, which is a nearly white sport from Catharine Mermet 

 and of American origin, was shown theoftenest — that is, forty- 

 five times. 



In the famous old gardens of Syon House the Lebanon 

 Cedars are noted for the cleanness, the length and size of their 

 trunks rather than for the great sweep of boughs. Trees with 

 branches which spread 100 feet are not uncommon, however, 

 nor are trunks rare which are fifteen feet in circumference. 

 There are many striking specimens of Taxodium distichum in 

 this garden over 100 feet in height and throwing up knees two 

 or three feet high over a circuit too feet across on the turf. 



Apart from its beautiful flowers, graceful form, the delicate 

 texture of its bark and am|)Ie foliage during the summer, the 

 Virgilia, or Yellow-wood (Cladrastus lutea), deserves to be no- 

 ticed as taking rank among the most beautiful of our native trees 

 forits autumn coloring. \VhiIe the majority of trees whose dead 

 leaves do not cling to the branches all the winter are entirely 

 stripped, the Yellow-wood is still well clothed with foliage of a 

 clear yellovv which is especially bright wlien the sun shines 

 on it. 



On account of the graceful way in which its snowballs are 

 tossed in the air, the old-fashioned Viburnum opulus is supe- 

 rior to the newer Japanese species V. plicatum. The foliage 

 of the latter, however, is not 'nearly so liable to be crumpled 

 up by insects, and it has the additional advantage that its 

 foliage turns in autumn to a deep and rich color, which is alto- 

 gether indescribable in words, but which has been called a 

 crimson-bronze. The leaves, too, cling to the shrub very late, 

 so that this rich coloring appears at a time when it is highly 

 appreciated. 



In the diary of the late Professor J. W. Bailey, some extracts 

 from which were recently published in the Bulletin of the Tor- 

 rey Botanical Club, it is related, on the authority of Dr. Torrev, 

 that Protessor Lindley's well-known Outlines of the First Prin- 

 ciples of Botany was wholly written on journeys to and from 

 his residence, about six miles from London. " When the stage 

 stopped at an inn Lindley would write on a scrap of paper a 

 sentence or two of the work, using his hat as a desk, and this 

 was but one instance of the constant devotion and industry of 

 the Professor." 



The Gardeners' Chronicle quotes from one of the essays of 

 Mr. William Paul, which have been lately collected into a 

 volume, the following sentence: "It would be commercially 

 unwise to attempt to raise Hyacinths against such skillful gar- 

 deners as the Dutch. We can buy and sell cheaper than we 

 produce." To this the Chronicle adds the comment that, 

 while it is true as a general statement, experience at Kew for 

 two or three years tends in the opposite direction, and, indeed, 

 it is a fact that bulbs have been cultivated successfully in the 



sand-hills of Sandwich. We may add, that experiments in this 

 country show that more than one of the so-called Dutch bulbs 

 can be grown with profit here. 



Mr. Thomas Calhoun, of Wilson County, Tennessee, was 

 one of a committee appointed in 1847 to select the grounds for 

 a camp-meeting and the site for the audience-shed. He car- 

 ried with him a Sycamore handspike, which he drove into the 

 earth at the spot chosen for the pulpit. The shed was soon 

 erected but the stake was not disturbed, and in time it put out 

 shoots and leaves. Mr. Calhoun was about forty-five years old 

 when he drove in the stake, and he is living yet to see it after 

 it has developed into a tall Sycamore, twenty-two inches in 

 diameter and as straight as a stove-pipe. 



It is an unusual season when Cannas are blooming out-of- 

 doors in the last days of October, and therefore it is not fair to 

 expect that the earlier kinds of hardy Chrysanthemums will 

 always do as well out-of-doors as they are doing now. At the 

 same time there are few years when we have not many bright 

 warm days in October, so that if hardy Chrysanthemums are 

 covered up for a few bitter nights we may generally expect 

 that they will give good bloom until November. Of course, 

 exhibition blooms can never be grown out-of-doors, but with 

 a proper selection of varieties we can have sheltered spots in 

 our out-of-door gardens gay with the crimson and yellow and 

 white of the hardy Pompons and Chinese varieties. 



During the second week of October there could be seen in 



this city near the Worth Monument, on the Broadway side of 

 the triangle which is encircled by Horse-chestnut trees, one 

 specimen which had done its best to decorate in honor of Co- 

 lumbus. Like most of our city Horse-chestnuts, it had long 

 been almost leafless, clothed only by a few gray and shrunken 

 shreds of foliage. But before the other festivities began it 

 threw out from the ends of several of its branches tufts of 

 fresh bright light green leaves, and even some panicles of 

 blossoms which, while not so large and full as those of its 

 spring-time, had a very odd effect against the background of 

 the sparse wittiered leaves. The fre.'^h leaves and flowers 

 together looked as if they had been tied to the trees instead of 

 growing there in defiance of the seasons. 



One of the most attractive objects in Ventura, California, ac- 

 cording to the The Unit, which is published in that town, is a 

 hedge of Heliotrope two hundred feet long, facing the street, 

 and in the gardens of Mrs. Theodosia B. Shepherd. The walk 

 is three feet below the garden-level, and on the banks above, 

 wires stretched upon low posts support the plants, which now 

 droop down to the walk and stand six feet above it covered 

 with fragrant masses of flowers. The plants were set out five 

 years ago, and all the year their beauty and perfume attract 

 not only the birds and bees, but children passing by fill both 

 hands, and gentlemen and ladies catch a spray for a bouton- 

 niere or a corsage-bouquet, for Mrs. Shepherd says the Helio- 

 tropes belong to the town. In the last week of September the 

 branches were trimmed and the seed gathered. Three men 

 were kept busy for two days cutting, raking, sweeping and 

 sifting. The trimmings were carried away by the wagon-load, 

 and tvventy-five pounds of good, firm seed harvested, and yet, 

 in a fortnight, the hedge will be prettier than ever. It requires 

 trimming three or four times a year. 



In speaking of plants which are in danger of extermination, 

 M. V. Brandicourte, Librarian of the Linnaean Society of 

 the North of France, writes in the Journal of Horticulture 

 that one of the most graceful species of Eucalyptus, E. Alpina, 

 formerly abundant in Mount William, in Australia, would now 

 be unknown had not Baron von Mueller planted the specimen 

 in the Botanical Garden at Melbourne. Psiadia rotundifolia, a 

 tree belonging to the Composilag, some twenty feet high, with 

 heavy naked brandies and small Aster-like dowers, was once 

 abundant in St. Helena. Man and goats have played such 

 havoc with the forests of that island that this species would be 

 reduced to a single individual but for the fact that it has been 

 cultivated at Kew. From the Department of Sonne, in France, 

 some fifty species have already disappeared, or are tending to 

 disappear, those most menaced being plants sought by ama- 

 teurs or horticulturists on account of their gracefulness or the 

 brightness of their flowers, and those which are taken by bot- 

 anists, who sack everything that is rare. Foreign botanists 

 have extirpated even the last living representative of the dwarf 

 Palm (Chamasrops humiiis), which formerly grew in the vicinity 

 of Nice, and an interesting Orchid, Spiranthes Romanzoviana, 

 with a white and exquisitely fragrant flower, has apparently 

 disappeared from the small meadow on the borders of Bantry 

 Bay, in the south of Ireland, which was its only known station. 



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