540 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 246. 



Notes. 



In the Palace Gardens at Ely, according to the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, is a Plane Tree which measures nineteen feet 

 around the stem at its smallest part, six feet from the ground, 

 and from the stem to the branches, on either side, fifty feet. 

 It is about one hundred feet high. 



Among the German exhibits at the Chicago Fair will be a 

 mediaeval village, to be built on the Midway Plaisance under 

 the auspices of the Deutsche Bank of Berlin, which will show 

 the rural architecture, the home life of the peasants, and the 

 househokl industries of the selected period. 



We have received from Mrs. Dandridge leaves and fruit of 

 the plant which she had purchased for Eheagnus longipes. It 

 is a Japanese species, which is called in tlie Arnold Arboretum 

 E. umbellala. The fruit has somewhat the flavor of E. lon- 

 gipes, but it is much smaller and matures much later. 



Celastrus articulata, the Japanese relative of our native Bit- 

 ter Sweet, C. scandens, is unusually beautiful this year, per- 

 haps owing to the lateness of the season. Our plant has the 

 advantage in habit, since the flowers appear at the end of the 

 young branches, instead of being sessile in umbels at the 

 axils of the leaves, as in C. articulata, so that the fruit is hidden 

 by the foliage until it falls. The fruit of the native plant, too, is 

 a trifle larger, but just now the color of the Japanese species is 

 brighter tlian that of the other. 



Complaints are heard from all parts of the north Atlantic 

 states about the parching drought. In many cases the springs 

 and wells have dried up, and it is hardly possible that the 

 ground can be well supplied with water before freezing weather 

 arrives. Under these circumstances it will be a trying winter 

 for trees, and especially for evergreens. A casing of frozen 

 earth is impervious to rain, and the water quickly runs off to 

 the streams, leaving the earth about the roots of the trees dry 

 all winter long. As the moisture evaporates from the leaves 

 it cannot be supplied by the roots as it can when the ground 

 is damp, and it is probable that many trees will therefore perish. 



The American Consul-General at St. Petersburg, writing in 

 the North American Review for November, says that at the 

 Chicago Fair the Russian Ministry of Public Domains will exhibit 

 acompletecollectionof the agricultural products of Russia, in- 

 cluding all sorts of fruit, vegetables, cereals, wood, and the prod- 

 ucts of the stone and metal mills, as well as of the fisheries belong- 

 ing to the Government. It is intended to make the agricultural 

 branch of the Russian section as complete as possible, that 

 planters and dealers in agricultural products and implements 

 may have an opportunity to judge from personal observation 

 of the state of Russian farming, especially as to such articles 

 as are exported by both countries. The Department of Ap- 

 panage will exhibit wines in great variety, from the immense 

 vineyards of the Emperor, situated in the Caucasus, Crimea 

 and Bessarabia. 



The stress which is laid in France upon the proper placing 

 of outdoor monuments is shown by the fact that before the 

 monument to the painter Millet, recenfly unveiled at Cher- 

 bourg, was begun the site for it was carefully selected by 

 Chapu, the sculptor charged with its making, aided by Bonnat, 

 the famous painter. The selected spot is at the end of the 

 public garden, in front of a group of ancient trees which cover 

 it as with a dome of verdure, and the monument was evidently 

 designed to fit such a site, as reproductions of it show that it is 

 intended to be viewed only from the front and sides. It con- 

 sists of a tall granite pedestal adorned with branches of Oak, 

 which rise so as to form a sort of background for the base of 

 the white marble portrait-bust which stands on the pedestal ; 

 and at the base of this last stands a peasant-woman's figure, 

 recalling those which I\Iillet so often painted, holding up a 

 child, who lays a Palm-branch at the foot of the bust. 



On the plains of Auvergne, the altitude of which is 300 

 metres, and in almost all the elevated parts of southern France 

 and well into the Pyrenees, may be found a large species of the 

 Composite family, Carlina acanthifolia, a hardy and very orna- 

 mental plant with pinnatifid leaves, a little hairy on the under 

 surface, and bordered with spiny teeth, and with violet-purple 

 flowers which are disposed in a single head. Possessing no 

 stem, the plant lies prone on the ground, with its leaves out- 

 spread, resembles a great Artichoke, and, according to a 

 writer in the Bulletin d' Arboricitlture et Floriculture, of 

 Ghent, it might be utilized for food. Indeed, Monsieur Clos, 

 Director of the Jardin des Plantes at Toulouse, reports, on the 

 authority of Dalechamp, that in the sixteenth century a consid- 

 erable use was made of it in the province of Dauphing, where 



it was considered superior to the artichoke. It was also valued 

 for the table in the Pyrenees and the Lozfere, where a hill-side 

 near Mende was rented for 300 francs a year for its cultivation. 



All persons interested in liotanical science will be glad to 

 learn that the herbarium of Wm. M. Canby, of Wilmington, 

 Delaware, has been secured by the New York College of 

 Pharmacy, and it will, therefore, be in good hands and will be 

 kept together. The $6,000 which was paid for it, according to 

 published statements, will hardlycover the actual money which 

 has been expended upon it, to say nothing of the intelligent 

 work which Mr. Canby has given to it during thirty-four years 

 in traveling, collecting, corresponding and arranging. The 

 number of species in this collection is not less than 26,000, 

 and it may reach 30,000. The number of specimens to illus- 

 trate these species amount to 150,000. Every specimen is 

 properly mounted and arranged in genus covers. The herba- 

 rium has already aided the studies of almost every American 

 systematist of consequence, and specimens have often been" 

 sent to European botanists for their inspection. It has, there- 

 fore, not only already been of extended use, but has had the 

 benefit of supervision by many eminent men. 



A correspondent of the Levant Herald Vfnies that a formida- 

 ble danger threatens the Valonia Oaks of Asiatic Turkey in the 

 shape of swarming caterpillars, which eat off the leaves early 

 in the spring, and therefore destroy the fruit. For many years 

 this pest was confined to small and isolated groves, but during 

 the last four years it has extended its ravages until it prevails 

 among all the Valonia-groves of the plain of Scamander and 

 neighboring localities. The injury done to the trees is serious, 

 and the yield of acorns is reduced in quantity and shrunken in 

 size. A few more summers of such an infliction will bring 

 absolute death to the forests. No organized measures for the 

 extermination of this insect have been set on foot, and energetic 

 proprietors who attempt to rid their trees in autumn of the 

 eggs laid by the butterflies are handicapped by the imbecile 

 apathy of their neighbors, who consider it impious to resist 

 ■ what they call a visitation of Providence, and will not stir a 

 finger to help themselves against the pest. Of course, cater- 

 pillars which breed on these infested trees spread to the trees 

 of the man who has been at the trouble and expense of clear- 

 ing away the insects, and defoliate them also. Unless the evil 

 is not eradicated it will seriously diminish one of the staple 

 products of Turkish soil, and the danger is sufficiently alarm- 

 ing to call forth state intervention. If every proprietor were 

 compelled under penalty of a fine to cleanse his trees by the 

 middle of December, a work which does not seem to be very 

 difficult, the pest might be overcome. The acorn-cups of this 

 Oak, Ouercus asgilops, contain much tannin, and thousands of 

 tons are annually exported from Smyrna and other ports to be 

 used for tanning, dyeing and making ink. 



In an interesting article, called "Waste Products Made Use- 

 ful," published in the North American Review for November, 

 Lord Playfair says : "As to perfumes, there are some which 

 are really oils, and others extracted from flowers. There are 

 others which are made artificially, and curiously, most 

 frequentl}^ out of bad-smelling compounds. The fusel-oil, 

 separated out in the distillation of spirits, has a peculiarly 

 nasty and sickening odor. It is used, after treatment with acids 

 and oxidizing agents, to make the oil of apples and the oil of 

 pears. Oil of grapes and oil of cognac are little more than 

 fusel-oil largely diluted. Oil of pineapples, on the other hand, 

 is best made by the action of putrid cheese on sugar, or by dis- 

 tilling rancid butter with alcohol and oil of vitriol. This oil is 

 largely used for making pineapple ale. Many a fair forehead 

 used to be damped with ' Eau de Millefleurs ' without know- 

 ing that its essential ingredient was got from the drainings of 

 cow-houses, though now it can be obtained cheaper from one 

 of the constituents of gas-tar. Out of the latter is also got oil 

 of bitter almonds, so largely used to perfume soap and confec- 

 tionery. . . . Perhaps the most important use of gas-tar is in 

 the manufacture of alizarin, the coloring matter found in the 

 root of the Madder-plant, so extensively used at one time in 

 Turkey-reds and in calico printing. The discovery of its arti- 

 ficial preparation from the waste products of tar has destroyed 

 a great agricultural industry which flourished in Turkey, Hol- 

 land, Alsace and other countries. ... By a very interesting 

 series of transformations one of the constituents of coal-tar 

 has been changed into the coloring matter of indigo. Hitherto 

 the cost of production of artificial indigo has been too great to 

 allow it to take the place of natural indigo, the cultivation of 

 which is one of the staple industries of the East Indies. But 

 its cultivators tremble lest they should find themselves in the 

 position of the growers of Madder by a cheap artificial pro- 

 duction of indigo-blue from coal-tar " 



