564 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 248. 



many commonplace things which seldom receive attention, 

 or, at most,) only passing notice as a general part of the 

 landscape. 



These glimpses at nature are not a little marred by an 

 affectation of archaic and unusual words and phrases. The 

 very first sentence opens impromisingly with " An you love 

 nature," and this is followed by "awreath," " arustle," 

 "ahuddle," "aperch," and many more disagreeable words. 

 This blemish of artificiality is so evident that it inspires the 

 reader at first with distrust of the genuineness of the descrip- 

 tions and comments, and it requires some patient effort to 

 find out the worth of the book. Field-Farings is best read 

 in snatches, and a chapter indoors in winter has something 

 of the pleasant refreshment of a summer ramble across fields 

 and in shady woodlands. 



Notes. 



It is a matter of surprise that the Cape Heaths are not grown 

 more frequently tlian they are. Twenty pots of Erica Wilmo- 

 riana, all evenly grown and well furnished with delicate pink 

 fiovvers, were shown at Madison Square Garden by Louis Du- 

 puy, of Whitestone, Long Island, and were universally ad- 

 mired. 



The National Chrysanthemum Society, of London, have 

 issued a supplement to the customary edition of their official 

 catalogue. It contains a carefully revised list with short de- 

 scriptions of all varieties introduced since the publication of 

 the list of two years ago. This is the standard publication for 

 Chrysanthemum names, and of interest to all growers of these 

 ilowers. 



The Chrysanthemum which was exhibited at the Philadel- 

 phia exhibition a fortnight ago, and for which its originator, 

 Mr. David Cliff'e, received first prize as the best pink flower, 

 has since been named Magnet. The color is described as a 

 cameo-pink, with the inner part of the petals rather deeper in 

 shade. It is an incurved flower, very double, full, and shows 

 no centre. It keeps unusually well, is a flower of the largest 

 size, and has a strong habit and good foliage. 



A horticultural journal published in Ghent says that the in- 

 door cultivation of the Castor-oil plant has been recommended 

 as a protection against the summer plague of flies. " We are 

 told," says the writer, " that if a single small plant is placed in 

 a room, all the flies the room contains will soon be found 

 glued to its leaves, or, assassinated by its juices, strewing the 

 floor in its vicinity. We do not vouch for the truth of this 

 statement, but so simple and cheap an experiment is certaiiily 

 worth trying." 



Changes have recently been made in the plans for the mon- 

 ument to Alphand, the famous landscape-architect, which, 

 immediately after his death, it was decided to erect in Paris. 

 Instead of Monsieur Formig^, the architect first selected to de- 

 sign the n;ioiiument, it will be designed by Dalou, one of the 

 two or three greatest sculptors in France. It will stand in the 

 square called St. Jacques-la-Boucherie, which surrounds the 

 famous Gothic tower of St. Jacques, which was laid out by 

 Alphand himself. 



A correspondent of The Tribune, speaking of certain pecu- 

 liarities of California, states that tropical fruit may be grown 

 in the foot-hill belt along the base of the Sierra Nevada Sloun- 

 tains as far north as the parallel of Springfield, Illinois. Some 

 of the finest Oranges in the state are grown at Oroville, in 

 Butte County, and the Orange-groves are irrigated by old min- 

 ing ditches. Near Auburn, in Placer County, a rancher has 

 fine Banana-trees which produce fruit, and they have no other 

 shelter than a stout hedge. 



In addition to the plants named in another column of this 

 issue as suitable for baskets, Cissus discolor should not be 

 forgotten ; its richly variegated foliage is specially attractive 

 when pendent from a basket. Another point in favor of this 

 plant is tliat it is so easily grown and propagated. Panicuni 

 variegatum, old and common as it is, is a useful plant, and as 

 any small shoot of this grass may be planted with the full 

 assurance that it will root, there is no difficulty in keeping up 

 a stock of it or making up a flourishing and attractive basket 

 at short notice. 



A correspondent of the Monthly Bulletin, of the Horticul- 

 tural Society of Mons, writing recently of the American Red 

 Oak and of the comparisons so often drawn between it and the 

 indigenous Oak of Europe, says that he recently examined 

 trees of both these species growing in a private park in the 



neighborhood of Mons. The Red Oaks, at one metre from the 

 ground, showed an average circumference of one metre five 

 centimetres, while the common European Oaks (Ouercus 

 robur, var. sessiliflora), which stood near by and had been 

 planted in the same year, gave an average of only seventy 

 centimetres. 



The many parks of Berlin, according to a correspondent of 

 the Evening Post, "are almost entirely cared for by women — 

 old women — who wear large black straw hats, sloping down 

 from the crown in all directions, and blue jean aprons. The 

 grass is never raked, but swept with large brooms made of 

 birch-twigs, and the old women go all over it and the gravel 

 walks, keeping both as neat and trim as possible. In the 

 Thiergarten all the fallen leaves and twigs and fagots are 

 promptly gathered, and one never sees even the remotest cor- 

 ner any other way than exquisitely well kept." 



An illustrated monthly paper, called The Whole Family, 

 which has just been started in Boston, will for some time to 

 come devote an article in each issue to " The Parks and 

 Pleasure-grounds of America." In the first number Boston 

 Common was described, and its history — of course, the most 

 interesting history of any of our public pleasure-grounds — was 

 recounted ; in the current number we are told about Druid 

 Park, in Baltimore, which, perhaps, is more natural-looking 

 than any other of equal extent that^we possess ; and both the 

 articles are accompanied by good reproductions of well-chosen 

 photographs. 



Many species of Mesembryanthemums, natives of Africa, 

 the Canary Islands, Australia and other southern regions, are 

 well known in American gardens. But in the south of Europe 

 they are much more extensively employed, and a number of 

 them are almost naturalized, especially in the south-western 

 parts of France. It is interesting to read in a recent issue of 

 Le Jardin that at least one species, M. crystallinum, our fa- 

 miliar Ice-plant, supposed to be a native of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, grows there sub-spontaneously, especially in chalky re- 

 gions, and has been recommended as an article of food. It is 

 to be prepared, we are told, in the same manner as spinach. 



According to the Southern Lumberman it is an admitted fact 

 that Poplar-timber is practically exhausted. Of course, there 

 are tracts where a great many of these trees are still found, 

 but each season will bring fewer logs and of lower quality, so 

 that the lumbermen are looking out for the best substitute. 

 Cotton-wood seems to be the only resource, and the eyes of 

 the lumbermen are now on the delta lands of the Mississippi 

 and its lower tributaries, where there are vast forests of this 

 timber, soft, straight-grained, easily worked, that will answer 

 as a substitute for Tulip Poplar, both for inside and outside 

 use. The timber holds paint well, and when it is kept painted 

 it is quite durable. 



Some years ago artificially colored flowers, as ugly as tliey 

 were ingenious, appeared in our shop-windows. The vogue 

 they enjoyed was very short, for in a few weeks not a speci- 

 men could be found. Last year similar flowers became quite 

 fashionable in London ; and now, we regret to say, they 

 have reappeared in New York. Even the great bunches 

 of Carnations, colored a sickly bluish green, which the window 

 of a florist on Broadway displays, are not quite so offensive as 

 the Chrysanthemums, similar in color, which the street-ven- 

 ders on Twenty-third Street offer. The former look like im- 

 possibly ugly real Carnations, but the latter look like paper- 

 flowers manufactured by some artisan with uncommonly bad 

 taste. 



The most valuable product of the Eucalyptus-trees which 

 are planted in California are the essential oil and certain medi- 

 cal preparations from the leaves. The distilled extract from 

 Eucalyptus, which resembles in its method of production the 

 well-known distilled extract of Witch Hazel, has come into 

 prominence within a few years. It is a concentrated extract 

 from freshly gathered leaves of trees that are at least seven 

 years old, and the older the better. It is used for most of the 

 ailments where the oil has been used, and has the advantage 

 of being cheaper. It has been recommended for headaches, 

 nervous affections, and as an antiseptic it has given good results 

 when applied to fresh wounds, and for inflammation of the 

 mucous membranes and insomnia; for cold in the head and 

 sore throat it is of service, while as a disinfectant it is useful 

 from the fact that, like the oil, it substitutes a pleasant odor for 

 noxious ones. The -oil has an established place in the materia 

 medica, and there is evidently a field of usefulness for the dis- 

 tilled antiseptic. 



