576 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 249. 



About $4o,ooo,cxx) is paid every year in Germany for tlie 

 creation and preservation of forests ; 200,000 families are sup- 

 ported from them, while sometliinp; liUo 3,000,000 lind employ- 

 ment in the various wood industries of (he empire. The total 

 revenue from the forests amounts to $14,500,000, and the cur- 

 rent expenses are $8,500,000. 



Monsieur H. Correvon, Director of the Alpine Garden of 

 Acclimatization at Geneva, who is doing so much to rescue 

 Alpine plants from extinction, has issued the prospectus of a 

 monograph on hardy Orchids. The work will be illustrated 

 by numerous engravings and will be furnished at the low 

 price of three and a half francs. 



Last week we spoke of a new Chrysanthemum which re- 

 ceived the prize as the best pink at the Philadelphia show 

 under the name of Magnet. This name has already been 

 given to one of Mr. W. K. Harris's seedlings, which was dis- 

 tributed by H. Waterer, and the new Chrysanthemum has 

 therefore been named J. J. Cliffe. 



The agricultural experiment stations of the various states 

 published last year, in addition to their annual reports, 225 

 bulletins, which were mailed to 340,000 addresses. In this 

 way 35,000,000 pages of reading-inatter were distributed 

 among the people of the country, and a great part of the same 

 matter was still more widely spread by the newspapers which 

 quoted it. 



A touching old rural custom still prevails in the western 

 parts of France during the harvest-season. On the edge of a 

 held bordering the highway a sheaf of grain is left standing, to 

 which all the peasants of the village contribute, and which is 

 called " the stranger's sheaf," as it is the property of the first 

 tramp or otlier homeless wayfarer who may care to carry it 

 away and profit by its price. 



One of the famous White Oaks of New Jersey stands in the 

 Presbyterian churchyard at Basking Ridge. It measures four- 

 teen feet four inches in circumference at five feet high, while 

 the branches shade a circle 115 feet in diameter. It has been 

 a famous tree for more than a century, and it was, no doubt, 

 a noble specimen in 1730, when the log-church was built on 

 the ground where the present one now stands. 



Professor B. D. Halsted,of the New Jersey Agricultural Col- 

 lege, has prepared samples of the seeds of one hundred spe- 

 cies of Anierican weeds in metal-capped vials, which are 

 arranged in four rows of twenty-five each in a tray, each vial 

 in its own pocket and with a printed label. On the inside of 

 the tray is a label giving a list of the hundred weeds with their 

 botanical and common names in the order of the families to 

 which they belong. The usefulness of such a set of seeds 

 ought to be evident, since by means of it the foul seed in 

 commerce can be readily identified. The sets were particu- 

 larly made up for experiment stations and seedsmen, and one 

 of them is sold complete for $10.00. 



The oldest horticultural association in Europe is the Royal 

 Society of Agriculture and Botany of Ghent, established in the 

 year 1808. Its annual exhiljitions are always of great interest, 

 and every five years it holds international exhibitions, the thir- 

 teenth of which is announced to open on tlie i6th of April next 

 and to close on the 23d of the same month. No less than 660 

 classes of exhibits have been determined upon, associated in 

 twenty-six great groups ; and the prizes will be of unusual 

 value, chief among them being the Queen of Belgium's prize, 

 a large gold medal, for " twenty-five different species of hot- 

 house plants in flower," and the King of Belgium's prize, a 

 similar medal, for " the most varied and meritorious collection 

 of 100 exotic Orchids." 



Monsieur Ledain, the director of an agricultural school in 

 Brittany, has asserted that moles may be poisoned by means 

 of live earthworms which have been sprinkled with mix vom- 

 ica. The worms, he says, should be collected and left in 

 peace for twenty-four hours to disgorge the earth they have 

 swallowed. Then they should be put in a jar and sprinkled 

 with the drug in the proportion of thirty grains to a saucerful 

 of worms. "Twelve hours later they will be ready for use ; 

 and then they should not be touched with the fingers, but 

 taken up with little wooden pincers and put at the entrance of 

 the mole-galleries, being covered with clods or bits of tile in 

 order that the mole may not be alarmed either by a current of 

 air or a ray of light. 



The Proceedingsof the Convenfion of the Society of American 

 Florists last year, at Washington, have been published in an 

 instructive pamphlet of 170 pages, of which about fifty are 



taken up with a review of new plants. The plants mentioned 

 are by no means new, many of them, indeed, having been well 

 known for a long time. The value of the review lies in the 

 fact that it is made up of contrilnitions from several different 

 men, each one of whom gives a list of the class of plants with 

 which he is familiar. Each one, too, has named such plants 

 as seemed to him worthy of mention, together with brief de- 

 scriptions. Of course, these descriptions vary in merit and the 

 lists vary in range, so that there is little unity in the review. 

 Although it is not so valuable as it would have been if it had 

 been edited or compiled by a single person, and upon a defi- 

 nite plan, it is yet very interesting and has considerable per- 

 manent value. 



An English horticultural journal recently recommended, as 

 a novel manner of ornamenting dinner-tables, that branchlets 

 of Birch should be thoroughly wetted and then whitened by 

 being thickly sprinkled with ilour, that these should be grouped 

 in a central pot, and that flowers treated in a similar way should 

 be dispersed about on the table. Le Jardin and another 

 French journal have quoted this advice with approval, saying 

 that such snowy decoration must produce a very cool and 

 pleasant effect, especially in hot weather. But to an unsophis- 

 ticated transatlantic taste they sound almost as inartistic and 

 quite as inexcusable as flowers dyed to an unnatural color. 

 Surely foliage and blossoms encrusted with white paste cannot 

 make a really beautiful effect, while in the hottest weather 

 there can be nothing more cool and pleasant to the eye than 

 arrangements of naturally white blossoms, or even of delicate 

 sprays of green leafage, accompanied by no flowers at all. 



About five tons of the seed of a yellow Onion are annually 

 produced in the state of Oregon. The yield varies with the 

 soil and season, and the presence or absence of mildew, which 

 is the only disease, so far, to which the crop is subject there ; 

 but an acre will yield on an average 500 pounds. In harvest- 

 ing, the heads are cut off separately and let fall into baskets, and 

 when tliese are full they are emptied into sacks which are 

 placed upright at suitable distances apart. When filled the 

 sacks are conveyed to drying-sheds, and the heads are spread 

 thinly on platforms that are raised above each other, six or 

 seven high, wdiere they remain for a week or two till nearly 

 dry. They are then taken into the sunshine and spread on 

 large cloths for a few hours, when they are ready for thresh- 

 ing. Threshing is usually done by barefooted horses on a 

 tight floor, and the seed is winnowed out through a mill and 

 afterward washed in clean water, so that the light seed can be 

 skimmed off and removed. The heavy seed is then taken out 

 of the water, dried quickly to prevent sprouting, fanned once 

 more, and it is ready for market. 



A recent number of the Revue de V Horticidtitre Beige de- 

 clares that at the exhibition of the Royal Agricultural and 

 Botanical Society of Ghent, which was to open on the 13th of 

 November, an interesting surprise would be presented to 

 lovers of Chrysanthemums. " Inspired, it seems," says the 

 writer, " by the example of processes in vogue in China, an 

 amateur of Ghent, Monsieur Alexis Callier, has grafted Chrys- 

 anthemums on Anthemis frutescens, and the result he has at- 

 tained is so extraordinary that this mode of culture will revo- 

 lutionize the world of chrysanthemophiles. To-day we will 

 simply cite a few facts, promising more detailed information 

 after the exhibition opens. The variety Val d'Andorre, for in- 

 stance, which was grafted in February, has attained a height of 

 five feet eight inches, while its head is six feet eight inches in 

 diameter and bears 380 budding shoots. An Etoile de Lyon, 

 with a head five feet in diameter, shows 150 budding shoots. 

 A variety with large white flowers, grown from seed by Mon- 

 sieur Callier, measures about seven feet in height, and is like- 

 wise a mass of buds ; and a Paul Fabre will carry not less than 

 300 of its bright red, brilliant blossoms. This variety was 

 grafted in April." 



Catalog'ues Received. 



Orange Judd Co., New York ; Rural Books. — Harlan P. Kelsey, 

 Highlands Nursery, Linville, Mitchell County, N. C; Wholesale offers 

 o£ Native North American Ornamental Plants. — Wm. Parry, Parry, 

 N. J.; Small Fruit Plants, Fruit, Nut and Ornamental Trees. — F. S. 

 Phcenix, Bloomington, 111.; The Lincoln Pear. — Pitcher & Manda, 

 The United States Nurseries, Short Hills, N. J.; Selected Novelties of 

 Chrysanthemums. — Reasoner Brothers, Royal Palm Nurseries, 

 Oneco, Fla. ; Tropical, Semi-tropical and Hardy Fruit and Ornamental 

 Plants. — Frederick Roeiier, Quedlinburg, Germany; Novelties in 

 Flower Seed. — Mrs. Theodosia B. Shepherd, Ventura-on-the-Sea, 

 Cal. ; Wholesale Trade List of New and Rare Seeds, Bulbs, Plants and 

 Cacti. 



