588 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 250. 



ground, known as Gordon Park, should be given to the city 

 of Cleveland under certain conditions. Mr. Gordon was a 

 great lover of plants and flowers, and during his life his pleas- 

 ure-grounds were freely open to the public on stated days. 



For the purpose of awakening and increasing the interest in 

 aquatic plants, and in Water Lilies particularly, Mr. W. W. Lee, 

 of Northampton, Massachusetts, offers to send to any sub- 

 scriber of Garden and Forest, photographs of Nymphsa 

 dentata, N. gigantea and Victoria Regia Randi, all natural size, 

 at cost and expense of sending, and also a large photograph 

 of a pond containing a Victoria Regia and many tender 

 aquatic plants in flower. 



A writer in the Gardeners' Magazine describes an old tree 

 of the Gloire de Dijon Rose in the garden at Blake House, near 

 Taunton, England, which was budded on a brier-stock thirty- 

 two years ago. The stem at eighteen inches from the ground 

 is ten inches in circumference, and it is of standard form, five 

 feet six inches high. The branches have a circumference of 

 twenty-four feet, and the vigorous plant still blooms abundantly 

 until late in the autumn, and shows no evidence of exhaustion. 



At the Chrysanthemum Show in San Francisco last month, 

 one of the features was a " petal-guessing contest," for which 

 a premium of $50.00 was offered by the Sherwood Hall Nursery 

 Company. A large bloom of the variety known as " Prince " 

 was set up on a black mounting so that its outlines could be 

 distinctly seen, and visitors crowded around to try for the 

 prize. More than 6,000 votes were cast, and the bloom was 

 estimated to contain all the way from 120 to 10,000 florets. 

 The actual number was 512. 



Rev. Edward Everett Hale thinks that much of the eager 

 talk in English prose and poetry about the beauty of hedge- 

 row flowers is due to the fact that the rows are so high that 

 one who walks or even rides between them in a carriage can 

 see nothing else. In a guide-book made for pedestrians, 

 travelers are especially directed in one place to look out for a 

 gate, through which they can catch a glorious view of the sea, 

 which, for two miles or more on either side, is screened from 

 view by the high hedge. 



M. H. Correvon, Director of the Jardin Alpin d'Accli- 

 matation, Geneva, writes to the Gardeners' Chronicle that 

 he has received from the mountainous regions of Servia and 

 Montenegro several interesting plants which have not been 

 introduced into cultivation. One of them is Chrysanthemum 

 cinerariaefolium, which has large and beautiful flowers and 

 long-stalked leaves, double-lobed. Another is Alyssum re- 

 pens, from Mount Durmitor, where it was collected at an eleva- 

 tion of 6,000 feet. It is a dwarf-spreading species, with yellow 

 flowers, which surpass in beauty those of most other Alys- 

 sums. From the southern Caucasus, at an altitude of 2,000 

 feet, comes a beautiful Foxglove, Digitalis ciliata, which re- 

 sembles D. grandiflora somewhat, and is an erect, graceful 

 plant, which tlowers freely from June to September. 



It is said that the portions of Russia which are now stricken 

 with famine are in the region of the black soil, which has 

 always been considered one of the most productive portions 

 of Europe. If this is true, the evil is, without doubt, largely 

 the result of the same wasteful cultivation which has been go- 

 ing on in some of our own prairie soils. But, perhaps, the 

 deforesting of the country is responsible for some of the diffi- 

 culty. The destruction of the forests is spoken of with great 

 positiveness as the cause of the famine by many observers, 

 and although it is the fashion to exaggerate the influence of 

 forests on climate, or, at least, to speak of their influence with- 

 out knowledge, nevertheless it is quite probable that the forest 

 which once protected the fields from hot winds in summer, 

 and from equally destructive winds in winter, may have done 

 much to mitigate what would otherwise be a rigorous climate. 



Dr. Hoskins sends us a photograph of a Willow-tree which 

 stands in Waterbury Centre, Vermont, near the base of Mount 

 Hunger, with a trunk measuring twenty-four and a half feet in 

 circumference and a symmetrical top which shades an eighth 

 of an acre of ground. One who knows the early history of the 

 Willow testifies that in 1840 it was a tree something like six inches 

 in diameter, which had grown from a walking-stick driven 

 into the ground a few years before by some children. In that 

 year it was cut down deep into the ground in the hope of kill- 

 ing it, but it started a new growth, and has reached its present 

 dimensions in fifty years. The rapid growth of the Willow in 

 favorable localities is well known, and Dr. Hoskins writes of 

 another near his home which sprang from a cane carried by a 

 returning soldier in 1866, and thrust into the soil in his door- 

 yard. It is now more than four feet in diameter, with an im- 



mense top, and bids fair, at an equal age, to reach the dimen- 

 sions of the one before spoken of. 



The unpacking, sorting, repacking and forwarding to all 

 parts of the world of dried figs occupies more than half of the 

 laboring population of Smyrna during five or six months of 

 the year. Consequently the arrival of the first consignment 

 of the fruit from the orchards is a great popular event, called 

 " The Feast of the Figs." This year the harvest was magnifi- 

 cent, anda very joyous manifestation took place at the railway- 

 station when the first train arrived, with its cars wreathed with 

 garlands and its locomotive covered with flags. The barrels 

 were quickly unloaded and placed on camels decorated with 

 ribbons and flowers, and the procession started for the em- 

 porium, followed by a great crowd dancing to the sounds of 

 music, and the evening was given up to concerts, balls and 

 rejoicings. 



The second part of Mr. Romeyn B. Hough's novel publica- 

 tion, Atneriean Woods, is quite as valuable as Part I., and we 

 are glad to know that Parts III. and IV., each containing sec- 

 tions of twenty-five species, will b'e issued before the close of 

 the year. These wood-sections are beautifully mounted, and 

 they display the soft tints and delicate lines of the grain in a 

 very interesting way. The slices are so thin that the light pass- 

 ing through them reveals many points in the structure of the 

 wood which would otherwise escape notice, and as they are 

 cut in three directions, across the grain and with it, and show 

 both the heart-wood and sap-wood, they are very complete 

 and instructive. With the specimens comes a pamphlet of 

 text containing much accurate botanical and general informa- 

 tion in reference to the trees. The collection ought to be in 

 every public school and library in the country, and it would be 

 an ornament to any parlor-table. Specimens of the woods are 

 also mounted for use in stereopticons in slides of standard 

 size, which show a circular field two and three-quarters inches 

 in diameter. Mr. Hough's address is Lowville, New York. 



Mr. L. Eugene Mouline, of the Department of Ard^che, in 

 France, has invented a plan for drying potatoes. They are 

 first crushed, after which the water is squeezed out. The 

 compressed pulp is then separated into pieces and put into an 

 oven, moderately warmed, where it remains until it is thor- 

 oughly dry and has taken on a light yellow tint. The temper- 

 ature is high enough to impart an agreeable flavor to the 

 product, but not high enough to completely transform the 

 starch into dextrine. This new article of commerce, which 

 can be kept an indefinite length of time, has been called tor- 

 refied potato-pulp. It can be used in a raw state for fattening 

 domestic animals, and can be converted into a puree for 

 human food by boiling water. It is also ground and made 

 into a light yellow flour, which is mixed with wheat or rye 

 flour and baked into a bread, which is very digestible on ac- 

 count of the partial conversion of the starch into dextrine. 

 According to La Nature, the inventor hopes that this flour will 

 be found advantageous from an economic point of view, and 

 that its introduction will cause an increase in the cultivation 

 of potatoes, which will be sufficient during years of drought 

 to make up for a deficiency in the crops of cereals. 



An act was passed at the last session of the Ontario Legisla- 

 ture which forbids the spraying or sprinkling of fruit-trees 

 while they are in bloom with any mixture containing Paris 

 green or other substances poisonous orinjurious to bees. This 

 legislation is based on the belief that bees are important fac- 

 tors in the production of fruit by helping on the process of 

 fertilization, and that spraying the fruit-trees while they are in 

 blossom will work injury to the fruit-growers as well as the 

 bee-keepers, since it has been observed that since the intro- 

 duction of the practice of spraying during the time that 

 orchards are in bloom large quantities of bees have perished, 

 presumably of poison. It is held, too, by some men, that 

 honey produced from blossoms which have been sprayed 

 with insecticides is a dangerous article of food. It is also ar- 

 gued that it is a waste of material and labor as well as of fruit to 

 spray the trees while they are in blossom, since the plum cur- 

 culio is not likely to be present to any extent [until the fruit is 

 set and the coddling moth also deposits its eggs in the blos- 

 som end of the young apple just after the fruit is set. That 

 portion of the pistil upon which the pollen falls is exceedingly •. 

 tender and sensitive, and it is held by some authorities that ■{ 

 the application of such substances as Paris green injures it to ' 

 so great an extent that the process of fertilization is affected 

 and the development of the fruit checked. A bulletin just 

 issued by Professor Panton, of the Ontario Agricultural Col- 

 lege, upholds the law as in accordance with the teaching of 

 science, and hopes that efforts will be made to have it thor- 

 oughly enforced. 



