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Garden and Forest. 



[Number 251. 



graciually to the east. The old Box-borders of the flower-beds 

 liave long since overgrown the walks which they once fol- 

 lowed, and are now great hedges, indicating still the landscape- 

 gardener's plan as it originally existed." And of the Brice 

 House we read: "The drawing-room is unusually beautiful, 

 and commands an outlook over the entire garden." These 

 extracts hint at the fact that the most important rooms do not 

 lie, as we so often find them to-day, contiguous to the en- 

 trance. The street-front of the house contains the windows of 

 the minor living-rooms and offices, while the state drawing- 

 rooms and dining-rooms lie at the rear, facing the gardens, with 

 windows and doors opening sometimes on stately porticos 

 and sometimes directly upon the lawns and commanding the 

 beautiful water-views. There is much instruction for the 

 modern builder of detached houses in this varied series of 

 beautiful pictures and their accompanying text, and they leave 

 us convinced that much more would be afforded by an actual 

 study of the town itself. Indeed, as we finish the article, we 

 cannot but believe the author when he says : " Annapolis may 

 still be called ■ the finished city,' and those who love her quaint 

 old streets, her well-shaded gardens and her dark red walls of 

 brick, can see in them something which no other city in this 

 land affords." And, regretting that his city has been so long 

 neglected in favor of others less worthy of attention, we are 

 doubly grateful to him for thus bringing it to our notice. But 

 now we wish that some adept in the art of gardening would 

 follow in Mr. Randall's footsteps and speak as fully of the sur- 

 roundings of the old homes of Annapolis as he has spoken of 

 the houses themselves. 



Notes. 



Professor Budd says that sheep are not as a rule destructive 

 to orchards, but, on the contrary, they are efficient in keeping 

 down insects. They only eat the bark of trees when the bark 

 is the only obtainable green thing. 



A Louisiana correspondent of the Florida Times- Union 

 states that Citrus trifoliata is very satisfactory there as a hedge- 

 plant, making an impenetrable barrier against man and beast, 

 and occupying less space than one- of Osage Orange or the 

 Cherokee Rose. 



Among the supplies now found in New York markets are 

 strawberries from California at $1.75 a quart, Black Hamburg 

 grapes from English hot-houses at $2.50 a pound, hot-house 

 tomatoes from Boston at $1 a pound, new chicory from 

 Louisiana at 20 cents a head, and fresh string beans from 

 Florida for as much as customers can be induced to pay. 



Dr. B. D. Halsted, of the Experiment Station at New Bruns- 

 wick, New Jersey, is preparing a paper on diseases of the Car- 

 nation, to be read before the next meeting of the American 

 Carnation Society, and he desires all persons who have any 

 trouble with rusts or blights of that plant to send him affected 

 specimens, so that he may be able to treat the subject as com- 

 prehensively as possible. 



Dr. H. D. Warren, State Ornithologist of Pennsylvania, is 

 preparing an exhibit of the fauna of that state for the Chicago 

 Exposition. The foundation for this exhibit is the section of a 

 mountain-side thirty-five feet long, twenty feet deep and 

 eighteen feet high, and among the trees and undergrowth 

 natural to an Alleghany forest-scene the birds and animals 

 will be displayed in life-like positions and with their natural 

 environment. 



Mr. D. Nichol writes to the Canadian Horticulturist \hiX the 

 White Pine grows more rapidly on poor land in Canada than 

 any other coniferous tree. He instances mixed plantations 

 where White Pine trees have grown to be fifty feet high in 

 twenty-two years, with every tree as straight as a mast, and this 

 growth has been attained on poor land without any cultiva- 

 tion beyond thinning out the trees as they grew large and 

 clearing away decayed under-branches. No other kind of 

 forest-trees does so well when grown so closely. 



Eulalia gracillima univittata is one of the mostgracefulof the 

 noble hardy grasses, and its beauty and usefulness in the gar- 

 den have become well known. It does not seem to have been 

 noted that its ripening stems and leaves in autumn take on 

 fiery brown tints, so that bold clumps of it are luminous ob- 

 jects in the garden till winter sets in. This coloring is peculiar 

 to this variety, the other kinds simply fading out as they ripen. 

 Like other Eulalias, this is furnished with the plumes which 

 are the most graceful of those borne by any of the grasses. 



The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture has issued 

 another edition of the descriptive catalogue of abandoned 



farms, from which it appears that of the 339 farms originally 

 advertised fifty-one have been sold, the owners of twenty-two 

 others wished to have the description withdrawn, 178 owners 

 wish the description continued, while there are eighty-eight 

 farms from which nothing has been heard. But few of the farms 

 disposed of have been taken for summer residences, the 

 greater number of purchasers being Massachusetts men. The 

 farms sold averaged 88.35 acres each, and brought altogether 

 $75iS50i or an average of $1,480 each. 



A writer in the Southern Stock/nan says to test the ripe- 

 ness of a Water Melon, the thumb-nail should be drawn over 

 it so as to scrape off the thin green skin. If the edges of the 

 skin on each side of the scar are left ragged and granulated, 

 and the rind under the scar is smooth, firm, white and glossy, 

 the melon is ripe. If the edges of the scar are smooth and 

 even and the nail plows into the rind in places and the skin 

 does not come ofT clean, then the melon is green. Two 

 melons, one known to be ripe and the other green, should be 

 taken and this test practiced on them until the difference is 

 plainly observed. 



After his address on orchard fruits, delivered before the 

 Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture a fortnight ago, 

 Mr. J. H. Hale, who is perhaps the most successful grower of 

 peaches in New England, replied to a volley of questions from 

 his auditors. The off-hand answers were quite as good as the 

 address, and we add a few of them. Peaches should be fed 

 with chemical fertilizers only. We apply every year all we can 

 afford, that is, about 1,200 pounds of bone and from 400 to 800 

 pounds of muriate of potash to the acre. Tod much is better 

 than not enough. Sulphate of potash gives the best color to 

 peaches, but cotton hull ashes is perhaps a better form of 

 potash. Yellow-fleshed peaches have more tender fruit-buds 

 than other kinds. We shorten in the new wood from one- 

 third to one-half in the spring when the fruit-buds begin to 

 swell. We can get a good peach crop with 90 per cent, of the 

 buds winter-killed. After the fruit is set for a full crop we thin 

 until there are no two peaches within from four to six inches 

 of each other. This is a costly treatment, but it pays. The 

 extras sell for six times as much per peach as the seconds do, 

 and they do not exhaust the tree as much. The finest fruit 

 this year came from fourteen-year-old trees. An elevated plain 

 is not as good for a Peach orchard as a hill-side with a sharp 

 decline. The fruit should be fully mature, but not mellow, 

 when it is picked. Pickers are trained to judge ripeness 

 by color. Peach-orchards should not be cultivated after the 

 middle of July. 



John Strong Newberry, professor of geology in Columbia 

 College, died last week at Windsor, Connecticut, in his seven- 

 tieth year. Professor Newberry was born in Windsor, Con- 

 necticut, in 1823 and was graduated from the Western Reserve 

 College in 1846 ; then, after studying medicine at the Cleve- 

 land Medical College, he devoted two years to travel and study 

 in Europe, and later established himself as a physician in 

 Cleveland. In 1855 Dr. Newberry, in order to gratify his taste 

 for science, obtained an appointment as Acting Assistant- 

 Surgeon in the United States Army, and accompanied the 

 expedition under Lieut. R. S. Williamson which explored the 

 territory lying between San Francisco and the Columbia River, 

 acting as surgeon and geologist. In 1858 he was attached in 

 the same capacity to the expedition which, under command 

 of Lieut. J. C. Ives, made the first exploration of the basin of 

 the Colorado River of the west. In 1859 Dr. Newberry ex- 

 plored the country bordering the upper Colorado and San 

 Juan Rivers, and during the war of secession rendered im- 

 portant service to the army as a member of the United States 

 Sanitary Commission. In 1S56 he was appointed professor of 

 geology in the School of Mines, Columbia College, the position 

 he occupied at the time of his death. Dr. Newberry's scientific 

 publications are numerous and valuable. They were principally 

 devoted to geology, and of late years mainly to paleontology. 

 In i860 he published a catalogue of the flowering plants and 

 ferns of Ohio, but his most important contributions to botany 

 are found in the sixth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports, 

 in which is printed his report of the plants collected on the 

 Williamson expedition, with remarks upon the geographical 

 botany of the region traversed, followed by a description of 

 the forest-trees of northern California and Oregon, a paper 

 which contains the fullest and most exact information upon 

 these trees which has yet been published. Professor New- 

 berry's service to botany is commemorated in Newberrya, 

 a genus of leafless Ericaceous plants, dedicated to him by 

 Torrey, which he discovered in the Cascade Mountains of 

 Oregon. 



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