6i8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 253. 



with hastate foliage, marked with white blotches and well- 

 developed spathes of a beautiful chrome-yellow color. It 

 will have to be very much superior in habit and in the 

 size and color of its spathes to either of its parents, if it is 

 to rival, as some say it does, the two fine yellow kinds 

 named R. Elliottiana and R. Pentlandii. Still another new 

 Calla, named R. Nilotica, is offered by a French nursery- 

 man, and is described as having- white and red spathes. 

 The tubers, which were "collected on the banks of the Nile," 

 are quoted at five francs each by M. Letellier, of Caen. 



London. W. WatSOn. 



Cultural Department. 



The Formation and Care of Lawns. 



AT the late meeting of the New Jersey Horticultural 

 ^_ Society, a paper on this subject was read by Mr. 

 George C. Woolson, in which he explained the method of 

 establishing a sward of pure Grass which has been devel- 

 oped by Mr. J. B. Olcott and the Connecticut Experiment 

 Station. Mr. Woolson explained that, no matter how care- 

 fully the ground is seeded on the old plan, the weeds will 

 come up more thickly than the Grass, and all the season 

 long much time will be needed in digging out Dock, Plan- 

 tain, Rib-Grass, Canada-Thistle, and other perennial weeds 

 which will flourish luxuriantly in a soil which has been 

 properly prepared for lawn grass. This preparation of the 

 soil is made by deep and thorough cultivation, so that the 

 roots of the Grass can penetrate in time of drought to damp 

 soil, enriched with well-rotted manure at the rate of 

 forty to fifty tons an acre on poor soil, and a thorough 

 fining of the surface with a short-toothed harrow or a steel 

 rake. The same preparation is needed for the new system 

 which Mr. Woolson proceeded to explain and to illustrate 

 by his own experience, as follows : 



A perfectly pure sod of a very fine variety of Rhode Island 

 Bent Grass, Agrostis alba, is selected and divided into single 

 plants of one or two spears, and these are set out in rows 

 nine inches apart and nine inches between the rows, or at the 

 rate of sixteen plants to a square yard. These plants are 

 pressed firmly into the soil, and afterward the whole surface 

 is rolled with a hand-roller. All the care required afterward 

 is to keep out every weed, and especially plants of white clover. 

 A small bayonet hoe of a peculiar pattern is used for this pur- 

 pose. In from three to four months the ground is entirely 

 covered with a short, very thick mass of grass resembling 

 that of a long-piled carpet or fur rug. Durjng the summer 

 an application of from two hundred to four hundred pounds 

 of nitrate of soda to the acre, applied in three or four sowings, 

 will give the plants a fresh start and cause them to assume a 

 bright green hue. If these directions are carefully carried out, 

 there will be no need of weedy lawns and the general com- 

 plaint that grass cannot be made to grow under the shade of 

 trees. 



On the 24th of May, 1891, I set out, along with fifteen other 

 sorts of selected grasses, a patch of the improved Rhode Island 

 Bent Grass, and in three months the plants had spread 

 and grown solidly together, so thickly, in fact, that there was 

 no chance for a weed to obtain a foothold. Again, on the 

 14th of May, 1892, I set out a larger area, ninety-five feet long 

 and twenty-nine feet wide, which was performed by three 

 men in one day, at a cost not exceeding five dollars. A por- 

 tion of this last plot was planted under the shade of a large 

 Hickory-tree, with but little expectation that it would do any- 

 thing more than barely live. In four months, these plants 

 had, in nearly all places, run together and formed a very thick 

 turf of the softest and deepest green I had ever seen, and even 

 under the thickest shade the only difference visible was that 

 here the turf was shorter, showing tliat the tree had taken 

 from the soil a part of the nourishment provided for the grass. 

 To-day, on examination, I found that the runners of the grass 

 had grown closely up to the trunk of the tree and even in 

 between the large roots wliich were exposed at the base. This 

 grass, during the past summer, was not cut, and showed but 

 very few flower-stalks. The past summer has been one of 

 unusual dryness, in fact, the driest I have known in twenty- 

 two years, and, as the grass-plot received no artificial water- 

 ing, it shows conclusively that it will stand a severe drought. 



In August I concluded to try another experiment, and so 

 set out a plot of fifteen by nine feet, where from four to six 



inches of coal-ashes had been thrown, first, of course, digging 

 the plot over to loosen the mass and the soil below the ashes, 

 which, by the way, was very poor. This plot grew continu- 

 ously, from the time I set it out, and withstood the hot August 

 and September suns to which it was exposed during the entire 

 day. On September 14, though the drought continued,! set out 

 still another plot, ninety-five by twenty-nine feet, but this time 

 setting the plants six inches ap'art each way, thinking that they 

 would stand a better chance of living. From September 14 

 until the latter part of October less than one inch of rain fell, 

 and now the individual plants have grown to a diameter, in 

 riiany cases, of four to five inches, and should the winter con- 

 tinue open will have nearly covered the ground. 



The cost of tending the plot of ninety-five by twenty-nine 

 feet, the past summer, has amounted to not over one dollar 

 per week, while on adjoining plots, sowed with Red Top and 

 Kentucky Blue Grass, the growth of weeds has been enormous 

 and required heavy ouflay for labor, and even now there are 

 ten Plantains to every spear of Grass. The whole secret seems 

 to lie in clean cultivation at the outset, as a week's work at that 

 time and a few hours each week for the first summer will 

 accomplish what constant labor could hardly bring about in 

 after years. 



Rhode Island Bent Grass, as usually seen, has long runners, 

 with the plants far apart, while in the variety spoken of here 

 the plants cover the entire runners and show no naked stems. 

 Whether this special form of Bent Grass will succeed in Cali- 

 fornia and the southern states remains to be seen, and more 

 extended experiments will be required to settle this. I believe 

 it will pay for farmers to adopt this method of putting down 

 their Grass-fields in some localities where labor is not too ex- 

 pensive. A ready market could be found for pure Grass-seeds 

 at much higher prices than those which now rule. If we 

 wanted a peculiar variety of Rose or Chrysanthemum, Apple, 

 Grape or other fruit or flower, we should not think to perpetu- 

 ate it by raising it from seeds taken from any of these plants, 

 and we are simply carrying out the same system of grass for 

 our lawns. 



I found the action of nitrate of soda beneficial on my own 

 lawn, but any good commercial fertilizer, bone-dust or sheep- 

 manure, will probably do as well, and thus render a top- 

 dressing of stable-manure unnecessary. If the expense of this 

 plan appears too great to warrant the undertaking, it should be 

 remembered that the outlay all comes at the start, and is 

 really less than what is required to make a fair lawn after the 

 first season, while the final results are altogether superior. 



r 



Outdoor Cultivation of European Grapes. 



N 1851 Downing said that "the introduction of the foreign 

 ^ Grape into this country for open- vineyard culture is impos- 

 sible. Thousands of individuals have tried it; the result in 

 every case has been the same — a season or two of promise, 

 then utter failure." It was then believed by our viticulturists 

 that "in the vicissitudes of climate of the North American 

 continent there is something mysteriously hostile to the Vini- 

 fera-vine." 



This opinion had to be modified after the successful cultiva- 

 tion of V. vinifera in California, which proved that Downing's 

 judgment might be correct only as it applied to the eastern 

 states. Here the European Vine has persistently failed to 

 thrive. But a few years ago special reasons for this failure 

 were discovered, and not in any mysterious peculiarity of our 

 soil or climate, but in the prevalence of two nearly invisible 

 depredators which are peculiar and native to the eastern re- 

 gions of North America. One of these foes to the Vine is an 

 insect. Phylloxera, or Grape-louse ; the other is a fungus, the 

 Peronospora viticola, or Grape-leaf mildew. 



It will be noticed that since the introducfion of these two 

 pests into Europe and into California these regions threaten to 

 become also unfavorable to the open-vineyard culture of the 

 Vinifera Grape, and this proves that soil and climate have not 

 all to do with the difficulty in question. In Europe this Vine 

 has flourished in health for hundreds of years, and probably 

 might have continued to do so had it not been for the introduc- 

 tion from America of these enemies. In southern New Jersey 

 twenty years ago all of the varieties of our native Grapes grew 

 and fruited in perfection. It was then thought that here the 

 soil and climate were especially suited to a successful viticul- 

 ture. These conditions are in no respect altered, and yet now 

 it is evident that all of our so-called hardy native Grapes are 

 doomed to failure in open-vineyard culture unless defended 

 against attack of these pests, which formerly were either un- 

 known or unnoticed. 



Fortunately for the future of European viticulture, and of 



