28 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 14, 1S8S. 



any rate, is not the way to make March door-yards less bleak. 

 Rather may we spend the same money in planting mixed and 

 somewhat crowded thickets, here of high and there of dwarf 

 bushes, along the fences and close about the house. To clothe 

 the nakedness of the ground and of the fences and buildings 

 should be our aim. Large trees, such as our suburbs are 

 sometimes full of, cannot do this, neither can scattered speci- 

 niens of smaller sorts, neither can sparse, stalky shrubberies ; 

 we must set our bushes thickly, so as to hide the dirt beneath 

 them, and we must either carry the grass under them as far 

 as possible or else cover the bare earth with trailing plants. 

 This done, our yards and grounds will appear well furnished 

 and sheltered, and no coming March will ever chill us as this 

 present month has done. iVIoreover, when summer comes, 

 we shall find we have e.xchanged our Geraniums for banks of 

 foliage set with a succession of flowers which are much more 

 interesting and will bloom season after season. Where house- 

 lots are small and it is desired to spend a comparatively small 

 amount on each, the neighbors could form clubs and secure 

 plants at wholesale rates; but under any circumstances the 

 cost of such planting is liy no means so great as to excuse us 

 from attempting it. 



Boston, March, 1888. C/ldr/i'S tJlot. 



California Christmas Flora. 



A FTER twenty successive winters on the northern shore of 

 -'^ Monterey Bay, Cal., 1 may claim the privilege of saying 

 something about our Christmas flora. 



The winter season of this region is not so clearly defined as 

 in more northern latitudes. The leaves of our deciduous trees 

 forget to loosen and fall, and almost imagine themselves 

 evergreen. And indeed some of them have carried their 

 imaginings so far as to retain, ofttimes, the old leaves until the 

 new ones are fully grown. 



At Christmas time, however. Nature has called a halt. Some 

 of the spring buds that were caught in the dry season, which 

 begins about the middle of June, have expanded with om- fall 

 showers and have bloomed regardless of the season, so that 

 at the close of the year there is often a profusion of many kinds 

 of flowers — wild as well as cultivated. They are the arrear- 

 ages of the past season, and not the beginning of the coming- 

 year. 



Some years ago the editor of a horticultural journal request- 

 ed me to make a list of wild flowers in bloom on January ist. 

 I found about forty species. Since that time I have noticed 

 that a majority of our native plants are liable to bloom at that 

 season ; first, from delayed buds on account of the dry sea- 

 son, and second, from premature spring buds forced out by 

 thewarm early rains and the mildness of the season. This is fre- 

 quently noticed in Pear and Apple trees — they being strang-ers 

 to our climate, seem to lose their reckoning and send forth 

 flowers out of the proper season — although such a phenome- 

 non occurs at times in more northern regions and away from 

 the sea coast. 



.So many, then, of our plants, both native and introduced, 

 may be found blooming at Christmas-time, that a list would be 

 very long. In fact, there are but few which niiglit not be found 

 in bloom in favorable years and localities. 



Consequently we have at Christmas, and later. Strawberries, 

 Raspberries and sometimes other small berries. Grapes grow 

 and ripen until that time ; Tomatoes likewise. Most of the table- 

 vegetaliles are young and tender even throughout the entire 

 winter. Some tropical trees, and those brought from south of 

 the equator, take on an active growth. And even early in 

 January some of our indigenous plants send forth their flow- 

 ers, especially those in warm, sheltered places, such as the 

 Willows, Alders and Hazel. One Willow {Sa/ix flavescens) is 

 quite a surprise in' January, when the trees, bearing staminate 

 flowers, are usually out in full glow, like beautiful yellowish- 

 white clouds, on the brushy mountain sides. A Lily (Scoliopus 

 Bigelovii) to be found in bloom must be sought in January ; 

 and many times have 1 wondered where and when the flower 

 might be found, until I discovered it thus eariy in the season 

 and before its beautifully spotted leaves were fairly expanded. 

 The growth of our marine flora is similar to that of our land 

 plants at Christmas-time. If storms have not raged severely 

 we flnd many nice specimens of young plants in vigorous life 

 and maturing fruit. And the "moss-gatherer" is "often well 

 repaid by the collections made at this season. The tempera- 

 ture of the sea is not much below that of sinnmer ; and but 

 for the storms, vegetable lite in ourliay would continue almost 

 uninterruptedly all the year. 



A little further along and the accounts for the past year 



are all balanced, and new leaves are opened for the new 

 year. This change takes place at February ist. That is our 

 true beginning of spring. As the days grow longer the heat of 

 the sun is stored in the flelds and mountain sides, to be ra- 

 diated during the clear nights, and the growth of vegetation 

 advances slowly but surely to its culmination in May and June. 

 The opening of spring flrjwers, however, is not as rapid as in 

 the Northern States. With our cool nights and not very warm 

 days, they come forth coyly, until quite sure that the earth has 

 passed the tossings of Taurus and the stings of Scorpio. Then 

 in May the lingering, bashful, yet beautiful flowers that slept 

 over the Christmas-time, gladden the hearts of all lovers of 

 these, the most lovely of Nature's gifts. 

 Santa Cruz, Cal. C. L. Audersoii, M.D. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



.^oiKlon 



Letter. 



Our flower markets make just now a beautiful display with 

 forced flowering bulbs especially. Every market-garden around 

 London is a flower show in itself. I went through one of the 

 largest yesterday. I was astonished at the brilliant scene. 

 One house a hundred yards long was filled with nothing but 

 Tulips, mostly single sorts, the favorites being scarlet, yellow- 

 edged, Due Van Thol, also the white, rose and yellow Van Thol. 

 These make up the bulk, and of double sorts which are not 

 popular in the market, the leading varieties in this nursery 

 were the Tournesols, scarlet and yellow. To give some idea 

 of the Tulip trade alone I may mention that one grower 

 forces nearly 200,000 bulbs. They are packed in shallow 

 boxes as closely as they can be laid and covered with light soil. 

 When the buds are ready to burst the bulbs are either potted 

 four or five together, with ferns, or the flowers are cut and sent 

 to market. Another house was filled with Lilies-of-the-Valley 

 also in flat boxes, the finest German crowns be'ng preferred to 

 English, as they throw longer spikes. The best strain of the 

 flower in the market is the Victoria, which is controlled by a 

 grower in the Thames Valley, where this particular sort grows to 

 a great size. The spike is longer, the bells larger and the foliage 

 more robust than in the common kind. Throughout the 

 winter till Lilies-of-the-Valley flower outside, a lucrative trade 

 is done in London with these flowers, which are/ar excellence 

 the favorite for button-hole bouquets. In this same nursery I 

 remarked the great abundance of the old white Azalea, repre- 

 sented by old plants that had done duty for-yearsand had been 

 liacked every year to the bare stem. Of course the plants 

 were unsightly, but they were part of the working capital of 

 the concern and yielded abundant and profitable blooms. 



Yourianious Lillu//i I/arrisii, or, as it is commonly called here, 

 the Bermuda Lily or Easter Lily, is becoming very popular 

 among the market people. They cannot, however, get 

 enougli of it at their price. A ship load of bulbs could easily 

 find sale about our London market-gardens. I saw a grower 

 the other day who makes a specialty of L. longiflorum, of 

 which L. Harrisii is, of course, only a more floriferous and 

 dwarier variety, and of Calla -Ethiopica (Nile Lily we call it), 

 expressly forCovent Garden market on Eastereve, April ist. He 

 grows thousands of each and this represents much capital. His 

 aim is to get them in flower on March 31st to the day. He does 

 not want to be made an April-fool, so he has to watch the ba- 

 rometer. Last week was Italian weather — sunny and warm — 

 and he had to put the temperature down ; this week is Labra- 

 dor weather, with frost and snow ; he must put it up again or 

 his blooms will not open when wanted. His struggles with 

 our climate are rather comical to the looker-on, but the matter 

 is a serious one to him from a business point of view. 



The Orcfiid men are just now sharply watching their flowers, 

 especially those on imported plants that have not yet bloomed 

 in this country. They anxiously await the opening of every 

 spike, for often a plant bought for a crown at auction, by a 

 .peculiar arrangement of its flower spots or a deepening of its 

 color bevond the ordinary, will bring ^50. Some time ago 

 it was said that Orchids were declining in popular favor, but 

 the contrary is the case. New buyers may be seen at the auc- 

 tions, men who never grew any plant in their green-houses 

 rarer than a Scarlet Pelargonium, and they are turning out 

 everything to give place to the popular favorites. This ex- 

 plains how such enormous Orchid establishments as those of 

 \'eitch, Sander, Bull, and Williams are kept going. But not only 

 are the growers paving increased attention to Orchids, but 

 botanists are influenced by the fashion (I was going to say 

 craze). At Kew one of the assistants at the Royal Herbarium 

 has been detailed specially tor the work, which, however, is 



