May 30, 1SS8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



157 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



I'l'llLISHl'.n WEEKLY IIY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducled bv 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, i? 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF. 



EulToRlAl. Articles : — An Important Literature. — Balcnnv Flower Boxes. — 



Note 157 



Climate of tlie Prairies Fra/,-ssm- J. L. Btidd. 15S 



Fnngus Diseases of Insects Fro/essor ]V. G. Farl^w. 159 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IViUiaiit Goldrhi^s:- 159 



A Garden in Slianc^Iiai J. E. JL. 160 



New ok Little Known Plants : — Heiiconia Cliocuniana (with illusti'ation), 



Sereno WatEon. 161 



CuLTUKAi. Department : — A List of Roses John N. May. 161 



Polyantliuses Wi^iiani Falconer, 161 



Viola cuciillata — Tiilipa Kaiifmanniana — Cereusgrandiflorns — Rose Prin- 

 cess Beatrice — Odontoglossuin Harryanum 163 



The Rock Garden in Spring C 163 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum J. 165 



The Forest : — A New Jersey Pine Forest (with illustration) C. S. S. 166 



Correspondence 1 66 



Recent Publications 167 



Periodical Liter.ature 168 



Recent Plant Portraits 16S 



Notes 16S 



Retail Flower Markets : — New York, Philadelphia, Boston 168 



Illustrations : — Heiiconia Choconiana, Fi.g. 31 162 



A New Jersey Pine Ftirest 16.) 



An Important Literature. 



THE admirable report of the Connecticut State Board 

 of Agriculture for last year, wliiclr has just been re- 

 ceived at this office, calls to mind the rapidity with which 

 literature of this sort is accumulating. Many of tliese 

 volumes contain papers of permanent value, prepared by 

 experts in various lines of investigation, in all depart- 

 ments of practical agriculture, horticulture and forestry, 

 and in the sciences related to them. Besides these, many of 

 the states publish reports of horticultural societies, of ex- 

 periment stations, of forestry meetings and of otBcial en- 

 tomologists and botanists. To these official documents 

 issued by the state must be added the publications of viticul- 

 tural associations and of a national association of horticul- 

 turists, one of nurser3'^men, another of florists, and another 

 of seedsmen, not to mention the reports of the venerable 

 American Pomological Society. In Wisconsin, where 

 a thoroughly organized and competently conducted 

 system of farmers' institutes is held every year, the cream 

 of the discussions, covering the entire range of rural eco- 

 nomy, is gathered into an interesting volume and issued 

 at public expense. Every year the number of these pub- 

 lications increases, and they keep pace in quality with the 

 advancing intelligence of their readers on all the subjects 

 treated. Most of them are published in large editions, 

 which are distributed gratuitously, so that almost any one 

 who may desire to do so can collect a good-sized library on 

 practical horticulture and agriculture at a trifling cost. 



Of course the various papers in these publications are of 

 unequal value, and the secretaries do not always edit them 

 as carefully as they would if the books were sold on their 

 merits. This means that much chaff is included with the 

 wheat, and at times the reader grows wear}r, and wishes 

 that the winnowing had been done for him. Very plainly 

 the value of these official documents could be increased 

 and their expense diminished if their contents were more 

 carefully selected. This evil increases as the volumes 

 multiply, and unless some heroic reform is soon begun, the 

 articles of real value will be buried at last under such a 



mass of inferior matter that the)^ will be practically lost. 

 And this difficulty is increased by a lack of proper indexing. 

 The compilers are not paid adequately for the work of careful 

 editing and complete indexing, so that the student finds what 

 he most wants only by laborious searching or by lucky 

 accidents. 



The increase of experiment stations under the law creat- 

 ing one in every state, and the fact that periodical bulletins 

 are required from all of them under the statute, will swell 

 the volume of this literature until it literally burdens the 

 mails, inasmuch as it enjo)'s the rare privilege of being 

 carried without postage. Perhaps the first freshet ot 

 these bulletins will have small value. Ver}' little work of 

 genuine worth can reasonably be expected of an experiment 

 station before there has been time and adequate prepara- 

 tion for experiments. It may be added that little instruc- 

 tion can be looked for from these institutions unless they 

 are officered and manned by skilled observers, trained to 

 habitual accuracy. Indeed, it is not improbable that crude 

 teachings, advanced with the presumption and assurance 

 that always accompany superficial work, ma)'' in occasional 

 instances do more harm than good. It is too e"\'ident that 

 until there are in this countr)' more men of scientific train- 

 ing who are available for work of this kind, the stations 

 will be inefficiently conducted. It must be assumed, on 

 the other hand, that the work, and as a consequence the pub- 

 lications of these stations, will rise in value until they con- 

 tain each year a body of doctrine that cannot be neglected 

 by students or by practical tillers of the soil. The obvious 

 suggestion is that at some office of central authority these 

 current reports should be collected, collated and classified. 

 A periodical statement in condensed form of the conclusions 

 reached at the various station?, if it were accurate and au- 

 thoritative, could not fail of being useful. For popular 

 reading it should be translated as far as possible into sim- 

 ple language and should be unencumbered with technical 

 details ; it should be edited and annotated in such a way 

 that ordinary readers could distinguish and separate what 

 had been actually proved from what was only probable or 

 still in controversy, and the practical bearing of the scien- 

 tific investigations recorded should be plainly set forth. 

 At a meeting of representatives of the various agricultural 

 colleges and experiment stations held last October, the 

 necessity of some co-ordination of effort among these in- 

 stitutions appeared so evident, that a committee was ap- 

 pointed to consider this among other subjects ; but so far 

 as we are advised, no plan for editing the bulletins has been 

 perfected. 



The national Department of Agriculture is the natural 

 place where a compilation of this kind should be prepared 

 in connection with the work of its own di\'isions of chem- 

 istry, entomology, pomology, botany, forestry, and myco- 

 logy. The Commissioner himself should be a man of 

 recognized scientific attaiinnent, or at least he should 

 have such a known appreciation of the value of special 

 training that he would be selected without question as the 

 proper person to organize this bureau for gathering up the 

 scattered and incomplete work of the state stations, for 

 ■ systematizing and unifying it, and for publishing its results 

 in a coherent form. Unfortunately the men who have 

 filled this office could not always be trusted to supervise a 

 labor of this sort; but perhaps the influences which have 

 impelled Congress to create the stations may avail to secure 

 hereafter the selection of a chief who will be accepted by 

 all as equal to every duty imposed upon him. IMeanwhile the 

 horticultural, agricultural and other reports are multiplying, 

 and they already contain many papers that students would 

 like to read if they only knew where to find them, ^^'ould 

 it be a work unworthy of the Department to have made a 

 full, topical index of all these reports up to date '> It would 

 seem that the stores of experience locked up in these vol- 

 umes was worth enough to justify the trouble of providing 

 a key. Such an index could not fail of being helpful to every 

 one engaged in special research in any direction and in any 

 iiortion of the field of agriculture, horticulture or forestry. 



