June 27, 188S.] 



Garden and Forest. 



215 



is still attended with great expense and many serious 

 discomforts. Every year, however, adds new species 

 to the Florida flora, and new facts relating- to the range 

 of Florida plants, especially of those of West Indian 

 origin. Our correspondent can render a real service 

 to American botany by carefully exploring the west 

 coast from Cedar Keys to Caximbas Bay, which, as he 

 suggests, is, so far as the plants are concerned, the least 

 known part of Florida. This is now one of the best botani- 

 cal fields in the country in the prospect it offers for new 

 species, or species new to the United States. — Ed.] 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Many years ago a nurseryman in Nebraska had his 

 stock devoured by grasshoppers and failed to pay us. Two 

 years ago last autumn he wrote us that he had a very large 

 stock of Green Ash seedlings that were very fine, and that he 

 would load a car with 250,000 of them in exchange for his 

 note that we had held for over ten years. 



The trees were dug early in November, 1885; they were 

 longer than usual in transit. Our bool<s sliow that we paid the 

 freight November 38th, but as our freight bills are not paid 

 until the latter part of each month, this does not establish the 

 exact date when the plants were received. 



Mr. Geo. EUwanger called on us in June, 1886, and was sur- 

 prised to see nearly 100,000 of these trees piled up in bundles 

 of 200 trees each, covering a space about eight feet long', 

 six feet wide and about three feet deep in one corner of our 

 frost-proof packing shed. We sent Mr. EUwanger a bundle 

 from the same lot of trees in the spring of 1887, after they 

 had lain another year undisturbed. This was a greater sur- 

 prise than ever, and to surprise him even more than last 

 year, we send him another bundle to-day by mail from the 

 same ]iile, thirty-one months from the time the plants were 

 dug. No earth or other material has touched them during 

 these tliirty-one months, except the earth fioor and a quantity 

 of forest tree leaves laid over them when they were placed 

 in the packing house in November, 1885. 



We send you also a package from the same l(if. The wide 

 doors have been left oiien this cold, backward spring, and I 

 see the buds have started. I have had the doors closed and 

 directed our packer to send you a package from the same pile 

 next May. ' Robo-t DougLis. 



Waukegan, 111. 



[The plants have been received from Mr. Douglas. They 

 are in excellent condition ; the wood is perfectly fresh and 

 healthy, and the buds are all alive. We do not recall a 

 case of arrested vitality prolonged during so many months. 

 -Kd-] 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — When we consider the large number of horticultural 

 magazines, seedsmen's catalogues and other sources of horti- 

 cultural knowledge, it is difficult to account for the popular 

 misinformation concerning the names of plants, the manner 

 of tlieir propagation and reproduction, their habits and their 

 uses. This ignorance is not by any means confined to the il- 

 literate. Cultivated people in city and country seem rcadv to 

 believe any absurdity relating to plants, and to accept any 

 name that is given them, as genuine. More surprising still, we 

 find the daily newspapers circulating the most absurd state- 

 ments, as, for example, we are told in a certain Boston daily 

 that "a horticultural novelty is a Peony which has caught the 

 hue, shape and perfume from a Rose which overshadows it." 

 A leading New York newspaper gravely gives its readers the 

 following information relative to floral fashions : " Pink and 

 yellow are the favorite colors this season, the Bowarria or Paris 

 pink being especially popular." The following item has been 

 going the rounds of about all the papers in the country : 

 "Seedless raisins are obtained by burying the end of the vine 

 in the ground when the Grape is half ripe. This prevents the 

 formafion of seed and the full development of the fruit, but it 

 ripens all the same, and has a delicious flavor." 



Such nonsense would be laughable if it were not disgraceful. 

 In no other department of a daily newspaper would such 

 ridiculous blundering be tolerated. Each paper has its musical 

 critic who can pick oratorios and operettas to pieces without a 

 slip of the pen. Articles are written on fashions in dress, 

 where the reporter trips through Youghal lace, guipure and 

 appliquf? withovit ever a misstep. The papers would not dare 

 to' publish under these heads any such stuff as they do regard- 

 ing horticultural and floral matters. 



It would seem that the horticultural and floral interests in 

 this country are large enough now to insist upon greater accu- 

 racy when matters of interest to them are reported. There is 

 no good reason why information of this kind should not be as 

 carefully prepared as that relating to dress, music, the drama, 

 or any other department of society news. 



If the horticultural press would treat these misstatements 

 and blunders with the prompt ridicule which they deserve, I 

 believe that a much needed reform would soon be effected. 



Boston. Williaii! y . Stewart. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — If your correspondent who recently wrote of the Norway 

 Spruces in the Central Park would visitGreenwood Cemetery I 

 think, he would find new occasion for complaint. All tbrough 

 the cemetery half-dead Spruces injure that effect of successful 

 care and vigorous life which, without them, would be so satis- 

 factory. And it they seem obtrusive in the park, even apart 

 from their unhealthy condition, such is still moi'e the case in 

 the cemetery, where they have been planted in the most inap- 

 propriate and inartistic way among groups of fine old native 

 trees. Yet they look worse, perhaps, along the approach to 

 the main entrance. Here a long row to the right of the road 

 lift their thin, spindling, black and decaying forms close in 

 front of some Ifourishing Silver Maples. As the Maples are 

 there, the Spruces are unnecessary. They are already injuring 

 the growth of the Maples, and the dreariness which they give 

 to the scene is anything but desirable in a cemetery approach. 



Brooklyn, June ist. hot-Owut'r . 



Periodical Literature. 



The Book Buyer for June opens with an article by Miss Edith 

 Thomas called "Pleasant Ways Through Wood and Field," 

 which is worthy of its attractive title. It is a good example of 

 those little "prose poems" with Nature for their subject, to 

 the grownig nniltiplicity of which we have already referred as 

 among the happiest signs that the American people is redeem- 

 ing itself fronr the old reproach of being a people without true 

 sentiment, keen appreciafion of beauty, or delight in the 

 " unimproved" works of God. 



Lippincotf s Magazine for May contains a pleasant anony- 

 mous article entitled "Among My Weeds," in which the 

 author tells how she turned a " barren bit of eartn on the top 

 of Meridian Hill, near Washington, into a delightful spot, simplv 

 Ijy helping Nature to do the work in her own wav. The 

 existing "crop of stones " was removed from the surface and 

 piled into heaps and a crop of ruddy Sorrel immediatelv ap- 

 peared. Then Raspberry bushes were encoin'aged to grow 

 along the fences and arotmd the heaps of stones. Wild flow- 

 ers sprang up and a very little attention brought them to 

 beautiful development. Mullein-stalks grew twelve feet tall 

 and showed unsuspected charms of line and color, and " decent 

 treatment " made of a Pokeberry a bush ten feet in height, 

 " laden with berries that would make at least a barrel of blood- 

 red ink." The writer tells with pardonable pride of the way in 

 which passers-by stopped to admire her "weed garden," and 

 her charming account of it should give comfort and inspira- 

 tion to those who think they must hire a gardener and exhaust 

 a florist's catalogue if the surroundings of even the simplest 

 country home are to be redeemed from barren nuditv. As 

 she truly says, the weeds of one country are often florists' 

 favorites in another; and the lesson of her article will be re- 

 inforced if the American reader will glance through the pages 

 of those English trade catalogues where so many of our 

 despised roadside and pondside weeds are recommended as 

 both easy to grow and very beautiful when grown with a little 

 care. 



Notes from the Paris Horticultural Exhibition. 



ONE of the striking features of the excellent exhibition this 

 year was the tuberous Begonias. M. Robert, of \'esinet, 

 had a wonderful collection of these plants, which have re- 

 ceived so much attention in France. The flovvers, both single 

 and doulile, were very large, and the colors were superb, 

 ranging through every shade of red, pink, orange and yellow, 

 as well as the purest white. A group of eleven hybrids of 

 Begonia Bex and B. Diadeina demonstrated in a remarka- 

 ble way the possibilities with these plants. The collection 

 of Roses- was large, embracing about three thousand plants. 

 Among the Tea Roses, Charles Levdque, Simset and Mar- 

 quise de Viviens attracted the most attention, wliile Cap- 

 tain Christy, among the hybrids, led off, with Madame de 



