July ii, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



239 



to top, B. nitida alba, nearly as larg^e, with flower clusters as 

 large as a man's hat, and B. Rex in many varieties, in eight- 

 inch pots, with such a massive growth that I could not clasp 

 hands around them. In this house the wire trellis on the 

 back wall was covered with Smilax, which filled the air with 

 the delicate odor of its flowers. A fine plant of Clei-odendron 

 Thomsoiics in a border at one end is intended to take the place 

 of the Smilax, and an immense BoKgaiiivillea glabra grows 

 enormously, but has not yet bloomed well. The intention is 

 to root-prune it and build a wall across the border, so as to 

 confine its roots and insure its being kept dry in winter. If 

 this is done it will probably next spring make an object worth 

 going" a journey to see. 



I will not take space to write of the Allamanda, Bignotiia 

 venusia and other old-fashioned plants that were flourishing 

 in roomy quarters, but it occurred to me that the skill of the 

 true gardener was shown as effectively in producing noble 

 specimens of common, though beautiful, plants, as it would 

 have been in coddling a vast and crowded collection of dimin- 

 utive novelties. 



Albemarle County, Virginia. f^f . F. JM, 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — To the " Notes from the Arnold Arboretum," in Gar- 

 den and forest for May 30th and June 6th, permit me to 

 add a few comments from a Western standpoint. 



While the description of the fruit of Ribes alpinum as "large, 

 handsome, scarlet, insipid " will apply perfectly to the wild 

 mountain form, it does not describe the cultivated varieties 

 found in gardens throughout eastern Europe. At the agricul- 

 tural college near Moscow, Mr. Gibb and I found large planta- 

 tions of Dwarf Juneberry, and adjoining them quite as large 

 plantations of red and black varieties of Ribes alpinum. The 

 fruit of the Currants was nearly as large as that of the June- 

 berry, and we thought superior to it in sprightliness and flavor. 

 We have distributed some of the cultivated varieties found at 

 Moscow, Orel and Varonesh, Russia, and shall expect reports 

 in the near future. 



Ribes aurcum makes a handsome and more fragrant shrub 

 at the West than in the moister air of New England, but we 

 have a variety which is stronger in growth, handsomer in 

 foliage and flower, and, we think, better in quality of fruit than 

 the species. This we received from Dr. Fischer, of Varonesh, 

 as Ribes pahnatiim. 



Bush Honeysuckles are, as a rule, at home in our climate. 

 Lonicera chrysantha, L. Xylosteum, L. nigra, L. Ruprectia7ia 

 and the named varieties of L. Tartariea, such as splendens 

 speciosa, grandiflora rubra, grandiflora alba, bicolor, luteo- 

 virginalis, etc., are specially fine in habit, and flower on our 

 grounds. It may be of interest to note that some of the sup- 

 posed varieties of the common Tartarian Honeysuckle seem 

 to be derived from a fixed and distinct type of the species 

 found in east Europe. To illustrate : We received from Pro- 

 fessor Sargent in 18S0 a packet of seed of L. splendens. From 

 these we have grown over one hundred seedlings. While they 

 vary in color of flowers from pure white to all shades of pink, 

 the habit of growth, expression and shape and color of the 

 leaves closely resemble the L. splendens. This, joined with 

 the fact that we met with varieties like the splendens in habit 

 of bush and size and color of the flowers, will favor our idea 

 that all of our named varieties of the Tartarian Honeysuckle 

 are not derived from the same primitive forms. 



The primitive form of the flowering Almond of Siberia 

 flowers with us profusely very early in the spring, and the 

 blossoms seem to endure a temperature several degrees be- 

 low the freezing point. Last spring they were loaded with 

 beautiful pink blossoms in March when water near them was 

 covered in the morning with ice half an inch thick, yet the 

 flowers showed no trace of injury, and the bushes were well 

 loaded with Almonds, from which we now have growing 

 plants. We also have a pure white variety of the Siberian 

 Almond that is almost perfectly double. These are valuable 

 in the parts of the West where the common garden varieties 

 do not stand the winters. J . L. Biidd. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest ; 



Sir. — The discussion of the alleged poisonous properties of 

 the Ailanthus in a recent number of Garden and Forest 

 calls to mind a circumstance that fell under my observation in 

 northern New York. It was decided to remove an Ailanthus 

 which stood near a dwelling, on account of the popular preju- 

 dice against the tree, and for the same reason it was found 

 difficult to find a man who would undertake the job. Finally 

 one was engaged and he spent a day in cutting the tree down, 

 commencing among the branches. At night his hands and 



face began to swell, his eyes became closed, and for several 

 days he was confined to his house suftering severely. 



The sap of the Ailanthus is probably as poisonous as that of 

 the poison Oak and poison Elder, which belong to the same 

 alliance. If this is so, it is reasonable to suppose that the pol- 

 len of all three affects certain persons in like manner. I knew 

 a person to remove from a certain locality where Rhus venen- 

 ata was abundant, on the advice of a physician, because at the 

 season of its blooming he was always attacked with violent 

 symptoms of Rhus poisoning. In Virginia and neigliboring 

 States the Ailanthus runs wild in old fields. 



Jacksonville, Fla., June nth, 1SS8. A. H. Curtiss. 



Periodical Literature. 



In Longman' s Magazine for June will be found an article by 

 Mr. Frederick Boyle which is in some sort a continuation of 

 the one on Orchids to which we called our readers' attention 

 some weeks ago as having been published in the same perio- 

 dical. This time Mr. Boyle's title is " An Orchid Farm," and 

 the place to which it refers is the establishment of the Messrs. 

 Sander at St. Albans not far from London — the largest and 

 most famous establishment for the importing, growing and 

 selling of Orchids in the world. The author modestly con- 

 fesses that no words can give a full idea of it, much less a 

 distnict picture of the treasures which it contains. Yet his 

 words certainly give us a clear general idea of the extent of 

 the place and of the business there transacted, and a brilliant 

 if necessarily vague sketch of the surprising charms of its con- 

 tents. These, in so far as beauty and variety go, will be easi- 

 ly imagined by all who are familiar with Orchids, yet the 

 masses in which they are shown are almost inconceivable. 

 When we read of twenty-four successive houses, all of them 

 at least 180 feet in length and the narrowest 32 feet in breadth, 

 some given over to the sorting of new arrivals and the earlv 

 stages of cultivation, but most of them filled with growing- 

 plants, we begin to realize the exactness of the word "farm" 

 as Mr. Boyle applies it. And when he speaks of one house 

 devoted almost entirely to Odontoglossum crispum in which 

 twentv-two thousand pots have been counted, and of another 

 300 feet in length which he saw filled full of Cattleyas and 

 allied genera all in bloom, we begin to see why he hesi- 

 tated over an attempt at description. Many such facts as these 

 he gives us, together with startling computations as to the 

 value of the contents of this or that house and the magnitude 

 of the orders constantly received and immediately filled. He 

 also describes how the immense consignments of plants from 

 all quarters of the globe are daily received and dealt with — 

 amid manifold dangers from lurking scorpions, centipedes 

 and poisonous ants — and traces some of the processes of cul- 

 tivation. And then he notes some of the more remarkable 

 individual plants which the establishment contains. A Lalia 

 alba, for example, which he saw, bore 211 blossoms, and a bas- 

 ket of Lcrlia a7iceps measured three feet across. A mass of 

 Catasetum was lying ready to bloom just as it had been 

 brought from a Guatemalan forest — four feet by three in dia- 

 meter and eighteen inches thick ; and a Cattleya Mossiez me&s- 

 ured, in solid bulk, not including its leaves, five feet in height 

 and four feet in thickness. This, a single plant and not a 

 group, is said to be the largest Orchid ever brought to Europe, 

 it grew on a tall tree near the hut of an Indian, whose private 

 property it was and who long refused all offers to purchase it, 

 but finally succumbed to the attractions of a beautiful rifle 

 added to those of a large sum of money. Following his Or- 

 chids into their native haunts, Mr. Boyle speaks of the regard 

 in which they are held by the South American Indians aiul of 

 the way in which they garland their lonely forest churches 

 with thickets of bloom, any one of which would be a treasiu-e 

 to the European amateur. But it is impossible here even to 

 hint at all the entertaining facts which Mr. Boyle has inter- 

 woven with his account of the famous "farm" at St. Albans. 

 After all, however, much as we may admire Orchids, there 

 are other things which more nearly touch our hearts, and a 

 perusal of such an article as Mr, Boyle's affects us somewhat 

 as does a long stay in the hot-houses where they grow— we 

 are glad to feel a breath of fresh air again, and rest 

 our eyes on the simple greens of the temperate zone. Fortu- 

 nately Longman's Magazine affords the reader a chance to do 

 this, for following upon the Orchid article we find one 

 called " In the Woodlands" by the Rev. M. G. Watkins. It has 

 not the poetical flavor of many similar articles which appear 

 from month to month in our own magazines, but is very 

 charming none the less in its glances at the woods and flow- 

 ers of England ; and here and there it gives proof of a more 

 acute perception of the artistic properties of trees than the 



