4o8 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 17, 



"Economic Entomology," gives brief accounts ot the more in- 

 jurious of tlie insects whicli annually destroy perhaps $100,- 

 000,000 worth of the agricultural products of the country, to- 

 gether with the best means of checking their ravages, 

 Throughout the entire work there are abundant references 

 to other books, and there is a valuable classified catalogue of 

 the books needed by the entomological student. The copious 

 glossary and full index adds much to the practical value of the 

 book, and altogether it ought to prove useful as a text-book 

 for schools and colleges, and especially for agricultural col- 

 leges, and it will no doubt encourage a more general and 

 more careful study of the modes of life, the transformation 

 and the structure of insects, than has yet been given to the 

 subject in this country. 



Notes. 



Apple blossoms are nut unknown in autunui, but they are 

 rarely seen in profusion. Mr. Dawson writes that in the last 

 week of September one tree of Pyrus baccata was nearly 

 covered with bloom. 



The experiments made in the cultivation of the Cinchona 

 L>n Mount Bavi, in the French province of Tonkin, having 

 proved entirely satisfactory, it is now proposed to establish 

 large plantations of these trees there. 



The Philadelphia Clirysanthcmum Show, which opens on 

 the 13th and closes on the i6th of November, promises to lie 

 unusually fine, both in cut flowers and specimen plants. The 

 cut Roses at that time will also be finer than are now to fie 

 had. 



The French Society of Acclimatation recommends the cul- 

 tivation of Crocus Haussknechtii, a Persian species for the 

 production of saffron, on account of its superiority over the 

 common C. salivas generally cultivated in some parts of the 

 Levant for this purpose. 



The old Scotch Rose {Rosa spinosissima) is now the most 

 attractive of the black fruited kinds, and the wonderful shades 

 of orange and scarlet worn by the hips ot R. rugosa, R. acicula- 

 ris, R. riibrifolia, R. alpina, R. cinnamoinea, R. siibglohosa, 

 and R. nitida, ought to insure a more general use of these 

 plants for the beauty of their fruit alone. 



Mr. P. W. Reasoner died at his home in Manatee, Florida, 

 of yellow fever, on the 17th of September. Mr. Reasoner, 

 who was only in his twenty-sixth year at the time of his death, 

 was one of the most active and progressive horticulturists of 

 the South, and had already won for himself a reputation 

 which extended beyond the limits of his adopted State. He 

 was a welcome and valued contributor to the pages of this 

 journal. 



We learn from the Gardeners' Chronicle that, under the 

 name of The Orchidcnne, a society of amateur Orchid-growers 

 was founded in Brussels on the 23d of Septeml:>er. The ob- 

 ject of the new society is to foster the taste for, and promote 

 the culture of, Orchids. This is to be effected by meetings 

 and monthly exhibitions, lectures, and by a great annual 

 exhibition, the first of which will be held next spring. Tliere 

 are seventy foundation members in the society. 



The most interesting feature of the horticultural display 

 made in Springfield, Massachusetts, last week, in connection 

 with the Bay State Agricultural Society's Exhibition, was a 

 collection of 250 varieties of Potatoes, including many seed- 

 lings, staged by Mr. G. C. Bond, of Holden, Massachusetts, 

 and raised without other fertilizer than the Soluble Pacific 

 Guano, manufactured by the Pacific Guano Company, of 

 Boston. It is believed that this is the largest and most in- 

 teresting collection of Potatoes ever exhil.)ited by one grower 

 in the United States. 



The interest now taken in the cultivation of new and rare 

 Orchids in this country, and the prices which Orchid growers 

 are willing to pay for them, is illustrated by the fact that deal- 

 ers are willing to incur enormous expenditures to satisfy the 

 demands of the trade. Messrs. Siebrecht & Wadley, of New 

 York, have liad for nearly a year a collector traveling in Brazil 

 for the special purpose of obtaining a supply of the rare 

 autumn-flowering form of Catlleya labiata, besides other 

 collectors constantly seeking for novelties in different regions 

 of Central and South America. 



The great Orchid growing establishment of the Messrs. 

 Sander, at St. Albans, England, of which mention has often 

 been made in our columns, has had a branch establishment 



in this country for the past two years, their business being 

 conducted in Jersey City, under the superintendence of Mr. I. 

 Forstermann. Mr. Sander recently arrived in New York, and 

 has selected a site at Summit, N. J., where he is building a 

 number of Orchid houses. It is his purpose, before returning 

 to England, to visit all the fine collections of Orchids in the 

 western as well as in the eastern States. 



Symplocos paniciilata, a fine Japanese shrub which was de- 

 scribed while in bloom in " Nc>tes from the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum," is now thickly covered with berries in small bunches. 

 The fruit is a bright ultramarine blue, and makes the shrub 

 conspicuous among those which are valued for ornamental 

 fruit. Another comparatively new shrub, /Vjwa.v sessili/olium, 

 is now showing large heads of deep black fruit, which hangs 

 on the branches long after the large compound leaves have 

 dropped. The old-fashioned Snowberry is one of the few 

 shrubs with white fruit. When growing in a deep, rich soil 

 it has a rare beauty in autumn, and is a graceful plant at all 

 times. 



Some excepti(jnally large trees, of which mention was re- 

 cently made in The Garden (England), are ; A Yew tree in the 

 churchyard at Down, which, at three feet from the ground, has 

 a girth of twenty-eight feet, and preserves its branches and 

 foliage well, althougli its stem is hollow and crumbling ; a 

 Purple Beech at Holwood House, which, at three and a half 

 feet from the ground, measures eleven feet, with a height of 

 fifty feet and a branch spread of seventy-five feet diameter ; a 

 Cut-leaved Alder on one of the HoUydale lakes, which has a 

 circumference, at a yard from its base, of six feet and a branch 

 spread of fortv-five feet diameter ; and an Ailanthus (a tree 

 which is not often seen of large size in England) which grows 

 at Down House, the former residence of Charles Darwin, 

 and measures six feet and nine inches at two feet from the 

 ground. A Eucalyptus, which was planted in 1880 in the 

 gardens of Earl Jersey at Baglan House, is noted as having 

 already reached a height of twenty-nine feet. 



No shruli has been more pojjular this year than Hydrangea 

 paniculata grandiflora. It has appeared in every direction, 

 grown in pots and in lieds, in single specimens and in groups 

 often of very great extent, in cottage gardens and on villa 

 lawns, and profusely in almost every large country place. 

 Very showy when in bloom and blooming late in the season, 

 it has certainlv strong claims to the favor it has won. Yet it 

 should, perhaps, be called an effective rather than a really 

 beatitiful plant. To some eyes tlie singular tolor of its flower 

 panicles, shading from cream color to a dull pink, is its great- 

 est attraction; Ijut to others it wears an unwholesome look, as 

 though a tint whicli should be stronger, or, at least, clearer 

 and purer, had been imperfectly developed. This, however, 

 is a question of taste. The only sure fact is that it is very 

 possible to have too much even of a good thing, and that in 

 certain places — as at Newport — there have undoulitedly been 

 too many of these Hydrangeas. In passing a hundred villas 

 it became very tiresome to see a hundred successive clumps 

 of so conspicuous a plant. 



At a meeting of the Social Science Association, held in Sara- 

 toga during the first week ot September, a paper was read by 

 Dr. Lucy M. Hall, of Brooklyn, on "The Sanitary Condition of 

 Country Homes." Sixty-five farm-houses of an average type 

 had been carefully examined by the speaker in the New Eng- 

 land, Middle and Western States, and the conclusions drawn 

 from her survey are well worthy of note, both by the farmer, 

 who lives in such homes all the year round, and by the inhab- 

 itant of cities who depends upon them to furnish himself and 

 his family with refreshment for mind and body during the 

 summer months. Over half these houses. Dr. Hall asserted, 

 were built on wet clay soil, and it seldom appeared that any 

 regard whatever had been paid to ciuestions of subsoil and 

 drainage. Fifty-five per cent, of the houses, again, were too 

 closelv shaded, sunlight being excluded from almost all their 

 windows or from every one. Piazzas were likewise too exten- 

 sive, their roofs still further excluding air and light. Nor had 

 the character of sliade-trees been more carefully considered 

 than their number and proximity. Barns and stables were 

 found in much too close connection with the house, their 

 average distance being in New England not quite twenty-nine 

 feet. The result of all these various ways of disregarding 

 sanitary conditions was shown by the "clinical history" of 

 these sixty-five farm-houses for a period of several years. 

 Fifty-five per cent, in New England had a record of typhoid 

 fever, and ninety-three per cent, of lung troubles and diph- 

 theria, while rheumatism was everywhere. 



