468 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 21, 1888. 



Notes. 



Hill & Company, of Richmond, Indiana, received the leading 

 prize at the Chrysanthemum exhibition at Indianapolis. 



Messrs. Pitcher & Manda, of Short Hills, New Jersey, have 

 lately secured a white flowered variety of Masdevallia Harry- 

 ana — the only plant of the kind known to exist. 



The banquet at the opening of the Chrysanthemum exliibi- 

 tion in Philadelphia last week was pronounced a most enjoya- 

 ble and successful one l;iy the many visitors who were present 

 at the hospitable invitation of the Florists' Club, of that city. 



The Proceedings of the Annual Convention of American 

 Cemetery Superintendents, held at Brooklyn in September 

 last, liave been published in a neat pamphlet. The papers 

 read and the discussions which followed contain much inter- 

 esting information and sound doctrine. 



German horticultural papers note with surprise the number 

 of the florists who attended the recent convention in New 

 York, and with still more surprise the distances over which 

 many of them traveled to lie present, "some of them actually 

 coming three thousand miles " ! According to their witness 

 it was the largest meeting of horticulturists that has ever 

 been held in the world. 



The trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture voted, at a recent meeting, upon the request of 

 Mr. B. E. Fernow, to contribute $100 towards the cost of the 

 exhibit to illustrate the forests and forest products of the 

 United States at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, which the officers 

 of the Forest Division of the Department of Agriculture 

 are preparing. 



We are apt to think that the cultivation and naming of nu- 

 merous varieties of fruits is a comparatively modern practice. 

 But how far from true is this belief may be shown by the fact 

 that between the years 1598 and 1628 Le Lectier, Royal Pro- 

 curator at Orleans and a famous pomologist, collected in his 

 garden 262 varieties of Pears. In 1628 he printed a long cata- 

 logue of fruits, and caused it to be circulated with the request 

 that cultivators would inform him with regard to all varieties 

 as yet unknown to him. 



According to the Illustrirte Garten Ziitung, of Vienna, no 

 less than a hundred varieties of the Beech are known in gar- 

 dens. The most recently introduced variety, called Fagus 

 sylvatica conglomerta Bandrilleri, has twisted, almost rolled- 

 up leaves, and a very short, dense spray. A favorite tree 

 for street and formal planting in Germany is the so-called 

 " Bullet Acacia," which has a tall, straight stem, surmounted 

 by a dense spherical head ; and the new Beech is recom- 

 mended as a good substitute for this Acacia, as it can be 

 grown to a similar shape without the use of shears, its leaves 

 appear earlier in the season, and it often retains them through- 

 out the winter. 



Chrysanthemums of great beauty are sold this year in the 

 streets of Boston in surprising numbers. A bunch of flowers, 

 such as hardly existed in the United States five years ago, can 

 be bought now for fifteen or twenty cents from the itinerant 

 flower-sellers seen in all the most freciuented parts of the city. 

 The improvement of the Chrysanthemum and its growth in 

 popularity is one of the most remarkable and encouraging 

 signs of horticultural development in the United States. It is a 

 question whether this flower does not have a stronger hold upon 

 popular favor in this country than even the Rose. But if this 

 is true, it is only temporary. The Rose has held its own for 

 centuries. New favorites come and go, liut in the long run 

 the Queen of Flowers maintains her supremacy in all lands 

 and among all people, and she will continue to do so. 



Of Winter Apples for market in New England, the Baldwin, 

 Rhode Island Greening and Hubbardston continue to hold 

 supremacy, and last winter the Rhode Island Greening, for 

 some unknown cause, Icept better than the Baldwin. " Pro- 

 fessor Maynard reports, in a late bulletin of the Massachusetts 

 College Station, that the Pewaukee, a seedling of the Olden- 

 burg, possesses all the vigor and productiveness of its parent. 

 The fruit is of good size, striped and splashed with red and 

 covered with a deep bloom. It is a late keeper, of fair quality 

 and has l)orne heavily every year in the college orchard. 

 Sutton Beauty, owing' to its thie flavor, its beauty and its pro- 

 ductiveness, is slowly finding its way into orchards. Its 

 medium size injures it in competition with so popular a variety 

 as the Baldwin. The Red Russet, too, is gaining favor for 

 the vigor and productiveness of the tree and the beauty and 

 long-keeping quality of the fruit. The tree is as sturdy as the 

 Baldwin and the fruit keeps as long as the Roxbury Russet. 



Some exhibitors of Chrysanthemums endeavor to keep the 

 blooms fresh for six or eight days, but to have them in the 

 best condition on a given date they should not be cut earlier 

 than four days before that date. Mr. E. Molyneux states in 

 The Garden, London, that varieties of the darkest shades of 

 color — chestnut, l.ironze, deep lilac and rose — lose their fresh- 

 ness more quickly than the lighter colored varieties, while 

 primrose, yellow and white keep fresh the longest. The be- 

 ginning of decay can best be ascertained by feeling the lower 

 florets. These should be crisp and solid, not soft and flabb}'. 

 The blossoms should be cut when fully developed and with a 

 stem at least twelve inches long, so that a small portion of it 

 can be cut off every day. Place the stem in a bottle of water 

 to which salt has been added in the proportion of a teaspoon- 

 ful of salt to a quart of water. The flowers should be placed 

 in a cool, slightly darkened room having a dry atmosphere. 



The Pomological Institute of Reutlingen, Germany, consists 

 of two branches, a preparatory and a high school. The pro- 

 gramme of studies to be pursued in the high school during 

 the coming winter half-year has just been issued, and is of 

 interest as showing how systematically and thoroughly horti- 

 culturists are trained in the Fatherland. Botany, with the 

 morphology and anatomy of plants; pomology, drawing — 

 each of these is to be studied during four hours each week. 

 Two hours each are to be devoted to vegetable gardening, 

 the theory of horticulture, geognosy and geology, chemistry, 

 the care of woodlands, arithmetic, and the conduct of busi- 

 ness. One hour a week is given to the means of preserving 

 fruit from insect depredations, and the remaining time will be 

 filled by practical work, experimental demonstrations and 

 practice with the microscope. As aids to oral instruction the 

 institute is supplied with model gardens, nurseries, orchards 

 and plantations of small fruits, an arboretum, a forcing-house 

 for fruit, green-houses of other sorls, a rich natural history 

 collection, a large library, and maps, picttu'es, apparatus and 

 models of every kind. 



In spite of the fact that unexpected early frosts some- 

 what injured the Cranberry crop of southern Massachusetts, it 

 is expected to reach greater proportions than ever before. 

 The largest annual shipments are made from the town of 

 Wareham, at the head of Buzzard's Bay, where nearly 18,000 

 barrels were packed last year. One bog in this vicinity covers 

 500 acres. Prices vary much, according to the season, but it 

 is estimated that in a good year a cultivator who understands 

 growing, harvesting and packing his berries may count half 

 his receipts as clear profit. Wisconsin and New Jersey also 

 grow Cranberries in large quantities, the former state some- 

 times producing double the yield of Mas'sachusetts. But 

 owing to the difficulty of protecting the western bogs against 

 frost their yield is very uncertain, having varied during the 

 past few years from as few as 13,000 to as many as 132, 000 bar- 

 rels. In Massachusetts, where innumerable brooks and rivers 

 traverse the Cranberry districts, the bogs are surrounded by a 

 system of ditches and dams so that they can be c|uickly 

 flooded to a depth of several inches, and the berries thus pro- 

 tected against frost. The quality of the so-called Cape Cod 

 Cranberry is also considered better than that of the western 

 fruit, and has been largely exported even further west than 

 Chicago. The harvest is usually completed about Thanks- 

 giving time. 



A horticultural firm in Holland recently received from its 

 agents in Java a specimen of the gigantic Orchid, Grammato- 

 pliylhiiii speciosum, Bl. Accompanying it was a description 

 of a plant growing in the botanical garden at Buitenzorg, in 

 Java, which we quote from the pages of the Gartenflora. 

 " This plant now displays twenty-eight flower-spikes, which 

 average eight feet in length, and some of which bear as many 

 as seventy blossoms, about fifty blooming at once. The 

 flowers measure six inches across, and each petal is 

 three inches in length by one and one-half in breadth. 

 The color of the sepals and petals is yellow with 

 brown spots, while the comparatively small lip is purple 

 streaked with brown. The stout flower-stalks stand mostly 

 erect, as do the heavy pseudo-bulbs, some of which are as 

 much as ten feet in length. As is the case with most Orchids, 

 the flowers remain a long time fresh. The plant is a native 

 of the forests of western Java and of some of the other islands 

 of the Indian Ocean, although it is nowhere very common." 

 Graiiiinatopliylluni speciosnm w;is introduced into Europe by 

 the Lodtliges, and flowered in their nurseries dm'ing the year 

 1852. There is a figure of the rather imperfect flowers of this 

 specimen in Paxton's Flower Garden, t. 69, and there is a much 

 better figure in the Botanical Magazine, t. 5157, from a plant 

 which flowered in England in 1859. 



