48o 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 28, 1888. 



Notes. 



A feature of the recent Pomological Exhibition in Vienna 

 was a special display of fruits ill adapted to local cultivation, 

 and labeled "warnings." 



The death is announced of a famous Dutch horticulturist, 

 Joshua Valk, who for no less than fifty-seven years was con- 

 nected with the botanical garden in Leyden. 



The shipments of Beans from southern California to eastern 

 cities has already reached fifty car-loads. Orders are still 

 coming in, and there is likely to be a brisk movement of the 

 crop eastward for two months to come. 



The Marshall Pear is a comparatively new variety, which 

 ripens some ten days later than the Bartlett. Specimens of the 

 fruit received from Mr. P. H. Foster, of Babylon, Long Island, 

 were bell-shaped, of good size, with a smooth, thin skin, which 

 is beautifully russeted. The flesh is white, juicy, and of excel- 

 lent flavor. The tree is said to be vigorous and productive, 

 and altogether the Pear seems to be a real acquisition. 



It appears from a recent issue of the Southern Lumber- 

 man, published in Nashville, that the soft, spongy wood of 

 the knees, peculiar growths upon the roots of the Southern 

 Cypress {Taxodium distichum), is sometimes manufactured 

 into razor-strops, which are pronounced more effective than 

 the leather-covered, stiff strops in general use. It is neces- 

 sary, however, to keep them protected from dust, which ad- 

 heres readily to the soft wood, and soon becomes embedded 

 in the grain, ruining it for this purpose. 



At the late Chrysanthemum show in Philadelphia, Mr. W. K. 

 Harris exhibited a plant upon which twenty distinct varieties 

 had been grafted and all were in bloom at the same time. 

 This suggests a new line of work, inasmuch as such plants 

 would be objects of great popular interest at exhibitions, if a 

 proper selection and arrangement of colors were made. It 

 may be questioned, however, whether a plant bearing several 

 different kinds of flowers possesses any value except as a 

 curiosity. Whether some varieties of feeble growth would 

 be improved if grafted on a more robust stock can be ascei'- 

 tained by experiment. 



A memorial to Alexander Humboldt was recently erected in 

 the so-called Humboldt field, one of the new parks of 

 Berlin. As a statue of the great naturalist already stood in the 

 centre of the town, the new monument was given a very dif- 

 ferent form. From all parts of the Province of Brandenburg 

 the largest possible erratic stones (glacial boulders) were 

 brought together and ari-anged in imitation of a terminal mo- 

 raine. In their vicinity curious stones of many other sorts are 

 grouped, and one bears a simple inscription telling that the 

 " monument" was erected in Humboldt's honor by the city of 

 Berlin. Our correspondent, Dr. Bolle, has long been actively 

 engaged in forwarding this movement. 



Mr. C. S. Burt, President of the Bourbon Lumber Company, 

 of Baton Rouge, La., lately informed a correspondent of the 

 St. Louis Lumberman that his company are at present drag- 

 ,ging, from a swamp to one of their mills, a number of cypress 

 logs felled by General Jackson's army in 1812, and used at 

 the time for closing the Manchac River. Mr. Burt says the 

 bark and sap have rotted off from the logs, but that the heart 

 wood is as good as ever, aiid the finest quality of lumber is 

 obtained from these logs. The St. Louis Luiiiberman has on 

 exhibition in its office a cypress picket top from Baton Rouge, 

 La., which was exposed to the weather sixty-three years, 

 without showing marked signs of decay. 



It has sometimes been stated that the worst monstrosities in 

 the way of formal planting which disfigure some of our west- 

 ern parks — figures of men and animals and even portraits of 

 various celebrities — should be charged to the bad taste not of 

 native American, but of German, gardeners. The statement 

 seems to find some support in the fact that at a horticultural 

 exhibition held not long ago in one of the smaller German 

 towns, a portrait of the Emperor William I., four feet and a 

 half high, was displayed in bright-leaved plants ; and in the 

 further fact that none of the parks of our eastern towns, ex- 

 cept in Pittsburgh, where German influence is less strongly 

 felt than at the West, are deformed by similar horrors. 



The importance attached to landscape gardening enter- 

 prises abroad is shown by the fact that when it was proposed 

 last year to alter and enlarge the public park at Lisbon an in- 

 ternational competition was opened for the purpose of secur- 



ing the best possible plan. Large prizes were offered for the 

 three most satisfactory plans, which were to become the 

 property of the municipality After the jury had made its pre- 

 liminary selection, twenty-six plans remained in its hands, 

 among which the final choice was made. The first prize was 

 awarded to M. Henri Lusseau, the second to M. Henri 

 Duchene, and the third to M. Eugene Deny, all being French 

 artists. Two French and one German artist received honor- 

 able mention. Moreover, a pamphlet, carefully prepared by 

 a distinguished French expert, was published, in which the 

 nature of the problem and the character of the designs sub- 

 mitted were fully explained by the aid of numerous drawings. 



Prince Schwarzenberg, who recently died in Vienna at the 

 age of eighty-nine, was the most conspicuous and influential 

 of the many Austrian noblemen who have concerned them- 

 selves with horticulture. He was chiefly instrumental in the 

 establishment of the Imperial Horticultural Society, and its 

 first exhibition — the first flower-show ever opened in Austria 

 — was held in his green-house in the year 1827. Elected the 

 first President of the young societv, he held the position until 

 his death, a period of sixty years ; and during all this time 

 devoted himself with the greatest energy and amiability to 

 furthering its interests and exciting a love of the gardener's 

 art in his fellow-countrymen at large. His beautiful grounds 

 were freely opened to the public, and special exhibitions were 

 often held in them. The last exhibition he arranged, during 

 the summer of this year, was to display his beautiful collec- 

 tion of Gloxinias, a flower which, according to the testimony 

 of German journals, is not yet as well known in that country 

 as with us. 



A recent number of Gartenflora reproduces from Professor 

 Schuebler's work on Norwegian trees — " Viridarium Nor- 

 vegicum, Norges Vaextrige " — an illustration of a curious 

 "Recumbent Birch-tree," which stands, if the word is appro- 

 priate, on a mountain side about three miles from Christiania. 

 The trunk is something over six metres in length and thirteen 

 centimefres in diameter a foot above the roots. Upon leav- 

 ing the ground it bends towards the left, running horizontally 

 for a short distance; then it maizes an abrupt reverse turn and 

 runs towards the right close to the surface and partly reclining 

 upon it. Near the elbow thus formed a branch rises erect in 

 the shape of a normally-formed tree, with a tall, slender trunk. 

 Five similar branches succeed this at regular intervals in 

 similar tree-like development, the last forming the turned-up 

 termination of tlie recumbent trunk. As there is no trace 

 whatever of minor branches, the eft'ect of these six separate 

 trees springing, seemingly, from a dead log, is extremely 

 curious. The first in order is about fifteen feet in height and 

 the others graduate down by regular degrees. The trunk 

 must have been prostrated in very early life, and the branches 

 assumed their singular shape — at once normal andabnorma) — 

 through the natural action of what the German paper calls 

 " negative geotropism." 



The success and usefulness of the Botanical Garden in 

 Adelaide, Australia, are made very plain in the recently pub- 

 lished report of the Director, Dr. Schomburgk. The garden 

 was founded in 1855, and at first included only forty acres, 

 originally an open forest of huge Eucalyptus trees, covered in 

 the rainy season with a thick undergrowth. Fifteen acres were 

 laid out as a little park, with lakes and brooks and a little hall 

 for horticifltural exhibitions. Now this park has been en- 

 larged by the addition of forty-eight acres, and the whole gar- 

 den includes 140 acres. A large palm-house has recently been 

 built; water is abundantly supplied from the town reservoirs; 

 a Museum of Economic Botany has been constructed, and a 

 botanical garden planted. The cost of maintenance is less 

 than ;{;5,ooo a year, while the utility of the establishment can 

 hardly be overrated. It supplies a charming place of popu- 

 lar resort in a climate where such a place is especially re- 

 Cjuired; and it has largely served the piractical interest of the 

 province by experiments in cultivation and by the distribution 

 of plants and seeds. Vines have been imported from France, 

 and their usefulness in Australia tested ; Sorghum has been 

 introduced ; Guinea grass {Pajiicum giganteum) has been 

 proved well adapted to local culture, and Ramie or China 

 Grass {Boehmeria nived) has been proved unsuitable. During 

 the special Jubilee Exhibition held last year 12,973 different 

 species of plants were shown ; among those in the green- 

 houses were 180 species of Palms, 396 Orchids and 465 Ferns. 

 The highest temperature recorded in the garden during 1877 

 was 1 1 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade; and the amount of 

 rainfall was 25.7 inches, a remarkable quantity, for in the pre- 

 vious year only 14.4 inches had been measured. 



