5i8 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 26, iS 



such a garden has been secured — and the demand will 

 sooner or later find or develop him — New York will have 

 a botanical establishment worthy of its intelligence and 

 wealth, which will instruct and enlighten its people and 

 make its influence felt for good from one end of the land 

 to the other. The man or men who can accomplish this 

 will, we believe, be as worthy of the honor and gratitude 

 of the citizens of New York as any who have given their 

 time and money for its improvement and advancement. 



Fruit and Vegetables under Glass. 



A SCORE of years ago fresh fruit and vegetables grown 

 under glass were hardly to be found in any abund- 

 ance or variety in the winter markets of our great cities. 

 Enterprising gardeners there were in private places who 

 were ambitious to prove their skill by furnishing home- 

 grown Asparagus and Green Peas for the Christmas din- 

 ner ; but unseasonable delicacies of this sort rarely, if 

 ever, found their way to consumers from commercial 

 growers through the ordinary channels of trade. It is 

 true still that many of the choice grapes, nectarines, 

 peaches and strawberries for city tables come from green- 

 houses that are not strictly commercial. It often hap- 

 pens that in private places fruit and vegetables are pro- 

 duced in excess of the family needs, and the surplus is 

 sold to the city dealer. But, aside from this somewhat 

 irregular traffic, the growing of winter fruit and vegetables 

 of nearly every variety for market has become an im- 

 portant industry, and a rapidly growing one in spite of the 

 fact that facilities for transporting perishable products from 

 warmer climates are multipl)'ingand improving every year. 



Cold-frames and pits which were originally used to 

 lengthen out the season in autumn and hasten the coming 

 of spring, were very naturally succeeded by cool houses, 

 which offered every advantage given by the frames, with 

 much greater convenience. But an apparatus for heating 

 such houses will not alone suiiRce to insure a crop of 

 winter vegetables. Special experience and skill are re- 

 quired if any profit is realized, for one may be an expert 

 in growing Tomatoes, for example, out-of-doors, and still 

 be unable to persuade his plants under changed conditions 

 to set any fruit. For a month past hot-house tomatoes 

 have been in strong demand here at sixty cents a pound, 

 wholesale, and this is not an uncommon price. They 

 have sold in this city at a dollar a pound when tomatoes 

 fresh from Havana were bringing seventy-five cents a 

 peck. This means that hot-house tomatoes have a gen- 

 uine value, which comes from superior qualit}^ — for this 

 difference in price cannot be entirely due to a mere fancy — 

 and that the skill to grow them well is not generally pos- 

 sessed by market-gardeners — or they would be more 

 abundant. The best growers now can produce beauti- 

 fully colored, well-flavored, and solid, ripe tomatoes for 

 winter marketing within three months from the day the 

 seed is sown. To accomplish this, varieties specially 

 adapted to culture under glass have been originated, with 

 size and habit of growth that insure the greatest amount 

 of fruit in a given space — that is, with a given amount of 

 fuel. Expedients have been devised for insuring fertiliza- 

 tion so that the plants may set fruit well down to the 

 ground. In short, the needs of the plant under artificial 

 conditions have been so thoroughly studied, that a good 

 winter crop of tomatoes can be looked for with greater 

 certainty than can a good field-crop in the summer. 



But even when all this special knowledge becomes 

 common property, and when competition is sharpened by 

 a growing demand, choice fruits and vegetables out of 

 their season will continue to be classed among luxuries. 

 There are other crops which require even greater skill for 

 profitable production than the tomato. This is especially 

 true of some of the tree-fruits which necessarily occupy a 

 large space and are most exacting in their demands for 

 special attention throughout the entire year. Some of them at 

 tiowering time even show a preference for a particular 



kind of insect to help them in the distribution of their pollen. 

 Peaches and nectarines at six dollars a dozen, grapes at 

 five dollars a pound, with, strawberries at five dollars a 

 basket (and very diminutive baskets have been selling at 

 that rate on Broadway within a week), are expensive articles 

 of food, but, from the growers point of view, these. prices 

 are not exorbitant at certain seasons of the year. And a 

 vegetable as easy to force as asparagus may well command 

 two dollars or more a bunch, because the ])lants must be cared 

 for three or four years before they are strong enough to 

 produce shoots of proper size, and after one season's use 

 under glass they are practically worthless. Mushrooms at 

 a dollar and a half a pound, green peas at a dollar for a 

 scant pint vi'hen shelled, snap-beans worth enough to be 

 sold by a count of the pods, are paying crops only when 

 carefully grown. Even at these high prices, every foot of 

 space must be employed, with a crop of one kind coming 

 on between the rows of another as it becomes tit to mar- 

 ket, and with a plant ready ahvays to occupy every place 

 made vacant by the removal of another. One grower in 

 Jersey City, who has 25,000 square feet of glass devoted 

 to Radishes alone, and who is prepared to deliver 12,000 

 bunches a week, considers it an unsuccessful season when 

 he cannot market five crops between the 20th of September 

 and spring weather. 



A few years ago these expensive fruits and vegeta- 

 bles were found only in the shops of a few retail 

 dealers in fancy fruits, but now the call for these products 

 has so increased, that nearly every variety of garden-fruit 

 and vegetables can be found among the regular consign- 

 ments to wholesale dealers. And it may be added, that 

 certain other fruits and vegetables can rarely be found 

 here, except when grown under glass. The long cucum- 

 bers, so highly prized by some people, will only develop to 

 advantage when an almost tropical climate is provided for 

 them. Certain varieties of European strawberries, with a fla- 

 vorgreatly relished, are among the best forforcing, although 

 they refuse to flourish in our gardens. It is well known that 

 the varieties of Potato most highly prized in England will 

 come to nothing here under out-door cultivation, and an 

 enterprising marketman near this city has now growing in 

 his green-house some Ash-leaf and Walnut-leaf Kidneys, in 

 the hope that some one will pay him a dollar a pound for 

 his tubers, on account of their supposed nutty flavor, or 

 because they are strictly English. 



After all, imagination may help to give an inflated value 

 to these fruits out of season, and families of moderate 

 means need not lack for wholesome and toothsome vegeta- 

 bles at any season, thanks to cold storage, quick transpor- 

 tation and approved methods of preserving. And there 

 are old-fashioned people who entertain the very old- 

 fashioned idea that no fruit or A'egetable is ever really 

 pleasing to the taste except in its proper season. 



Christmas in the Pines. 



T^HE Holl_y and Mistletoe naturally take the first place as 

 ^ decorative plants at Christmas time, as they have been 

 from time immemorial identified with this festival ; and at this 

 season the Holly's "armed and varnished leaves" and clusters of 

 liright red fruit are at their best, and so are the clear white 

 wa.xen berries of the Mistletoe interspersed among its thick 

 pale-green leaves. 



But there are many other charming plants to be found in the 

 Pines that can be used with even better effect than these. The 

 Laurel is much more easy to handle than the Holly, and its 

 glossy green leaves are quite as beautiful, and they can be 

 lighted up with clusters of the bright scarlet berries of the 

 Black Alder, which can be found in abundance in the damp 

 barrens. The large, thick, shining leaves of Magnolia glauca 

 can also be put to effective use with other foliage where e.xten- 

 sive decoration is required. The deliciously fragrant Wax 

 Myrtle should not be neglected. The glossy leaves as well as 

 the thick clusters of pearl-gray fruit make it one of the very 

 best plants to group among the scarlets of the Holly and Alder. 



Some of the smaller shrubs, too, are now invested with a 

 rare beauty which seems more striking since the foliage of so 

 many of their neighbors has faded and fallen ; and this is 



^ 



