528 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 26, 1S88. 



The Pecan nuts now sold in some retail sliops are specially 

 prepared for the market. Large nuts of uniform size are se- 

 lected and placed in an iron cylinder, which is made to revolve 

 by machinery. The nuts are thus made perfectly smooth by 

 attrition, a uniform dark brown color being- given to them by 

 putting into the revolving cylinder some coloring substance, 

 the composition of which is still a secret of the trade. 



A remarkable Horse-Chestnut to be growing so far north 

 stands at Skene House in Scotland, one of the seats of the Earl 

 of Fife. It is fifty-eight feet in height and its trunk girths 

 thirteen feet above the swell of the roots, while the branches, 

 in spite of the fact that they were cut back when the tree 

 was younger, droop cjuite to the groimd, inclosing an open 

 area ninety feet in greatest diameter. It stands about 350 feet 

 above the sea level in a soil of deep loam resting on gravelly 

 clay. 



It is well known that very few Ferns of any commercial 

 value have been left in Epping Forest or in the other woods 

 around London. According to The Gariicn,ho\veveT, no mercy 

 is shown to these plants, even in remote country districts. A 

 few years ago Hart's-tongue Ferns were growing in abundance 

 on the old wall which formed part of the ruined Abbey of 

 Rievaux, in Yorkshire, and they added as much l.ieauty to that 

 picturesque pile as did the Ivy that had crept in through the 

 windows. Last year every plant was carted away to be sold 

 in the streets of the large towns. 



Mr. J. G. Baker describes in a recent issue of the Gardenej-s' 

 Chrotiicle a new Lily collected by Dr. Henry, to whom it is dedi- 

 cated, in the mountains of Ichang, in western China. Lilium 

 Henryi " in general habit most resembles L. tigrinum, but the 

 fully developed leaves most recall those of L. auratum, and the 

 narrow perianth segments those of L. polyphylluiii." The 

 flowers are yellow, the base of the perianth marked with minute 

 red-brown spots, three to three and one-half inches long, and 

 borne in a lax corymb sometimes a foot wide, consisting of 

 from four to eight flowers. This interesting plant, and its geo- 

 graphical neighbor, Li/iinn Davidi, are still to be introduced 

 into gardens. 



We are indel^ted to the Reverend John E. Peters, of Mays 

 Landing, New Jersey, for a seasonable note concerning some 

 fine groups of Holly trees, which are remarkable even in that 

 region famous for the beauty of its forest trees. The trees 

 stand on the border of an "old field," just where the high 

 ground falls away to the swampy border of a creek, so that 

 abundant sunshine, a light soil and a full supply of water give 

 them every needed condition for the best growth. They are 

 not of exceptional size, but they stand in distinct clusters, each 

 of pyramidal shape, and since their lower branches are unusu- 

 allv thick and come quite to the ground, their beauty is dis- 

 tinct and striking. The first group consists of five trees, with 

 a circular base thirty feet in diameter and twenty-five feet 

 high, while the largest tree is only nine inches in diameter. 

 Many trees of greater height and girth are found nearby, but 

 none of them approach these groups in beauty. Last year the 

 Hollies bore few berries, but now the bright red fruit fairly 

 illuminates the rich, dark foliage. Complaints are heard from 

 other places that the finest Hollies have been mutilated to 

 supply distant city markets with Christmas green. It is to be 

 hoped that the Mays Landing trees will be saved from such an 

 untimely fate. 



Some of the most venerable Oaks in England stand in the 

 grounds of Holwood House, in Kent, a property which now 

 belongs to Earl Derby, but was formerly owned by William 

 Pitt. One of these trees is called the Wilberforce Oak, because 

 Pitt and Wilberforce were seated beneath it when the latter first 

 divulged his intention to bring forward a bill for the abolition 

 of slavery. At five feet from the ground its stem measures 

 eighteen feet three inches in circumference, while its height is 

 forty-two feet, and the spread of its branches fifty-one feet in 

 diameter. The centre of its trunk is hollow, but the shell is 

 still sound and well covered with bark, and the tree bids fair 

 to last for many years, as the greatest care is now bestowed 

 upon it. Not far away from it stands a similar tree, called 

 Pitt's Oak, which at a yard from the ground girths twenty feet 

 one inch. Like its companion, it is not tall, but has enormous 

 branches, diverging at a height of about eight feet, and a hol- 

 low stem. A third example girths nearly twenty-two feet. All 

 these Oaks are of the variety called Qiierciis robiir pedunciilata. 

 A picture of the Willierforce Oak, with the stone seat erected 

 to commemorate the historic interview, was recently given in 

 The Garden, ami various other remarkable trees were noted 

 as existing at Holwood — among them two very large Conlv 

 Oaks {Q. suber), and an Evergreen Oak (g. Ilex) — the Ilex tree 



familiar to all travelers in the south of Europe— the circumfer- 

 ence of which at two feet from the ground is nearly twelve feet. 



Earnest attempts are being made in France to further the 

 ])lanting of fruit-trees instead of ordinary shade trees along the 

 pul)lic roads. In Germany the practice is very widespread, 

 and has been very remunerative, the sale of the fruit proving 

 more profitable than the sale of the wood of timber trees. In 

 the vicinity of Mulhouse, says the Rcviic Horticole, the Cherry- 

 trees planted l.)y the roadsides have, from their earliest crop, 

 paid the expenses of their purchase and maintenance. Every 

 visitor to Suabia remembers the Plum-trees, and every visitor 

 to Saxony the Cherry-trees, which line all the roads. As there 

 are so many of them the loss from petty thieving is not seri- 

 ous ; and, moreover, the crops are sold as soon as the fruit is 

 set to private persons, who take measures for their protection. 

 When they are ripe those at a distance from the towns are 

 gathered for the market, while in the neighborhood of large 

 places a multitude of booths are erected vmder the trees, and 

 the whole population goes out on pleasant afternoons to eat 

 the fruit on the spot. "^In Japan it is the blossoming season of 

 the fruit-trees which draws forth the dwellers in cities ; but 

 the inhal:)itants of the Fatherland seem, to get a vast amount 

 of pleasure from thus combining the gratification of the inner 

 man with the delightmg of the eye as it rests upon the wide, 

 rich summer landscape. 



A correspondent of the Evening Post, of this city, writes as 

 follows of Chinese graveyards : " The living occupy the city 

 and the level groimd, the dead the hills. No corpse is allowed 

 within the walls of a Chinese city, and without, the vast ceme- 

 teries cover the hills, with no fence or other limitation about 

 them. The Chinese family which can afford it biulds a ' horse- 

 shoe grave,' or bricked vault, on the hillside, with the end 

 built up in horse-shoe shape. Poorer people stick their dead 

 in shallow graves, on which a small tablet of wood or stone is 



put In the rich alluvial plains, where no unculti- 



vable hills are available for burying the dead, a graveyard 

 resembles very much a white-ant village in Africa. The 

 graves are sugar-loaf mounds thickly clustered together. 

 While John Chinaman pays great respect to the dead, he takes 

 care that they do not appropriate much ground that is of 

 value to the living. The cemetery of a Chinese village in the 

 rich rice-growing districts covers very little ground in propor- 

 tion to the number of the graves In some parts 



of China one seems to be traveling through cemeteries most of 

 the time. Particiflarly is this the case in thickly populated 

 districts where the topography is imdnlating. The ridges 

 where the soil is thin are then the cemeteries, and a rigid spirit 

 of economy has relegated the alignment of the pul)lic roads 

 thereto rather than through the fields. In such districts the 

 traveler is in the company of the dead all day long." 



In a recent number of the Btilleiin of the Torrey Botanical 

 Club Mr. W. M. Beauchamp publishes an interesting article on 

 "Onondaga Indian Names of Plants." Omitting the actual 

 names which he prints in nimibers, we may quote a few of 

 the appended translations that show a keen sense for the more 

 salient characteristics of trees and flowers and occasionally a 

 touch of true imaginative feeling. The Hemlock Spruce is 

 called "Greens on a Stick;" the Sassafras "Smelling- 

 Stick ; " the Balsam Fir "Blisters," from the look of the 

 bark; the Aspen "Noisy Leaf;" the Iron-wood "Ever- 

 lasting Wood;" the Water Beech "Lean Tree," from the 

 unlikeness of its habit to that of true Beeches, and the 

 Buttonwood "Stockings," prol>ably because of the way in 

 which it sheds its l)ark. The Mullein is " Flannel" or "Stock- 

 ings," theWintergreen " Birch-smelling Plant," theThorn-bush 

 " Long Eyelashes," from its long thorns, and the Elder, most 

 poetically, " Frost on the Bush," while Peppermint, as express- 

 ively, is " That which makes you cold," Poke-weed is "Color 

 weed," and Poison Ivy (from which the Virginia Creeper is 

 not distinguished) "Stick that makes you sore." The Larch 

 is "The Leaves Fall" — which shows that its unlikeness to all 

 other coniferous trees is appreciated; Plantain " It covers the 

 Road," and the Witch Hazel "Spotted Stick." Peach are called 

 " Hairy." Lettuce " Raw Leaf," Chestnut " Prickly Burr " and 

 the Leek "A Queer Onion." The vellow Moccasin-flower is 

 "Whip-poor-will Shoe," the Marsh-Marigold "It opens the 

 Swamps" — surely a pretty name — and Jack-in-the-Pulpit "In- 

 dian Cradle," from its likeness to the hooded cradles actually 

 used by the Indians. In many cases the Onondaga names re- 

 semble popular English names, as in the case of the Canoe- 

 Birch, the Red Maple, "A Cap," which means a Raspberry, 

 " Three Leaves," which denotes Clover, the Choice-Cherry, the 

 Bloodroot, Catnip, which becomes "Cat-eating Leaf," and the 

 Partridge Berry. 





