January 13, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



19 



perhaps a better result would be obtained if the order were 

 reversed, Chrysanthemums used to connect the shrubs — that 

 is, mass the shrubbery somewhat and let Chrysanthemums 

 come up in an unstudied way, without much arrangement, 

 between the groups and sometimes among them as to colors. 

 A few years ago a load of rubbish from the flower garden — 

 dried stems of Hollyhock, Zinnia and Calliopsis — was dumped 

 upon a strip of ground in the rear of some outbuildings. A 

 little later this was burned and the ground plowed. For some 

 reason this bit of ground was not needed and received no cul- 

 tivation. In due time it bore a fine crop of grasses and weeds, 

 but by summer-time the flowering plants asserted themselves 

 and presented a dazziing mixture of almost every conceivable 

 color, yet it was never perplexing or tiresome to the eye. The 

 blossoms of Zinnia are all the time changing as they advance 

 toward maturity. In this case none of the flowering plants 

 attained very large size ; they grew with the grasses and weeds, 

 many of the latter outgrowing the flowers a little and making, 

 with the various kinds of grasses, a perfect blending of 

 color. This impromptu flower-bed never failed to produce 

 a most pleasurable surprise when one had to pass in sight of 

 it. This wild flower-bed leads me to suggest that if Chrysan- 

 themums were planted among and between groups of shrub- 

 bery — and without arrangement — as if they had come up spon- 

 taneously, they might be effective out-of-doors. 

 Savannah, Ga. ' Paul Le Hardy. 



The Palmetto Scale. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — In 1883 Professor Comstock described a new species, 

 Aspidiotus sabalis, found on leaves of Palmetto in Florida. 

 The species is very peculiar, and has lately been made the 

 type of a new genus (Comstockiella). Up to the present time 

 it had never been observed on the Pacific coast ; but Mr. 

 Alexander Craw, the horticultural quarantine officer of Cali- 

 fornia, has just sent me specimens on leaves of Palms from 

 Mexico which had been brought to the port of San Francisco 

 on November 17th. The scale was new to Mr. Craw, but he 

 wisely had the Palms destroyed, so as to avoid all possibility 

 of the introduction of the creature into California. Mr. Craw 

 thinks the Palms came from near Mazatlan, and were growing 

 wild about seventy-five or one hundred miles inland. 



This scale should be looked out for by importers of Palms. 

 It is about the size and shape of a pin's head, pure snow-white, 

 without any yellow or black spot. The male scales are similar 

 in color, but smaller and elongated. Mr. Craw's Mexican 

 specimens represent a variety (v. Mexicana) distinguished 

 from the Florida form by the female (under the scale) being 

 orange-yellow, and the ventral grouped glands numbering, 

 caudolaterals 14 to 17, mediolaterals 11 to 15, cephalolaterals 

 7 to 10, the respective numbers for the type (from Florida) 

 being 6 to 10, 4 to 7, and 4. But these are microscopical de- 

 tails, and for horticultural purposes it is probable that the two 

 forms may be treated as one. 



Mesilla, N. M. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Recent Publications. 



Under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, 

 Dr. Erwin S. Smith has prepared a bulletin relating 

 to A Bacterial Disease of Tomatoes, Eggplants and Irish 

 Potatoes, besides other members of the same family. This 

 bacillus was first brought to notice by Dr. Halsted, who 

 considered it identical with the micro-organism which 

 causes the Bacterial Wilt in Cucumbers and Canteloupes. 

 But microscopic examination of infected Tomato-stems 

 from Mississippi showed that they swarmed with bacteria 

 of a different kind. Healthy Tomato and Potato plants 

 were inoculated with pure cultures of this bacillus, and 

 they rapidly succumbed to the disease and became ulti- 

 mately a mass of disorganized and ill-smelling slime. 

 As it appears in the field the farmer first detects the malady 

 by the sudden wilting of the foliage of his plants. In the 

 case of the Potato the tubers are ultimately attacked and 

 destroyed. In southern Mississippi the losses of the To- 

 mato crop have amounted to thousands of dollars. Indeed, 

 the disease has been so destructive in many places that 

 entire fields have been destroyed year after year, so that 

 the cultivation of this crop for market has been abandoned. 

 About Charleston, South Carolina, whole fields of Toma- 

 toes and Eggplants have been destroyed and the early 



Potato crop seriously injured. Many of the tubers that 

 appeared sound on digging rotted on the way to market. 

 It is not a new disease, and it certainly occurs as far north 

 as New York, and probably it has been confounded with 

 other diseases of the Potato and Tomato, for it is unques- 

 tionably true that only a small part of the so-called Potato- 

 rot is due to the well-known Potato-mildew, Phytophthora 

 infestans. How serious this matter is can be imagined 

 when it is estimated that the loss to the potato crop in a 

 single year from the rot has exceeded 50,000,000 bushels. 



An interesting fact brought out in this bulletin is that the 

 Colorado potato beetle is prominent as an agent in distrib- 

 uting this disease, as experiments in the greenhouses of 

 Dr. Smith have clearly demonstrated. The direct injury 

 from bites and punctures is not the only one inflicted by the 

 beetles, and often not the worst one. Given one diseased 

 plant in a field and plenty of insects to feed upon it, and the 

 transmission of the infection to all parts of the field, and 

 thence to the whole neighborhood, is only a question of a 

 few weeks. No experiments have been made with other 

 insects, but it is possible that flea beetles, biister beetles 

 and many other species which feed on leaves may act as 

 carriers of the virus. Of course, this gives an added rea- 

 son for the prompt destruction of the leaf-eating and leaf- 

 puncturing insects. Another preventive measure is the 

 destruction of diseased plants, a precaution which should 

 be begun early in the season. When the disease has be- 

 come widespread among Tomatoes and Eggplants there is 

 no help for it. In the case of potatoes a considerable part 

 of the tubers may be saved if they are dug before the vines 

 have shriveled and stored in a dry place. Since this organ- 

 ism may probably live over winter in the soil of the Potato 

 and Tomato fields, it is a good precautionary measure to 

 plant Tomatoes, Eggplants and Potatoes in new ground, 

 or at least in land where neither of these crops has been 

 raised for several years. It is also safer to select seed and 

 tubers from plants grown where this disease does not pre- 

 vail. Altogether, this little bulletin, No. 1 2, from the Division 

 of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology, although it only 

 occupies twenty-five pages, is a most interesting and instruc- 

 tive monograph. It has half-tone pictures of healthy and 

 infected plants of Potato and Tomato, and a colored plate 

 illustrating the brown rot of the Potato, Bacillus Solanace- 

 arum, n. sp. Students of vegetable pathology will be glad 

 to find a table of contrasting characters which points out 

 the differences between Bacillus Solanacearum and B. 

 tracheiphilus, the organism which causes the Cucumber 

 Wilt ; and another table, showing the difference between 

 the Bacillus Solanacearum and the bacillus producing the 

 Potato rot described by Dr. Ernst Kramer, without name, 

 in 1S91. 



Notes. 



Forty years ago the annual import of oranges into England 

 did not exceed 40,000 cases, while during the last year three 

 million cases were put on the English market. 



Unusually large quantities of cocoanuts have been imported 

 recently, and in December 1,174,000 were received at this port 

 from Porto Rico and other West Indian islands. 



A pure white sport of the pink Carnation, William Scott, is 

 now being raised in some quantity by Mr. John Harrison, of 

 Jersey City, under the name of Harrison's White. It promises 

 to be a valuable commercial variety. 



A Boston correspondent of The American Florist states that 

 branches of the California Pepper Tree, Schinus molle, has 

 lately been received in good condition in that city from Cali- 

 fornia. It is suggested that the long drooping branches of this 

 tree, with its graceful pinnate foliage and deep pink berries, 

 would make a good addition to the material used for decora- 

 tive purposes at Christmas. 



A correspondent makes inquiry for a good application for 

 covering the wounds of trees where large limbs have been cut 

 away. For the treatment of trees on a large scale we know of 

 nothing better than an application of coal tar, which is sufficient 

 to exclude the air and the germs of destructive fungi. In a recent 

 number of The Rural New-Yorker several prominent orchard- 



