20 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 464. 



ists recommend good grafting wax as the best application for 

 wounds of Apple-trees where large branches have been 

 removed. This should be applied as soon as possible after the 

 amputation, and it should be pressed closely to the surface, 

 where it will remain sometimes three or four years. Gum 

 shellac, such as painters use for covering knots, is good, but 

 it needs to be renewed the second year. 



The vegetable known as Chocho or Chow Chow, and occa- 

 sionally seen in the New York markets, is said by The Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle to have become more generally known and 

 used in London, last year, than it ever before has been, so that 

 it forms a part of the stock of greengrocers in almost every town 

 of considerable size in England. Sechiumedule belongs to the 

 Gourd family and is a perennial which will grow in our south- 

 ern states. Both the fruit and the large tuberous root make 

 excellent food for animals, while the plant itself is a quick- 

 growing climber, useful for training over fences to hide 

 unsightly objects. Inasmuch as the fruit is picked before it is 

 ripe it can be transported safely from the West Indies, and 

 since it is said to be very palatable as well as nutritious its 

 speedy introduction as a regular market vegetable in this city 

 ought to be looked for as certain. 



The Endive is usually esteemed as a salad plant, but some 

 people consider it too bitter for that purpose, and Professor 

 Waugh states in a late bulletin that it makes most excellent 

 greens when cooked. The variety known as the Ever White 

 Curled does not run quickly to seed, and when blanched like 

 Celery or Cos Lettuce by tying up the leaves or drawing the 

 soil up about the plant it makes an attractive salad plant. For 

 eating cooked, however, it is best to take the plants when very 

 young before they have time to make heads and when they 

 are in their tenderest stage. The seed can be sown early in 

 cold frames or in the open ground like Lettuce, and, of course, 

 plants can be grown in from forty to fifty days at any time dur- 

 ing the summer, but in the very hottest weather they are not 

 of the best quality. Autumn-grown plants can be taken up 

 with some earth adhering to the roots and stored in a dry cel- 

 lar or in a cold frame for winter use. 



White, red and yellow onions of many qualities are now in 

 market, from Cuba, Bermuda, Spain and different sections of 

 this country. Among fresh vegetables recently come into 

 season are beets, from Florida. Other receipts from this state 

 are tomatoes, string-beans, peas and eggplants, all of which 

 are too abundant in inferior grades, while choice stock is 

 scarce. Lettuce from the same section, peppers, cymlings, or 

 scalloped squashes, and cucumbers are of fair quality. Besides 

 domestic cabbage, some is imported from Denmark. Kale 

 and spinach, from Virginia, are plentiful, and much of it in 

 poor condition, so that the prices realized here do not cover 

 the cost of freight. Only exceptionally good lots of spinach 

 realize as much as $1.00 a barrel in the wholesale markets. 

 Cauliflower is now arriving from California and from near-by 

 places. Parsnips, carrots, celery, pumpkins, Marrow and 

 Hubbard squashes, turnips, from Canada and from neighbor- 

 ing states, are among the staple winter vegetables, with sweet 

 potatoes from southern New Jersey, and potatoes from Ber- 

 muda, Maine, Michigan and New York. 



The receipts of Jamaica oranges have been gradually falling 

 off, 2,900 barrels arriving during last week. Altogether, 

 237.53° barrels of this fruit have been sold here this season, 

 while in the same period a year ago the importations amounted 

 to but 194,496 barrels. These oranges come in barrels, and 

 are assorted and repacked here in boxes similar to those used 

 in Florida. Seven dollars a barrel is the highest wholesale 

 price for sound fruit at this time, and $3.00 for a box. The 

 experiment was made several weeks ago of sending 2,000 

 boxes to England, but, while the oranges were in good condi- 

 tion on landing, they spoiled quickly when unpacked, and 

 were sold at a loss. The trade in oranges is usually dull after 

 the midwinter holidays, but those from Florida and Jamaica 

 have advanced in price during the past ten days. The demand 

 is for the sweet fruit, and the tart Mediterranean oranges have 

 declined. Bright grape-fruit, from Florida, commands JS.oo 

 to $10.00 a barrel in wholesale lots ; that of russet color, $5.00 

 to $6. 00, and the best from Jamaica, 55.00 to $7.00. Tan- 

 gerines, from California, cost $5.00 to $6.00 a box, and those 

 from Florida sell for double this price. Only limited quanti- 

 ties of lemons are coming from Sicily ; wholesale prices range 

 from $1.00 to $3.00 a box, an advance of twenty-five cents 

 during the past week. The lemon crop in southern California 

 for the year beginning November 1st, 1896, is estimated at 

 1,000 car-loads. 



Mr. Felix Gillett, in writing to the Pacific Rural Press on 

 the subject of Chestnut-growing in California, says that he can 

 graft European Chestnut-trees successfully at any time be- 

 tween the first of March and the first of October. His expe- 

 rience is that the best varieties of the European Chestnut, or 

 Marron, will flourish well in the central and northern part of 

 that state. Being a mountain tree, it flourishes in gorges with 

 a sunny exposure in Nevada County up to an altitude of 3,000 

 feet, where trees twenty-five years old are now bearing 

 marrons of excellent quality and in such abundance that 

 Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with chestnuts is quite the fashion 

 in that region. If half the territory of California is well 

 adapted to the cultivation of Marrons, it would seem that 

 another important product may be added to what can be 

 raised in that state. A tree planted in the spring of 1871 by 

 Mr. Gillett now averages ninety pounds of nuts a year, which 

 he can sell for fifteen cents a pound, and the tree bears crops 

 every year. When it is remembered that Paris alone con- 

 sumes 20,000,000 pounds of marrons, or dessert chestnuts, a 

 year, and that Italy alone produces 500.000,000 pounds, one can 

 see how important this trade is in the countries of southern 

 Europe, where the Chestnut is called the Bread-tree, being so 

 valuable as a food for men, and in seasons of abundant yield 

 even for animals. 



We are glad to observe that Mr. T. V. Munson, in writing 

 for The Park and Cemetery of woody vines, speaks of various 

 species of the Greenbriers (Smilax) as especially useful on 

 account of the freshness and beauty of their foliage. We have 

 frequently called attention to the rare value of these native 

 plants, especially wherever a screen of foliage is needed. 

 Mr. Munson also does justice to another class of native climb- 

 ing plants in advocating our Grapevines for decorative use. 

 Vitis cordifolia, V. rubra, V. cineria and V. riparia can easily, 

 he says, endure a temperature from fifteen to twenty degrees 

 below zero, and they are much more beautiful than many of 

 the climbing plants used in parks and gardens, but if nursery- 

 men keep these native species in stock they never advertise 

 them. The Fox Grape, V. labrusca, and the Summer Grape, V. 

 aestivalis, Mr. Munson considers too coarse and rigid for most 

 positions, although they often make beautiful vines. He re- 

 gards V. Munsoniana as the finest ornamental woody vine 

 known for the Gulf states, a species nearly related to the com- 

 mon Muscadine, which is much coarser. V. Munsoniana is a 

 rampant grower, but slenderand graceful, with small, smooth, 

 shining toothed leaves which become a fine scarlet and crim- 

 son late in autumn. This plant will endure any amount of 

 heat and drought, and it will survive a winter temperature of 

 five degrees below zero. Staminate plants of Grapevines 

 should be used for park planting, as the fruiting vines would 

 likely be torn by boys in their raids on the grape clusters. 



The Monthly Weather Review quotes from a memoir of 

 Messrs. Petermann & Graftiau, published by the Academy of 

 Sciences in Belgium, in which it is demonstrated that hoar- 

 frost is particularly rich in nitrogenous compounds, and there- 

 fore plays an important part in adding to the stock of nitrog- 

 enous matter in the forest as well as to the purifying 

 influence that forests exercise on atmospheric air. The frost- 

 work attached to the branches of trees, being continually 

 renewed, presents to the air a large surface for the absorption 

 of all soluble matter that it carries, so that single trees and 

 forests act like immense filters, purifying the air that circulates 

 through them, and collectingfrom it nitrogenous combinations, 

 which, being returned to the soil by a thaw, serve again as 

 nutriment to plants, and thus reenter the vital cycle. The 

 amount of frost which the branches hold is often much greater 

 than their own weight, and in a measured cube which touched 

 the extremities of the branches of a given shrub the weight of 

 the frost-work which they held exceeded one kilogram for each 

 cubic metre of space. Carrying out this calculation to a forest 

 area, it is quite possible that seven pounds of nitrogen are 

 deposited on every acre during a severe frost. When frosts 

 are formed to such an extent as to break branches by its own 

 weight, the quantity of nitrogen given to the soil must be very 

 considerable. It is held, therefore, with good reason, that the 

 frost represents a very appreciable factor in collecting the 

 reserve of nitrogen within forest areas, and if we add to this 

 the nitrogen contained in the rain, the dew and the fog, we 

 can explain why, without any addition of this material, or 

 without the intervention of those plants which collect it directly 

 from the atmosphere, the forest vegetation is well supplied 

 with nitrogen. These facts also show how the soil of forest 

 areas grows richer in this element which is given to it by the 

 detritus, or waste of woodlands. 



