9 o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 471. 



plantations is treated with comprehensive intelligence. Of 

 course, the opening chapters on Propagation, Pruning, the 

 Management of Nurseries, and all the other details of fruit- 

 growing are given as they were in the last edition, but after 

 all the value of the book is in its descriptions and figures of 

 the different fruits and in the careful way in which these 

 have been arranged. 



Altogether, this remains the best manual of fruit-culture 

 which we have in America, when considered as a cyclo- 

 pedic account of different species and varieties. But while 

 it is the best of its kind, we may as well say that there is 

 room for a book of another kind — one devoted not so 

 strictly to the varieties of trees as to the discussion of the 

 principles which ought to underlie the entire practice of 

 fruit-growing and the treatment of fruit-lands and fruit- 

 trees. We can hardly have both of these in one book, and 

 it seems that the time is about ripe for the appearance of 

 some treatise which takes a more comprehensive and pro- 

 founder view of the scientific side of fruit-culture. What is 

 needed now is fundamental knowledge rather than rules, 

 and we shall give cordial welcome to a book written on 

 such lines, especially if it is as thoroughly well done in 

 this direction as this last edition of The American Fruit 

 Culturisl is in its own peculiar field. 



Notes. 



The first importations of the new-crop Brazil nuts arrived 

 here from Para a week ago, consisting of 1,200 bags. 



A Texas authority on Pecan-culture says that the nuts should 

 invariably be planted with the sharp points upward and about 

 six inches below the surface. 



Apples and pears from the United States and Canada have 

 been selling in Vienna this winter, probably the first time they 

 have appeared there in any considerable quantities. 



Messrs. Peter Henderson & Co , of this city, celebrate the 

 fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the firm by an edition of 

 their large quarto catalogue on fine heavy paper. It makes a 

 book of 170 pages, containing a full descriptive list of standard 

 and novel plants and seeds and " everything for the garden." 



Mr. J. H. Hale stated at the last meeting of the Connecticut 

 Pomologists that recent experiments tend to show that 

 steam is of much greater value than either smoke or artificial 

 heat in protecting orchards from spring frosts. If fires are pre- 

 pared at a distance of fifty feet apart and kept lightly covered 

 with wet hay or some other material which will hold water all 

 the time and yet not put out the fire, a fog-like vapor will 

 cover the field and modify the temperature so that the orchard 

 will escape when the air about the field is much below the 

 freezing point. Of course, this remedy will not work if there 

 is much wind. 



Dried and evaporated fruits for cooking purposes include 

 among domestic sorts blackberries, huckleberries, red and 

 black raspberries, cherries and plums, pitted and containing 

 the seeds, sliced and quartered apples, showy apricots and 

 pears in halves, large silver prunes, the regular dark prunes 

 and raisins. While many of these dried fruits come from Cali- 

 fornia, not a few are from New York and some of the Atlantic 

 coast southern states. Evaporated peaches, for example, are 

 known in the trade as peeled and unpeeled California yellow, 

 peeled fancy Delaware and peeled fancy North Carolina sliced. 

 In addition, currants are imported from Greece, raisins from 

 Spain, prunes and prunelles from France and tlie cheaper 

 prunes from Turkey, besides Corsican citron and other Italian 

 fruit-peels. 



At a late meeting of the Vermont Botanical Club, Mr. Cyrus 

 G. Pringle read a most entertaining paper on " Reminiscences 

 of Botanical Rambles in Vermont." Professor Brainerd al- 

 luded to Mr. Pringle's researches throughout the length and 

 breadth of North America, and said that perhaps no living 

 man had seen and recognized as many flowering plants in 

 their homes as he. But, with this wonderful experience in 

 fields which opened before him wider prospects every year, it 

 is very evident that Mr. Pringle has never enjoyed any collect- 

 ing; more thoroughly than he did while searching among the 

 lofty mountains, lonely lakes and unbroken forests of northern 

 New England in his early days. The Burlington Free Press 

 has published his paper in full and it makes two columns of 

 fresh and delightful reading. 



The current issue of The Garden gives a colored plate of 

 Erythronium Johnsoni, a comparatively new Dogtooth Violet, 

 which is a native of the Coast Ranges of southern Oregon. 

 The flower is a decided shade of red or red-pink, which is 

 deepest on the outside of the petals, and which is a novel color 

 in this genus. The flowers were shown for the first time in 

 England last year, where they were much admired. The scape 

 grows nearly a foot high, so that when established this will 

 make a handsome plant, and English gardeners are congratu- 

 lating themselves over a new acquisition among hardy 

 plants. We should be pleased to learn something of the 

 behavior of this plant from any of our readers who are inter- 

 ested in early spring-flowering bulbs and who have tested 

 this one in our eastern states. 



A car-load of California fruit donated by growers to the 

 Armenia Relief Committee of this city was sold at auction last 

 Friday. Oranges realized from $1.35 to,$7.io, and grape-fruit 

 from $9.00 to $21.00 a box, the entire lot netting above $1,000. 

 Choice Navel oranges, from California, sell in the regular 

 wholesale markets at $5.00, and the best California seedlings 

 cost the retail dealer $3.25 a box. All oranges have been ad- 

 vancing in price during the past fortnight, and desirable sizes 

 of Valencias were last week worth $3.50 by the case, while 

 Sicily oranges brought $2.50. Since the first of the year 64,890 

 boxes of oranges and 156,970 boxes of lemons have been 

 received here from Sicily alone. Limited quantities of new 

 oranges of the second crop are being received from Jamaica, 

 and bright and russet Florida oranges are still in market, 

 together with Tangerines and Mandarins from the same state. 



Mr. Martin Benson writes to American Gardening that the 

 Papaw, Carica Papaya, makes a most interesting feature in a 

 group of tropical plants, with Bananas and other plants with 

 leaves of the largest size. The Papaw belongs to the Passion 

 Flower family, and has a spongy stem and a crown of broad, 

 long-stalked palmate leaves. Mr. Benson shows the picture 

 of a male plant which was ten feet high, with a tuft of leaves 

 six feet in diameter, and it was planted out in May from a six- 

 inch pot. The largest leaf was three feet across, with bone- 

 white midribs and thousands of small yellow deliciously 

 fragrant flowers in racemes three or four feet long appearing 

 at the base of every leaf. A female plant bore nine fruits. 

 These trees ultimately reach a height of twenty feet. Mr. Ben- 

 son does not explain how many years they can be kept and 

 transplanted into an open border and back again into a green- 

 house. The growth which these plants made, however, seems 

 to be equal to that which is made under ordinary tropical con- 

 ditions. 



Many packages of vegetables which arrived here from Florida 

 last week were refused by the consignees on account of poor 

 condition, and were left on the docks to be sold by the trans- 

 portation companies for what they would bring toward paying 

 expenses for carriage. The damage was caused by heavy 

 rains followed by extremely hot weather. Cabbage, cauli- 

 flower, beets in bunches and string-beans suffered most, and 

 the scarcity of really high-class vegetables has raised the price 

 for the best grades. New beets are now coming from Charles- 

 ton, South Carolina, and the first asparagus and new potatoes 

 came from the same section last week. Good tomatoes come 

 from Key West and from Cuba in large quantities, and in 

 smaller lots from the Bahamas. Lettuce and other salad 

 plants are being received from New Orleans, but the high cost 

 of transportation by rail limits shipments from that locality. 

 Rhubarb from Michigan is now in our markets. Besides 

 onions from Canada, Spain, Bermuda and Cuba, some are 

 now being imported from France and from Egypt. 



It is an old device to plant Lima Beans, Melons, or other ten- 

 der vegetables in inverted sods, but it is more often talked 

 about than actually practiced. A correspondent of The Coun- 

 try Gentleman cuts the close-cropped turf of a rich pasture to 

 fit in a strawberry basket, and in the loosened and enriched 

 soil he plants the seeds some six weeks before the weather is 

 permanently warm. He inures the plants to their outdoor 

 conditions by setting them in a shallow trench two weeks 

 before the time for final transplanting, with a rim of boards 

 around it high enough to give the plants head-room, and 

 around this rim is banked the soil taken from the trench. A 

 tight board covering at night will protect them from frost, and 

 this may be left off when there is no probability of freezing. 

 When the weather is settled the toughened plants can be set 

 out without disturbing their roots and they will keep on grow- 

 ing with no check whatever. Instead of watering the surface 

 ot the ground the flat box of plants may be set in a shallow 

 tank ot water until the soil is saturated, and in this way the 

 washing and baking of the surface is avoided. 



