March io, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



93 



Warren along- the line of the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, 

 prove that there must be some extraordinary difficulty in 

 protecting- from fire lands that have been cut over. 

 Washington, d. c. Charles A. Keffer. 



The Arrangement of Flowers. — II. 



LONG-STEMMED FLOWERS. 



AN equally important class of flowers for table decora- 

 _^\_ tion are the long-stemmed flowers. Two flowers 

 prominent in most gardens, poppies and roses, may be 

 taken as examples, f like the clear, slender glass vases for 

 flowers, especially the ones that show the leaves and 

 stems down to the base. Highly ornamental vases of any 

 description are not appropriate, and the flowers themselves 

 must be the conspicuous feature. There are, of course, 

 exceptions. At a luncheon the central decoration of the 

 table was a succession of little Dresden lords and ladies 

 holding pictures and cornucopias as large as themselves, 

 in which were a few rare roses and Orchids. The effect 

 was pleasing, but these choice flowers, unlike our ordinary 

 garden flowers, seem to harmonize with costly porcelain. 

 Hare-bells and Trailing Arbutus would have looked alto- 

 gether out of place in the same vases. Winter hot-house 

 flowers show to good advantage in Bohemian cut glass 

 and other handsome vases. In summer, in the country, 

 for flowers of the fields and woods the vases should accord 

 with the house and surroundings ; but no positive rule can 

 be laid down for appropriateness or good taste in their 

 choice, and good sense is the safest guide. It is difficult 

 to arrange flowers to have an artistic effect in a rose-bowl. 

 The principle of the rose-bowl is wrong, and a vase should 

 be smaller at the bottom than at the top. The tall, slender 

 green or white vases which look like huge morning-glory 

 blossoms are beautiful for flowers as well as appropriate. The 

 flowers grow in this way, the bushes small at the base and 

 broader toward the top. A Poppy garden should contain fancy 

 grasses, and no arrangement of poppies is perfect without 

 some of these, while oats, wheat and timothy contribute 

 to a harmonious effect. Only a few poppies should be 

 placed in a vase, so that the effect may be light and deli- 

 cate. They are a fairy-like flower, and the spirit of the 

 flower should be carried into the arrangement. As many 

 as sixteen tall, slender lemonade glasses may be disposed 

 on the table for only about fifty poppies. The finished 

 effect is that of poppies growing, and each delicate petal 

 shows to its best advantage. Any number of glasses may 

 be placed in some definite order down the centre of the 

 table, such as first a central one, then four surrounding it, 

 then a chain of three at the two ends of the square. The 

 grasses should be put in highest at the centre, leaning first 

 one way and then another, just as they grow. The highest 

 poppies also should be placed in the centre, and perhaps 

 the darkest ones, and the lighter and smaller ones used until 

 the small glasses at the ends of the chain hold the finest 

 and most delicate of all. Fewer flowers are required for an 

 arrangement of this sort than one would think, and showy 

 displays may be made with no more blossoms than are 

 sometimes seen crowded into one vase, when the only 

 effect is a mass of color. 



Roses may be treated in much the same way, substitut- 

 ing Maiden-hair or other Ferns for the grasses, or using 

 only their own beautiful waxy leaves. _ , „ , 



Rangeley, Me. Dorothy Root. 



The Islands of Lake Champlain. 



IT has long been an accepted notion that the shores and 

 islands of our great lakes offer special advantages in 

 •fruit-growing. Some of the most noted localities in 

 America for the production of apples, peaches and grapes 

 lie along or in the Five Great Lakes. Lake Champlain 

 ranks in size below only these, yet contains an island area 

 greater than any. The fruit-growing industries on the 

 Champlain islands, however, have but recently begun the 

 .course of development for which the location gives so 



much promise. But apple-growing is now gaining rapid 

 headway, and it seems probable that fruit-raising will soon 

 be the distinctive industry of the islands. 



Several of the smaller islands along the western shore 

 belong to the state of New York, but the greater islands 

 are all parts of Vermont. These are principally included 

 in Grand Isle County, which is the north-western county of 

 the state. The whole of this county is surrounded by the 

 waters of Lake Champlain, except a narrow neck which 

 connects the town of Alburgh with Canada. Grand Isle 

 County consists of three large islands and the peninsula 

 mentioned, together with several unimportant smaller 

 islands. This constitutes an insular area of eighty-two 

 square miles, of which 47,250 acres are in farms (Census of 

 1890). Alburgh, the peninsula town, is considerably the 

 largest one in the county. The island of South Hero has 

 an area of about 20,000 acres, is about twelve miles long, 

 and varies from one-fourth to five miles in width. North 

 Hero is a long, narrow island of irregular form, containing 

 6,272 acres. Isle La Motte is two miles wide and six miles 

 long, containing 4,640 acres. These islands are separated 

 from each other by very narrow straits at certain points, 

 and from the mainland by a width of water varying from 

 half a mile to several miles. 



There can be no question but that the surrounding 

 waters of Lake Champlain materially modify the climate 

 to the favorable prejudice of fruit-growing. There seems 

 to be no satisfactory way, however, of measuring the 

 extent of this modification except by its effects on plant- 

 life. Such purposes of comparison may be served by 

 stating that such apples as Northern Spy, Rhode Island 

 Greening and Ben Davis thrive, while Baldwins are not 

 long-lived, and King of Tompkins County is decidedly 

 uncertain. Last winter all fruit-buds of Japanese and 

 Domestica varieties were frozen, but this is unusual. 

 Peaches have been grown under special protection. 



Vermont Experiment Station. F. A. Wailgll. 



npi 



Entomological. 

 The Strawberry-root Louse, Aphis forbesi. 



'HE Strawberry-root louse is found throughout the 

 X state of Delaware and probably throughout the 

 peninsula, although it has attracted attention only in a few 

 localities, and too often the grower of Strawberries is not 

 sufficiently intimate with the pest to detect its presence 

 until his plantation is practically ruined. To one who 

 knows it, however, its presence or absence is generally 

 revealed as soon as a plantation is entered. Bare spaces 

 scattered throughout the field at once arouse suspicion, but 

 when it has intrenched itself in sufficient numbers to attract 

 attention to its actual devastation, the Strawberry-bed will 

 disappear with remarkable rapidity. In a plot at the sta- 

 tion, containing about seventy-five varieties, which were in 

 a flourishing condition in the spring of 1896, there are not 

 a dozen varieties remaining. 



This louse is a small dark bluish green insect, oval in 

 shape, which gathers in great numbers on the roots and 

 often in the crown of the plant, and there pumps out the 

 juice. The eggs can also be seen in both of these situa- 

 tions, and are minute, oblong, shiny black bodies. The 

 aphis is attended by a small brown ant (Lasius aliensis), 

 which probably bears the same relation to this species as 

 it does to the Corn-root louse. I am not aware that any 

 winged form has been discovered, and its passage from 

 field to field must be slow, or practically impossible. The 

 most practical form of treatment at present is in the rota- 

 tion of crops, whereby the aphis may be starved out. The 

 most probable means of distribution is by infected plants 

 coming from the nursery, where its presence has not even 

 been suspected. It is easily treated on nursery stock with 

 bisulphide of carbon, kerosene emulsion or tobacco-water. 

 The life history of the aphis has not been carefully 

 worked out. It was first discovered and figured by Pro- 



