230 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 485. 



at the rooms of the society. Those who have country gardens 

 may give pleasure and refreshment to the patients in hos- 

 pitals and tenements by sending flowers, fruits, vegetables, 

 jellies, eggs and other suitable articles of food. And those 

 who have no products of country garden or kitchen to give, 

 and who live in the city or near-by and spend some part ot the 

 summer at home, can help the work effectively in making up 

 the flowers into small bouquets and in distributing the gifts. 

 It may be well to say again that the express companies carry 

 donations for this work free of charge, and particulars as to 

 packing, etc., maybe had on application by mail to the secre- 

 tary at 104 East Twentieth Street, this city. 



The first Burbank plums, from Florida, are now in our mar- 

 kets, but so early in the season are more showy than luscious. 

 They cost twenty-five cents a dozen. Bidwell peaches, from 

 the same state, fully grown and ripe, cost seventy-five cents 

 for a basket holding thirty fruits. Bright Royal Ann cherries 

 and other choice varieties, from California, cost thirty to thirty- 

 five cents a pound, and apricots of fair size sell for thirty cents 

 a dozen. Cherries and strawberries are now coming from the 

 Hudson River district of this state, and the latter can be had of 

 good size and quality for ten cents a quart box. Large, regu- 

 larly formed and deep, evenly colored strawberries, known as 

 theGem, from Hilton, New Jersey, cost twenty cents aquart, and 

 a fancy variety, Mary, from the same section, sells for forty cents. 

 These berries are of immense size, many of them seven to 

 eight inches around, but they are flattened and lack the ideal 

 form of the Gem. Other small fruits now fairly matured are 

 huckleberries and blackberries, both of which sell for twenty 

 cents a quart. 



People who have been raising cucumbers for market near 

 New York have found a great decrease in the productiveness 

 of the later plantings, the crop of which has been used as 

 pickles, while the early vines which produce cucumbers sold 

 in the market have not been affected. The cause of the loss 

 is the downy mildew, a fungous disease which does not appear 

 to any alarming extent until late July, and then it spreads 

 quickly over the fields. The older leaves are first attacked 

 near the centre of the vine, and then the disease spreads out- 

 wardly. The flowers are produced, but no cucumbers set, or, 

 if they do, they grow slowly and become misshapen and un- 

 marketable. Insect ravages usually spread from the borders 

 of the field inward, and the wilt disease shows a sudden droop- 

 ing of the leaves. The disease in question is allied to the 

 downy mildew of the grape, and the fungus lives upon many 

 cucurbitaceous plants. The Bordeaux mixture, used at inter- 

 vals of a week or ten days, has proved a convenient, inexpen- 

 sive and a sure preventive. 



One of the great obstacles in using liquids to destroy insects 

 and fungi is the difficulty of obtaining pumps of sufficient 

 power. Professor Maynard, in the report of the Hatch Experi- 

 ment Station, asserts that a steam spraying outfit will do better 

 and cheaper work than hand or gear machines. Of course, the 

 manipulator must know the construction of his engine and 

 pump and have skill to keep the parts in working order. The 

 cost of these outfits ranges from $200 to $400, which is too 

 great for the small farmer or fruit grower, but in almost 

 every village or town the work of spraying for many persons 

 by a single owner could be done at a less cost than if each 

 person equipped himself with small and imperfectly working 

 pumps. It would be more satisfactory than if the plant were 

 owned by a number of individuals, and, of course, the steam 

 engine, fitted with a fly-wheel, could be used not only for 

 spraying, but for cutting wood, corn-fodder or ensilage, grind- 

 ing grain, pumping water, and, in short, it might be made a 

 source of profit in many directions. 



Professor Massey writes from the Experiment Station at 

 Raleigh, North Carolina, that he picked Snead peaches, dead 

 ripe and soft, on the 5th of June, and no other early peach is 

 colored yet. The Snead is larger than most of the extra-early 

 peaches, and is a fine-looking fruit, although lacking high 

 color. It has the usual fault of its class, and gets soft on the 

 outside, while remaining hard and adherent within. The 

 Greensboro Peach, which was very promising last year, will 

 fruit at the station this year. It is not ripe, but will probably 

 come in with the Amsden and Alexander, and it is a much 

 larger peach. Professor Massey adds that Blackberries are 

 going north now in quantity. Most of the growers in North 

 Carolina adhere to the Wilson, but in many places there is the 

 same trouble that has driven this variety out of cultivation in 

 other places — that is, the making of double flowers. Early 

 Harvest is fine, and has an enormous crop, but where the 



Wilson does well i(s size will always sell it in competition with 

 the Early Harvest for more money. He has found nothing in 

 Blackberries better than these two. The experimental fruit 

 plats, covering seventy-rive acres at Southern Pines, are be- 

 ginning to make a fine show. These are not variety tests, but 

 a study of the effects of different combinations of plant-food on 

 nearly absolutely barren sand. 



Last week marked the largest receipts of pineapples which 

 may be expected here this season. The first cutting of this 

 fruit in the Bahamas is usually made between the 20th of May 

 and the 1st of June, so that the heavy shipments Irom these 

 islands and from Cuba and Florida last week amounted to 

 many hundred thousand fruits. One schooner of ninety tons bur- 

 den brought 75,000 pineapples to this port, another schooner 

 brought 115,000, and there were besides five other schooners 

 and as many steamers loaded with the fruit. The season prac- 

 tically ends early in July, although there will be smaller quan- 

 tities coming from Florida during August and September. 

 The Florida fruit has superior keeping qualities and better 

 flavor, and can be successfully forwarded to the far western 

 states. It comes in crates of uniform size containing twenty- 

 four, thirty or thirty-six of the fruits, larger or smaller, and sells 

 at wholesale to the dealer who retails it for $2.75 to $3.75 a 

 crate, or at from eight to sixteen cents each. The Bahama 

 pineapples come in bulk, and are sold at $5.00 to $6.00 a hun- 

 dred in lots of a thousand. Those from Cuba, sixty to one 

 hundred in a barrel, sell for S3. 50 to $5.50 a barrel. All the 

 fruit now coming from the Bahamas is of the kind known as 

 Strawberry, and most of that coming from Cuba is of the same 

 sort, only a couple of hundred barrels of the Sugar-loaf variety 

 having arrived last week. From Florida many kinds are now 

 received, as Queen, Red Spanish, Porto Rico, etc. The latter 

 cost from forty to seventy-five cents apiece in large cjuantities. 

 The abundance of this wholesome fruit makes low prices for 

 the consumer, and the Bahama or Cuba product may be had 

 for ten to fifteen cents by the retail buyer, and the higher 

 grades and larger sizes at prices advancing to $1.00 each. 



Robert Douglas, for many years a conspicuous figure among 

 the arboriculturists of this country, died suddenly at his home in 

 Waukegan, Illinois, on June 2d. He was born at Gateshead, 

 near Halifax, England, in 1813, and went to Canada in 1836. In 

 1838 he removed to Whitingham, Vermont, where he kept the 

 county-inn for a short time, but in 1844 he set out for the 

 west and drove through the then sparsely inhabited coun- 

 try and established his home, about thirty miles north of 

 Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan, at the place 

 which has since become the town of Waukegan. Here he 

 resumed the trade of tailor, learned years before, but in 1848, 

 impelled by a strong love of nature which had declared itself 

 in his boyhood, when he lived with his parents in Fallon's 

 nursery, near Newcastle, he established a small nursery 

 business. A year later, when the California gold fever 

 broke out, Mr. Douglas set out with a party of his 

 neighbors to cross the continent. In fording the Bear 

 River, among the Wahsatch Mountains, he lost his team, 

 and, impatient of the slow progress of the emigrant train, 

 with characteristic courage he set out alone and crossed 

 the deserts of Utah and Nevada and the Sierra Nevada, on 

 foot. He remained in California but a short time, and re- 

 turned to Waukegan to take up his nursery work. He was the 

 first man to grow forest-tree seedlings by the million, and for 

 nearly half a century he devoted his time and skill to raising 

 conifer and other tree seedlings. He planted large forests in 

 many western states, and the most successful plantations of 

 Catalpa speciosa in the United States were made by him near 

 Farlington, in Kansas. His counsel has always been in demand 

 wherever forest problems were studied in this country, as, for 

 example, at the Leland Stanford University, in California, and 

 George W. Vanderbilt's estate at Biltmore, North Carolina. He 

 was one of the valued assistants of Professor Sargent in gath- 

 ering data for his forest report of the Tenth Census, and many of 

 the specimens in the Jesup collection of woods in the Museum 

 of Natural History, in this city, were collected by him. No one 

 in his time has devoted himself to the study of trees with 

 greater intelligence or success, and no one has done more to 

 increase the love for them or to encourage the planting of 

 them in the United States. Mr. Douglas was endowed with a 

 hardy constitution, and his faculties were in full vigor almost 

 until the hour of his death, in his eighty-fifth year. The total 

 lack of self-seeking in his nature, his unfailing cheerfulness 

 and rich sense of humor, made him one of the most agreeable 

 of companions, and the integrity and purity of his life com- 

 manded the respect and affection of all who knew him. 



