358 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 498. 



found on a moor six hundred feet above the sea-level, near 

 Glenalmond, Perth. A hybrid between the same genera was 

 found in France in 1891. 



Florida papers state that photographs recently made for 

 exhibition show twenty-eight pineapples, estimated to weigh 

 about 400 pounds, growing on a plot of ground ten feet square, 

 near Orlando, in that state. 



The receipts of bananas at this port during the month of 

 August amounted to 420,100 bunches, and exceeded the busi- 

 ness of the same month in last year by 138,500 bunches. 



In the Forestry Building at the Tennessee Centennial Exhi- 

 bition forty-five different kinds of hard wood are shown as the 

 product of a single farm in Montgomery County, Tennessee. 



The peach crop of Missouri is immense this year, and a con- 

 servative estimate of the yield in five of the great fruit-growing 

 counties in the south-western part of the state is 412,500 

 bushels. The output of a single farm of 1,600 acres in Oregon 

 County this season is 15,000 bushels. 



A Penn Yan correspondent of the Fruit Trade Journal, 

 writing from the grape region about Lake Keuka, New York, 

 reports the grape crop to be two weeks later than last year. 

 There is promise of a two-thirds yield of Delawares and a 

 large crop of Catawbas if the frost holds off, while Concords 

 will not give the average yield. 



The American Fruit-growers' Union will hold a convention 

 in Nashville, Term., on September 8th to 10th. It is proposed 

 during its sessions to form an association comprising the fruit 

 and vegetable growers of the entire country, particularly 

 southern growers. The entire north and west is dependent 

 upon the extreme south for early vegetables up to May 15th. 



One of the most famous trees in Connecticut is the so-called 

 Poetry Oak which stands in front of the meeting-house at 

 Pachaug. The agricultural papers of half a century ago com- 

 mented upon its size, and a more recent writer says " it has 

 heard fifty-two sermons a year for 177 years and political 

 speeches from the settlement of the country down to the 

 present day," and reports that its trunk is nearly twenty feet in 

 circumference while the spread of its branches exceeds 240 

 feet. 



The so-called Panama hats, beautifully woven and very 

 expensive, come in large part from Central America. But 

 about five million hats of a similar kind, although of different 

 grades, are annually exported from Spain, where in the Anda- 

 lusian district, they are manufactured from the leaves of a 

 species of Palm which there grows almost wild. They are 

 made entirely by hand, after the methods pursued for centu- 

 ries, and the industry is said to support more than ten thou- 

 sand persons, mainly women and children. The finest kinds 

 can be made only by skilled operatives, who consume a week 

 in producing two hats. 



A new hybrid Aristolochia, probably the first of which 

 there is record, is figured and described in a recent issue of 

 The Gardeners Chronicle. The parents, A. Brasiliensis and 

 A. elegans, belong to two very distinct sections of the genus, 

 and the upper lip of the hybrid is described as intermediate in 

 shape between that feature in the parents, slightly crumpled, 

 cream-colored, thickly bestrewn with arborescent purplish 

 spots. The throat of the perianth is clear yellow, as in A. ele- 

 gans, with numerous purplish radiating veins. This interest- 

 ing and showy novelty is an acquisition to the stove climbers, 

 and was originated by Mr. J. M. Bell, gardener to Rev. Canon 

 Prettyman, Louth. 



A bulletin on vegetables just published by the West Virginia 

 Experiment Station reports that the same quantity of field beans 

 planted in drills will produce twice as much as if planted in hills. 

 Where but a few plants of Lima beans are grown for family 

 use it is recommended to plant the seeds in inverted sods in 

 a hot-bed, from April 1st to loth, as the increase will more 

 than repay the trouble. Bush Lima beans are compared favor- 

 ably with the pole sorts and said to be worthy of taking their 

 place. The saving of poles and training would, of course, be 

 a clear gain. The bush sorts are said to require less space for 

 development, so that a larger yield per acre may be counted 

 upon, particularly toward the northern limit of the successful 

 cultivation of the pole Limas. The limit of the successful cul- 

 tivation of bush Limas is said to be much farther north than 

 that of the pole Limas. 



In 1895 four public playgrounds for children were opened 

 by the Philadelphia Board of Education. Eight more were 

 added in 1896, and ten additional ones this summer. The cost 



of equipping the twenty-two which are thus doing service was 

 only $3,000, while the attendance at each averages from 300 to 

 600 persons a day, according to its situation in a more or less 

 densely crowded quarter of the city. Of course, the majority 

 of the frequenters of these playgrounds are children. But 

 poor mothers often pass a part of the day within them, while 

 others leave their children, including even babies in carriages, 

 inthecareof the janitor and teacher. Large sand-piles form the 

 chief attraction, but in some grounds swings, seesaws, toys 

 and games of various kinds are supplied, and as much shade 

 as possible is always furnished. 



Among eighteen papers included in the proceedings of the 

 Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, at its annual 

 meeting held in Detroit last month, were An Experience in 

 Managing a Weed Garden, by Professor W. J. Beal ; Notes 

 on Bean and Pea Tubercles, by Professor B. D. Halsted ; The 

 Annual Growth of Forest Trees, by Professor W. R. Lazenby ; 

 Objects and Methods of Soil Analysis, by Professor E. W. 

 Hilgard ; The Promotion of Agricultural Science, by Professor 

 I. P. Roberts, and Further Observations in Varieties of 

 Timothy, by Professor A. D. Hopkins. Professor Halsted, of 

 the New Jersey Experiment Station, was elected president for 

 the coming year, and Professor C. S. Plumb, of Purdue Uni- 

 versity, was made secretary and treasurer. This society, 

 founded in Boston nearly twenty years ago, has for its object 

 the advancement of progressive agriculture. The member- 

 ship list is increased only by invitation ^to scientific workers 

 and is limited to one hundred. The next meeting will be held 

 in Boston in August, 1898, in connection with the fiftieth anni- 

 versary of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. 



Our native Squaw-root, or Cancer-root, Conopholis Ameri- 

 cana, is illustrated and described in Meehan's Monthly for 

 September. This singular and somewhat uncommon plant is 

 best known in its mature condition, when the small clusters 

 of blackened spikes resemble slender old Fir-cones. While 

 widely distributed over the eastern and central portions of the 

 United States, it is nowhere common, and about Philadelphia 

 is stated to be the most rarely found in a list of rare 

 plants. It is in bloom in that vicinity toward the close of 

 April, though in a late season its curious flowers do not appear 

 until the beginning of June. The parasitic tubers have a 

 preference for the roots of Oaks, but individual plants and 

 groups are sometimes supported by a few straggling roots 

 which penetrate from three to six inches of peaty bank. The 

 plant is elusive because it is often unable to pierce through 

 the heavy crust of decayed leaves. The flowers, which de- 

 velop and perfect themselves in four to six days, rarely, if 

 ever, produce fruitful seed, and the plant perpetuates itself 

 mainly from eyes in its thickened corm-like tuber. The re- 

 semblance to its near relation, the Beech-drops, also known 

 as Cancer-root, Epiphegus Virginiana, is noted in several 

 particulars. 



In an editorial article recently published in the Boston Tran- 

 script it is stated that the action of New Hampshire toward 

 the prevention of destructive tree-cutting is most closely 

 watched. Not, perhaps, because the denudation is most pro- 

 nounced there, but because from its attractiveness as a sum- 

 mer resort the losses to its forests are the more evident to the 

 traveler. No one who traverses the wild road leading up to 

 the Old Man of the Mountain can help bewailing the short- 

 sighted policy that is denuding these hillsides and valleys. 

 Here the woods are so deep and so extensive that deer may 

 occasionally be seen crossing the public roads. But for five 

 miles up the valley there is the sawdust trail of the woodcutter, 

 who mows the forest from the mountain side and chokes the 

 rivers with his refuse. And this is the condition of New 

 Hampshire's choicest retreat, where as much land as possible 

 has been retained by careful and intelligent owners, who 

 realize that when the forests are gone New Hampshire's attrac- 

 tions for summer tourists will be gone also. Three-quarters 

 of the cutting in New Hampshire is of that sweeping kind that 

 leaves not even a sapling on the denuded area, but the Legis- 

 lature has not yet given signs by its acts or its appropriations 

 of serious intention to stop the waste. The present course 

 cannot fail to rob the Granite State of its forests, and will 

 make it impossible to replace them by other forests. The 

 remedy will probably come in protests from persons interested 

 in the summer resorts. When they realize that the income 

 derived by the state from its visitors is quite equal to that 

 derived from the cutting of lumber (and this was stated to be 

 true a number of years ago), they will see to it that their 

 interests are not imperilled further by reckless lumbering. 



