376 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 500. 



caterpillar and gouger an ^ greatly lessened the ravages of the 

 curculio, while it in no wise injured the foliage. The prepa- 

 ration is to have further trial before the formula is made 

 public. 

 Brighton, III. Fanny Copley Seavey. 



Fruit-trees in Arkansas. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — As the summer season in north-western Arkansas is 

 somewhat longer than in Massachusetts, a greater growth of 

 the Burbank Plum is made here than that reported by your 

 correspondent from Massachusetts on page 347. 



In April, 1895, I set out a small-sized Burbank Plum, and it 

 now measures ten feet in height. Last spring the branches 

 were cut back to eight inches, and it has grown a little over 

 four feet this season. All fruit-trees grow rapidly here. 

 A small yearling Peach-tree transplanted in the spring of 1895, 

 when the top was cut off at the root, is now fourteen feet high 

 and ten inches in diameter. This year it was heavily loaded 

 with fruit. An Elberta Peach-tree budded a year ago is eight 

 feet high and is still growing. A Gibb Apricot has grown six 

 feet this season. The entire top of an Early York Nectarine 

 was broken off last winter; a sprout started near the ground, 

 and now measures five inches in circumference and is five 

 feet high. Several dwarf Pear-trees have grown five feet this 

 vear, and a Kieffer six feet. 



Trees bear when very young, and it is no uncommon thing 

 for a tree five years old to bear a bushel of apples, and for 

 Peach-trees to bear moderately when two years old. 



Decatur, Ark. A. R. Plllllk. 



The Marsh at Rose Brake. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — September, in this part of the country, is usually a dry 

 month. The roads are hot and dusty, the garden has a dis- 

 couraged air, the leaves are limp and withered, and the flowers 

 hang droopingly from their stalks. The only fresh and verdant 

 spots are the banks of streams and the moist places of the 

 farm where the springs well-up from the limestone rocks 

 underground. 



One of the attractions of Rose Brake is its acres of unre- 

 deemed marshy ground, which we have made a present to 

 Nature, and over which she holds undisputed sway. Here 

 beauty revels in these September days in a riot of color and 

 bold and picturesque effects. Through beds of Mint and Moss 

 and many gay blossoms now in their prime, winds a stream 

 which is fed by many springs. This is the wild-flower garden 

 that far outrivals our poor attempts at cultivated borders on 

 dry and rocky hillsides, which are only successful in spring 

 and early summer. It is to the marsh that we go with shears 

 and baskets now to garner some of this lavish harvest of 

 bloom for the decoration of home and little church. 



Various are the surprises here. In one place the stream 

 runs between beds of a low-growing showy yellow flower, the 

 common Bidens chrysanthemoides, first cousin of the hateful 

 Spanish Needles, but which makes here a beautiful picture of 

 dewy freshness by its lavish display of bright golden blossoms 

 set in greenest grass. Then there are large patches of the 

 crushed-raspberry-colored Joe-Pye Weed, with fringes of a 

 white species of Eupatorium to give variety. In another place 

 a rank growth of Golden-rod and Yellow Cone-flowers is min- 

 gled with the reddish purple of Iron Weed and Marsh This- 

 tles six feet in height, of the same reddish hue. Here are 

 flowers, not in small, primly-ordered borders, but in masses 

 of bright colors acres in extent, harmoniously arranged and 

 blended by the master-hand of Nature. Here are no conflict- 

 ing hues, no stiff monstrosities, no double Sunflowers and 

 Dahlias, and China Asters and screaming Zinnias whose colors 

 set one's teeth on edge, all in a meaningless jumble, without 

 form and void of beauty, such as one sees in the gardens here- 

 abouts. The effect of our bright marsh garden is toned down 

 by its quiet setting in wild shrubbery, which includes seven 

 species of Willow, and Wild Roses, Viburnums. Thorns, Syca- 

 mores and many other plants. Here, too, the Bittersweet and 

 Honeysuckle escaped from cultivation, and the native wild 

 Grapes festoon at will the growth on the banks of the stream, 

 and huge rocks elbowing each other form gloomy recesses 

 where Ferns and Mosses love to hide and birds to build their 

 nests. Tall, rank Sedges and Grasses gone to seed mingle 

 effectively with the brighter coloring of the flowers. 



In one place I noticed a patch several yards in circumfer- 

 ence of Cuphea viscosissima, an insignificant little plant as 

 usually seen in dry soils, but here in the rich muck and bloom- 



ing lavishly, it makes an effective patch of a rather pleasing 

 light magenta color, contrasting not unfavorably with some 

 neighboring clumps of Coreopsis and Chrysopsis Mariana. 

 In some places the Jewel-weed is unusually rank and tall and 

 free-flowering, and large clumps of it, studded with bright 

 orange-colored blossoms, are framed in a setting of blue 

 Ageratum. 



In a damp corner of a pasture-field we find a thriving colony 

 of the lovely blue Lobelia syphilitica. No other flowers are 

 near by to mar the effect of the bright blossoms growing out 

 of the fresh Mint and Grass, and it is a delight to sit upon a 

 mossy stone and revel in the blue and green surrounding one 

 in perfect accord with the clear blue of the sky and the tender 

 green of the Honey Locust trees that overhang the spot. From 

 this point of vantage we survey the extent of the marsh and 

 take in all its beauty and are glad. 



Rose Brake, W. Va. 



Danske Dandridire. 



Native Plants for Ornamental Planting. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Your recent editorials recommending the use of native 

 local plants for the ornamentation of small country places 

 ought to open many eyes to the variety of the examples offered 

 by Nature's products, not merely in the meadow and by the 

 brookside, but even along the high road, where conditions of 

 growth are usually less favorable. For example, I noticed 

 recently by a country roadside in this part of southern New 

 York, an "arrangement" of Nature's making which might 

 well be imitated by a planter of taste, and which could not 

 easily be rivaled by any created with exotic garden shrubs and 

 creepers. 



Between a sloping hillside and the road, sweeping down- 

 ward to a border of Grass just as one might desire it to do in 

 ornamental grounds, ran a long narrow clump of Sumachs. 

 Their handsome dark red panicles were at their best. The 

 deep green of their foliage was varied by the beautifully lobed 

 leaves of our most beautiful wild Vine, Vitis asstivalis, while 

 its stems were hidden from view. And over all, not as a thick 

 covering, but in sparse, graceful tendrils, ran lengths of the 

 Virgin's Bower, bearing charming clusters of starry white 

 flowers. This was only one of the striking instances of beau- 

 tiful "arrangements" casually produced with native plants 

 which I noticed in the course of a single afternoon's drive ; 

 but it is enough to show that no one need depend for variety 

 of effect, any more than for beauty, upon the resources of the 

 gardener. Perhaps in two or three years this particular bit 

 of Nature's planting will have lost its beauty. Very likely the 

 Vine and the Clematis will have strangled the Sumachs — 1 

 mean, will have overrun them with heavy masses of their own 

 foliage so that the artistic-seeming arrangement of to-day will 

 become a somewhat formless tangle in which the individual 

 charm of the component parts will be lost. But this is just 

 where man has the advantage of Nature. In the pleasure- 

 ground discreet pruning or uprooting might keep such an 

 arrangement perfect for many years, while Nature, bent upon 

 growing as many plants as she can as fast as she can, cannot 

 pause to preserve special effects of peculiar beauty. 

 Tuxedo Park, N. Y. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



The Jewel-weed for Cutting. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In your issue of Garden and Forest for August 18th, 

 in the article on the August wild (lowers, it is said that the 

 lovely Jewel-weeds, Impatiens pallida and I. fulva, are useless 

 for house decoration, and this is almost true. However, after 

 repeatedly hurrying it into the house and into water, and fail- 

 ing to save them, I carried the water to the flower. By gathering 

 the graceful sprays early in the day or very late, or on a cloudy 

 day, and by cutting the stems off immediately a second time 

 under the water, I have succeeded in having fresh Jewel- weed 

 in the house. ^ 



Stuwe, Vt. -hllen £.. Learned. 



Recent Publications. 



Familiar Fealures of the Roadside : The Flowers, Shrubs, 

 Birds and fusecls. By F. Schuyler Mathews. With one 

 hundred and sixty drawing's by the author, and many of 

 the songs of our common birds and insects. New York, 

 D. Appleton and Co. 1897. 



Books about Nature in her more familiar moods, as dis- 

 tinct from books of travel and descriptions of scenery, have 



