43 2 



Garden and Forest. 



[1SIUMBER 506. 



visitors ; yet its situation is very beautiful, with a lofty hill 

 behind it, fine beaches and a breezy invigorating climate. 

 Robbinston, on the American side, once a famous little 

 place for ship-building, has mouldered with the decay of 

 that industry. A few new houses for summer residents, 

 half-buried in trees, are to be seen along the banks of the 

 river, from which there are lovely views, and the walks and 

 drives of the neighborhood are picturesque and interesting. 



The active life of the neighborhood settles in the border 

 city, Calais, at the headwaters of the St. Croix, ft is con- 

 nected by a bridge with the New Brunswick city of St. 

 Stephen, and these two are stirring, but slowly-growing 

 places. The two towns together have a population of 

 perhaps fifteen thousand, and besides sawmills at the falls, 

 there is a cotton mill and also a shoe factory. These and 

 other industries bring a rough population, which threatens 

 to replace the more dignified element which first peopled 

 this section of the country. 



With a little well-directed and united energy in munici- 

 pal improvement on the part of its inhabitants Calais 

 might be made a beautiful town, for, owing to the care of 

 the early settlers, the streets were planted with rows of 

 trees which now overshadow them during the summer 

 months. The outlook upon the river is also agreeable. 

 Fences have been removed and many of the grass-plots 

 between the houses and the street are kept neatly mown, 

 but others are sadly neglected. Recently a little park 

 about the Soldiers' Monument, in the centre of the town, 

 has been put in order, and this contains a semicircle of 

 line old Elms, which make a good background to the 

 armed figure on its pedestal. There is an opportunity for 

 a good open space about the handsome Public Library if 

 some unsightly buildings which disfigure the neighborhood 

 could be removed and the spot they occupy grassed and 

 planted. But the City Council is not endowed with the 

 artistic sense, and the members say the town has only 

 money for what is necessary, and must dispense with orna- 

 mental improvements for the present. 



It is gratifying to notice among the inhabitants an in- 

 creasing interest in remedying the long-standing defects of 

 the town, and the efforts of the more tasteful and public- 

 spirited among them will no doubt be imitated as time goes 

 on. The general aspect of the main street is certainly much 

 better than it was ten years ago, and the care of lawns is 

 beginning to be recognized more generally. When the 

 Washington County Railroad is completed, and the inhab- 

 itants of eastern Maine no longer have to go through New 

 Brunswick to get home from Boston by land, it is probable 

 that improvements will take a start, and that aesthetic as 

 well as financial progress may be looked for in the Border 

 City. 



I he natural beauty of the St. Croix should be wisely 

 guarded by those who dwell upon its banks. A stretch of 

 woodland along the river, about three miles below Calais, 

 a small part of which belongs to the city, might be con- 

 verted into a riverside park of real beauty. The steep banks 

 could be descended by terraced paths so as to reach the 

 beach from the road above, through what is now a tangle 

 of trees and underbrush. There are fine Hemlocks and 

 other evergreens in these groves and plenty of Maples and 

 Canoe Birches, which a little attention would greatly 

 beautify. Vistas opened in the proper places would reveal 

 charming views of the narrows and headlands of the river, 

 and the inhabitants would soon take pride and delight in 

 so valuable a possession if it were only made reasonably 

 accessible. Through the brief summer months the citizens 

 delight in living out-of-doors, and revel in the lovely scenes 

 along the river, which they enjoy from boats and carriages ; 

 so some project for a park near at hand might, if skillfully 

 managed, meet with good support, since they have a 

 nucleus to begin with in the piece of woods they own. 



Taken as a whole, the St. Croix River is wonderfully beau- 

 tiful. Its great tides, its broad beaches, its picturesque shores, 

 its red rocks, its sandy coves and bold headlands have a 

 unique character which never fails to impress a stranger, 



and they are specially endeared to those to whom they 

 have been from early childhood familiar. 

 Hingham, Mass. Mary C. bobbins. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Hypericum galioides. 



E have frequently called attention to the beauty of 

 the shrubby North American species of Hypericum 

 and their value as garden plants, and several of them have 

 been first figured on the pages of this journal. They all 

 produce clear yellow flowers at midsummer when com- 

 paratively few shrubs are in bloom, and they flower 

 profusely. 



One of the most beautiful of the group, Hypericum 

 galioides, is figured for the first time on page 433 of this 

 issue, from specimens gathered in the Arnold Arboretum, 

 where it has been successfully cultivated for a number of 

 years, and where it makes a handsome compact broad 

 round bush about three feet in height, with slender stems 

 covered with dark green linear-lanceolate, more or less 

 revolule mucronate crowded leaves an inch and a half 

 long and an eighth of an inch wide, and small axillary 

 and terminal flowers which open at the end of July. 



Hypericum galioides naturally inhabits wet ground, and 

 is distributed from Delaware to Florida, where broad- 

 leaved forms occur (var. ambiguum), and to eastern Ten- 

 nessee and Georgia. 



All the shrubby Hypericums can be easily raised from 

 seeds and grow freely in good rich garden soil, and were 

 they better known they would, no doubt, become extremely 

 popular for the decoration of summer gardens. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 

 Orchid Breeding. — A paper on some curiosities in Orchid 

 breeding was read by Mr. C. C. Hurst, an amateur Orchid 

 grower, at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society. Orchids are now receiving so much attention 

 from the hybridizer, and so many surprising crosses have 

 been obtained, that students of evolution will find abun- 

 dant material among the hybrids and crosses represented 

 in gardens in the Orchid department alone. Too much 

 importance should not be attached to what are termed 

 bigeneric crosses, generic distinctions, especially in this 

 order, being often of the slightest character. A hundred 

 years hence, no doubt, many of the genera of to-day will 

 be known only as synonyms. An analogous case is that 

 of Pelargoniums; these plants received special attention 

 from cultivators at the beginning of the present century, 

 and botanists saw no less than twenty genera in what we 

 now know as one, namely, Pelargonium. The genus Aloe 

 is made to include three othsr genera by some botanists. 

 A still more striking instance of the artificiality of generic 

 distinctions is that of the botanist who has lately separated 

 the tuberous Begonias into a distinct genus, which he has 

 named Lemoinea. Mr. Hurst said that hybrids between 

 two distinct species were generally exactly intermediate in 

 character. There are, however, many exceptions to this 

 statement. "There is often a greater or less divergence 

 toward one parent. . . . Many instances can be cited 

 in which the pollen parent has greatly influenced the char- 

 acter of the flower, and the seed parent the vegetative 

 organs of the progeny. On the other hand, the opposite 

 has occurred." (Veitch.) That the same cross may be 

 repeated, and identical results obtained each time where 

 fixed species are used, depends upon the fixity of the spe- 

 cies. Mr. Hurst protests against hybrids from the same 

 parents receiving distinctive specific names, however 

 much variation they may show. A list of the hybrids 

 raised with their parentage reveals some extraordinary 

 crosses and shows how little is indicated of what may be 

 termed the blood relationship of species and even of 



