448 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 507. 



its waxy-white bell-shaped flowers, beautiful in summer with 

 its bright blue fruit, and especially beautiful now after the 

 leaves have turned. It is a tall shrub and in good soil soon 

 grows into a shapely specimen. 



The change from noithern-grown to southern fresh vegeta- 

 bles has gradually taken place in our markets, while the 

 weather in this section is yet delightfully bright and mild, with 

 hardly any suggestion of approaching winter. Peppers, cu- 

 cumbers and the first tomatoes are now coming from fields 

 in Florida. Eggplants and okra come from the same state, 

 and green peas from Virginia. The supplies of string beans 

 are received from Virginia and from North and South 

 Carolina. 



Prunus subhirtella is another Japanese Cherry which prom- 

 ises to become a valuable ornamental plant in our northern 

 gardens. Like Prunus pendula, which it resembles also in 

 the structure and size of the flowers, it blooms before the 

 appearance of the leaves. In the Arnold Arboretum, where 

 Prunus subhirtella has proved hardy and flowered abundantly 

 for the last two or three years, it is now a broad bush with 

 slender erect branches and ovate-acuminate dark green leaves 

 from two to three inches in length. About the first of Novem- 

 ber these turn deep rich purple-red, making this plant a beau- 

 tiful object at this season of the year. Altogether, Prunus 

 subhirtella is one of the hardiest and most promising of the 

 small trees recently introduced into our gardens. It was fig- 

 ured a year ago in The Botanical Magazine (t. 7508) from a 

 plant sent in 1895 by the Arnold Arboretum to the Royal Gar- 

 dens at Kew. 



The two native species of dwarf Pyrus, or Choke-berries, 

 Pyrus nigra and Pyrus arbutifolia (see Garden and Forest, 

 vol. iii., p. 416, f.52),are both good garden shrubs. At this season 

 of the year, when the former has already lost its leaves, and its 

 fruit, although still hanging on the branches, is much shrunken, 

 Pyrus arbutifolia is the more attractive plant. It is a tall, 

 slender bush with oblong or oblanceolate leaves, abundant 

 white flowers which open about the 1st of June, and small 

 fruits which do not ripen until the end of October, when they 

 become bright scarlet and remain on the branches without 

 loss of color or brilliancy until well into the winter. The leaves 

 turn dark red about the time the fruit becomes ripe, and at 

 this season this is one of the most attractive of our native 

 shrubs. The habit is not as good as that of some others, but, 

 in spite of this drawback, Pyrus arbutifolia may well find a 

 place in any garden for the beauty of its autumn colors and 

 the winter effects produced by its fruits. 



Oranges from Louisiana and from Jamaica are now in this 

 market, and the celebrated Indian River oranges, from 

 Florida, are seen in considerable quantity for the first time 

 since the ruinous freeze in that state in 1895. Several car- 

 loads of high-grade Florida oranges from the section about 

 Arcadia have been forwarded to this city during the past few 

 days. A carload of new-crop Navel oranges is already on the 

 way from California to New York, having been started across 

 the continent on November 6th, and is due here ten days later. 

 It is said to be the first carload of this fruit shipped from that 

 state this season. Besides Messina and Malaga lemons, from 

 the Mediterranean, new-crop lemons of choice quality are 

 arriving from California. Twenty-six carloads of so-called de- 

 ciduous fruits, from California, were sold in this city last week. 

 Grapes constituted almost the entire bulk, the principal varie- 

 ties being Flame Tokay, Muscat, Cornichon, Verdell and 

 Black Ferrera. Delaware and Niagara grapes, from Lake 

 Keuka and more westerly parts of New York, are passing out 

 of season, together with Concords. Keiffer, Beurre d'Anjou, 

 Lawrence, Vicar of Wakefield, Beurre Bosc and Seckel pears, 

 from near-by orchards, are still fairly plentiful, the latter cost- 

 ing more than twice as much as any of the other sorts. 



In a paper read before the last meeting of the Society for 

 the Promotion of Agricultural Science, on The Weights of 

 Bees and the Loads they Carry, Professor Clarence P. Gillette, 

 of the Colorado Agricultural College, reported that in his exami- 

 nations of hundreds of pollen-bearing bees he had never found 

 one heavily laden with honey, though these usually have a 

 little honey, as do most working bees when leaving for the 

 field. A carefully compiled table included in Professor Gil- 

 lette's paper shows that the honey-carriers return to the hive 

 a trifle more than one-half heavier than when they leave it, 

 but the pollen-carriers, on an average, only increase their 

 weight about one-tenth by the load they carry. The same 

 table demonstrates that the bees from an issuing swarm are 

 considerably heavier than bees coming to the hive laden with 



honey, proving that they take as much food as possible with 

 them when swarming, to guard against starvation before it is 

 possible to again gather in stores for the new home. Accord- 

 ing to this table there are in one pound, on an average, 5,578 

 unloaded worker bees, and for the same weight 3,532 honey- 

 laden bees are necessary. As many as 5,060 pollen-bearing 

 bees or 5,447 unloaded pollen-bearers are required to weigh 

 one pound, or 5,394 idlers ; 2,206 drones ; 10,965 loads of 

 honey ; or 40,580 loads of pollen, this amount representing the 

 quantity of pollen carried on both legs by the bees. 



In a recent number of The Botanical Magazine, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker describes and figures (t. 7522) under the name of Wis- 

 taria Chinensis, var. multijuga. the Wistaria with long racemes 

 which is so commonly cultivated in Japanese gardens and 

 which has been grown in this country for the past twenty-five 

 or thirty years. There is considerable confusion still with 

 regard to the names of the Asiatic species of this genus ; but 

 this question need not be discussed here, and the object of this 

 note is merely to call attention to a beautiful hardy vine which 

 is not as well known as it should be. It differs from the ordi- 

 nary Wistaria Chinensis in its narrower leaflets, much longer 

 and looser racemes of very fragrant flowers and in their late- 

 ness, as the flowers of this plant open two or three weeks later 

 than those of Wistaria Chinensis. In the autumn the two 

 species can be readily distinguished, as the leaves of Wistaria 

 multijuga turn clear yellow comparatively early, while those 

 of Wistaria Chinensis remain green so late that they are almost 

 invariably destroyed by frost before changing color. Wistaria 

 Chinensis is a common Japanese forest plant and is also a 

 native of China. Wistaria multijuga does not appear to be 

 indigenous in Japan, and, judging from the fact that it is much 

 hardier than Wistaria Chinensis, it probably came originally 

 from northern China, and is one of those favorite garden plants 

 of the Japanese introduced to them by the Buddhist priests. 

 Whatever the right name for this handsome plant may be, it 

 is evidently in every way entirely distinct from the common 

 Japanese Wistaria, the plant universally cultivated in this coun- 

 try and Europe as Wistaria Chinensis. 



In a paperon Thinning Fruit, recently read before the Hudson 

 Valley Horticultural Society, Professor S. A. Beach gave an 

 account of experiments in thinning fruit on Apple-trees. In the 

 firstexperiment two heavily-fruited Baldwin trees were selected, 

 and all the knotty, wormy and otherwise inferior fruit was 

 picked off one of the trees, leaving but one fruit of a cluster. 

 Of marketable fruit the thinned tree yielded nine and four- 

 fifths per cent more first-grade, and four and one-half percent 

 less second-grade fruit than the unthinned tree. Six Baldwin 

 and six Greening trees were used in the second experiment. 

 Three trees of each kind were thinned by taking off all poor 

 fruit and leaving the fruit on the trees at least four inches 

 apart. The Baldwin trees which had been thinned gave 

 twenty-six per cent less of marketable fruit, but twenty-two 

 per cent more of it graded No. 1 than of the fruit from the 

 unthinned Baldwins. Or, differently stated, although the un- 

 thinned trees carried above a fourth more fruit altogether, 

 they actually each yielded one and a quarter bushels less No. 1 

 fruit than the thinned trees. With the Greenings this differ- 

 ence was even more marked, for the thinned Greening trees on 

 an average produced two and one-quarter bushels more No. 1 

 fruit than the unthinned trees. Two trees of Hubbardston 

 were used in the third test. On one tree the fruit was thinned 

 to at least six inches apart. The thinned tree bore seventeen 

 and four-tenths per cent more of No. 1 apples than the un- 

 thinned tree, and seventeen and one-tenth per cent less of 

 No. 2 grade. In all these tests fewer apples dropped from the 

 thinned trees, and their fruit was superior in quality and more 

 highly colored, and was worth from ten to fifteen per cent 

 more in market. The thinning and picking took about twice 

 the time required for picking alone. The second method in 

 these tests proved superior enough to the first to more than 

 pay for the extra work involved ; that is to say, the work paid 

 best where it was thoroughly done. From the figures now at 

 hand a satisfactory comparison of the second and third 

 methods cannot be made, nor of the effect of thinning the 

 fruit on the succeeding crop. In a season of an enormous 

 crop, as in 1896, when many growers did not realize returns 

 sufficient to cover the cost of packages and of picking and 

 handling, thinning early in the season might be expected to 

 decrease the yield of low-grade fruit and increase the amount 

 of first grade, with a consequent advance in prices. Relieved 

 of the drain of excessive bearing, the trees could ripen a fairly 

 large crop of superior fruit, and better develop fruit-buds for 

 the following year. 



