January 31, 1S94.] 



Garden and Forest. 



45 



before they could have fully grown. In such cases the 

 apples were always more or less misshapen and bore the 

 traces of the larvse inroads wherever they had attempted to 

 penetrate. In those apples in which the curculio larvse had 

 thriven their burrowings in the flesh were quite conspicuous 

 in all fruit that remained on the trees, but most of the in- 

 fested apples fell to the ground in early summer and the 

 larvse escaped, entered the soil to pupate and re-appeared 

 as beetles at the end of July and in August and September. 

 During the late summer and the autumn large numbers of 

 the beetles could be found on the upper sides of the fruit, 

 generally near the stems, puncturing little holes in the fruit 

 and feeding upon it. These holes were never very deep, 

 but were commonly from an eighth to a quarter of an inch 

 in diameter, and sometimes much larger. A good figure, 

 showing the character of this injury, is given on page 383 of 

 the second volume of Insect Life. 



But, as in the case of the Plum, it is when the larva; 

 infest the young fruit that the principal damage is to be 

 feared, because the effect of the work of the larva; is to 

 cause the fruit to fall off prematurely. In the orchard re- 

 ferred to, several hundredyoung trees, which were expected 

 to bear from half a bushel to two or three bushels 

 of apples each, scarcely matured a perfect fruit, and, in 

 fact, the ruin of the crop was complete as regards certain 

 varieties. Duchess (sometimes called Duchess of Olden- 

 burg) apples suffered the most, the fruit of several hundred 

 young trees being ruined. 



Red Astrachan and Charlottenthaler (yellow transparent) 

 were also very much injured, and the fruit of several other 

 varieties was greatly damaged by the grubs. 



As no injury of this nature had been noticed in previous 

 seasons, the important question suggested is : What was 

 the cause of this sudden attack by such numbers of this 

 insect? There are large quantities of wild Red Plum-trees 

 or bushes growing along the fences within a radius of half 

 a mile of the orchard, and for some years it has been diffi- 

 cult to find a good ripe plum, because of the ravages of the 

 curculio, although the plants are white with bloom every 

 spring. No effort has ever been made to control the cur- 

 culio on these Plum-trees, but some years ago it was pos- 

 sible to get plenty of fairly good fruit nearly every season. 

 Possibly the great increase in the numbers of the insect, 

 which have multiplied here, has forced them to seek other 

 and secondary food. If care was taken to destroy all 

 unnecessary and uncared-for Plum-trees in the vicinity, and 

 to properly guard those that were left, the insects proba- 

 bly would decrease and would not seriously affect the 

 apples. 



The affected orchard is planted in grass, the first crop of 

 hay being taken off at the end of June, the later growth being 

 allowed to remain on the ground. After properly guarding 

 the trunks of the young trees, and removing any debris from 

 their vicinity, it is proposed to burn over the stubble on 

 some warm day during the coming spring, with the hope of 

 destroying a large number of the beetles which have 

 hibernated. 



Later, just before and for some.weeks after blossoming, 

 it is intended to use arsenical poisons in moderate amount 

 in combination with the fungicides for the scab, Fusicla- 

 dium dendriticum, which has also become troublesome in 

 this region in recent years. This will probably not be 

 wholly effective, but some experiments have shown that 

 the injuries by the beetles can be lessened by the use of 

 poisons if care is taken that the Paris-green or London- 

 purple is not applied so strong as to destroy the foliage. 



It is possible that with a proper care of the Plum-trees, 

 and the reduction in the numbers of the insects, they will no 

 longer attack the apples to any serious extent ; but any in- 

 fluence calculated to compel the curculio to resort to and 

 acquire an increased relish for this fruit must be regarded 

 as dangerous, to say the least. It is much more to be 

 dreaded than the codlin-moth, which has never proved 

 really very troublesome in this region, not one apple in a 

 hundred being injured by it. This attack of the plum 



curculio on the apple, and the increase in the destructive- 

 ness of the scab fungus, furnish fresh examples of the 

 folly of neglecting disease of any kind, even when it is 

 scarcely noticeable or not very troublesome. 



Arnold Arboretum. J. G. Jack. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Ranunculus coRTUsiEFOLius. — This is the giant Buttercup 

 of Maderia, of which I sent a brief description in a letter 

 published in Garden and Forest, vol. v., p. 174. It has 

 lately been introduced in quantity by means of seeds. A 

 colored plate, representing a bunch of the elegant bright 

 yellow flowers as large as those of Anemone Japonica, is 

 published in The Garden this week, prepared from a plant 

 flowered at St. Albans in March last. The plant is not 

 hardy here, except in the southern counties, but it can be 

 grown in a cold house or frame, and in the warmer states 

 of America it would probably become naturalized. It grows 

 to a height of four feet and has lobed, hairy leaves a foot 

 across. It is perennial, dying down to the large fleshy 

 root-stock for the winter. 



Washingtonia filifera, figured on p. 535 of the last vol- 

 ume, appears to be well established on the Riviera, 

 where it is as abundantly represented as any other Palm. 

 In one garden, namely, that of Monsieur de Falbe, in 

 Cannes, there are no less than seventy-six large specimens 

 of it, some of them having trunks eighteen feet high and 

 over three feet in diameter. In another garden in Cannes 

 a specimen of this Palm flowered last year. Seeing that it 

 was not introduced into Europe until 1875, its abundance 

 and the large size of many of the specimens on the Riviera 

 are remarkable. In countries where the Washingtonia re- 

 quires the protection of a glass house it is almost equally 

 happy. At any rate, in a greenhouse at Herrenhausen, 

 near Hanover, HerrWendland has several grand examples, 

 and there arealso some healthy fast-growing specimens of 

 it planted out in the temperate house at Kew. 



Aganisia lepida. — This is a pretty white-flowered Orchid, 

 which was first discovered in Brazil by Monsieur J. Linden 

 about thirty years ago, but never successfully introduced 

 into cultivation till recently. I saw a quantity of healthy 

 plants of it in the nursery of L'Horticulture Internationale, 

 Brussels, in June last, and several sales of it have occurred 

 this year in the London auction rooms. It is now figured 

 in Monsieur Lucien Linden's Zmdem'a, t. 400, the figure 

 representing it as a tufted plant with short pseudo-bulbs, 

 grass-like plicated green leaves a foot long, and an elegant 

 semi-erect flower-spike two feet long, the upper half 

 bearing ten flowers, each as large as the flower of Odon- 

 toglossum citrosmum, and not unlike it in form, pure 

 white, save a tinge of yellow on the disk of the labellum 

 and the violet color of the lower part of the column. It 

 is a terrestrial plant, according to Monsieur Linden, 

 who also states that under cultivation it "behaves splen- 

 didly, growing freely and flowering abundantly." It was 

 happy enough in the houses at Brussels when I saw it, and 

 if it does prove to be a good garden-plant it is certain to 

 become popular, which can scarcely be said of the several 

 species of Aganisia hitherto tried in English collections. 

 A. cyanea is one of the most beautiful of blue-flowered 

 Orchids, but it is a bad plant to manage. 



Dendrobium speciosum. — There is an exceptionally large 

 specimen of this noble Australian species in flower now at 

 Kew. It has horn-like pseudo-bulbs a foot long, each 

 bearing several broad leathery green leaves, and terminated 

 by one or two large spikes of yellow flowers with a few 

 spots of purple. It was one of the first Australian Den- 

 drobes introduced into British gardens, it having been sent 

 to Kew in 1823 by the Kew collector, Allan Cunningham. 

 It is grown in a warm, sunny greenhouse. 



Phajus Blumei, var. Assamicus. — This name was given 

 by Reichenbach to a plant which flowered in England in 

 1S82, and which was then described as one of the most 



