February 7, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



51 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article:— The Increasing Number of Plant-pests Si 



Horticulture at the Midwinter Fair at San Francisco . . . Charles H. Shinn. 52 



Notes for Mushroom-eaters.— III. (With figures.). .Professor IV. G.Farlow. 52 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter W. Watson. 53 



New or Little-known Plants :— Pyrus Tschonoskii. (With figure.) C. S. S. 54 



Cultural Department :— Preservation of Soil Moisture by Tillage. . % H. Hale. 56 



The Snow Creeper of India A. B. VVestland. 56 



Seasonable Notes on Vegetables W. N. Craig. 56 



Notes on Anthuriums A. P. Meredith. 57 



Greenhouse Work E. O. Orpet. 57 



Correspondence :— Misconception as to Forest-growth T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 58 



Protecting Orange-groves from Frost James C. White. 58 



Meetings of Societies :— The Western New York Horticultural Society.— II 58 



Notes. 60 



Illustrations :— Agaricus campestris (the true Mushroom)— life-size, Fig. 7 52 



Agaricus phalloides (two-thirds natural size)— poisonous. Fig. 8 53 



Pyrus Tschonoskii, Fig. 9 55 



The Increasing- Number of Plant-pests. 



A CORRESPONDENT who writes to us concerning the 

 work of the experiment stations, speaks in terms of mild 

 censure and considerable regret over the fact that he finds so 

 little in the station bulletins except accounts of insects and 

 fungi, how they live and how they can be killed. He asks 

 whether the gardens and grounds of the stations are much 

 more than hospitals for sick and wounded vegetation, and 

 expresses the opinion that they would be more generally 

 useful if they would give some information and instruction 

 as to the proper treatment of healthy plants which are not 

 preyed upon by bugs or worms. This is a criticism which 

 we consider entirely without foundation. It is not true that 

 the stations neglect investigations relating to plain cultural 

 matters. As a matter of fact, they are now giving more thor- 

 ough study to soils, to fertilizers, to plant physiology and to 

 practical details of cultivation than they ever gave before. 

 Why these matters seem to be neglected is that much more 

 attention is paid to the diseases of plants and their destruc- 

 tion by insects than was formerly the case, so that the 

 other work seems small in comparison. The same ten- 

 dency is observed at the meetings of every horticultural 

 society or farmers' institute, and it means, in the first 

 place, that we have only recently learned to locate the 

 causes of many horticultural failures. So long as the 

 Apple-scab, Potato-rot and a good many other plant dis- 

 eases were considered as the results of the weather, and 

 therefore beyond control, there was no need to study the 

 habits of the fungi which caused them, and so long as in- 

 sects seemed visitations of God that it was useless to strug- 

 gle against, there was no need of studying the life-histories 

 of these pests. Now that we have learned to attribute our 

 failures to special causes, it is very evident that a study of 

 these causes is of the highest and most immediate practical 

 advantage. 



Besides this we must face another fact, which at first seems 

 most discouraging, which is, that the enemies of our culti- 

 vated plants in this country have rapidly multiplied within 

 recent years. No new insects have been created, but new 



feeding-grounds and new breeding-grounds have helped 

 them to increase to formidable numbers. Upon this point 

 Dr. Lintner has well stated the case when he explained 

 that two hundred years ago, when there was not even a 

 Wild Crab in central New York, there were no Apple in- 

 sects. When a few Apple-trees were planted by the early 

 settlers and offered desirable food, the insects were com- 

 pelled to fly for miles to find a tree where they might lay 

 their eggs ; but now, when there are orchards which spread 

 almost unbroken masses of foliage over hundreds of acres, 

 Apple insects by the score find root, trunk, twig, bud, leaf, 

 blossom and fruit spread out before them like a banquet to 

 stimulate appetite and hasten on their destructive growth. 

 Besides this, fruit and vegetables and cultivated plants of 

 every sort vary into widely different forms, and in this way 

 invite attacks of different kinds of insects. It is not only 

 that the cultivated plants furnish more and richer food, but 

 they furnish a greater variety of food, to sustain a greater 

 variety of insect life. The destruction of the wild plants 

 upon which the enemy originally subsisted in small num- 

 bers may have discouraged them for a time, but it also 

 drives them to seek cultivated plants, and they soon adapt 

 their tastes to what they find ready. With new food sup- 

 plies prepared for them they can live with less conflict with 

 other tribes once their competitors, who also find fresh 

 fields to conquer, and so both classes are left to multiply 

 unchecked. Besides this aid given to our native insects, 

 many have emigrated here from other lands, and leaving 

 behind them the parasites which have kept them within 

 bounds at home, they begin their destructive work without 

 these natural checks which are only developed after long 

 years in their original surroundings. 



The same conditions have helped to multiply contagious 

 diseases. The black-knot fungus of our Wild Plum trees 

 has found orchards planted to make a pleasant home for 

 it. Apple-scab and leaf-blight, Grape-rot and mildew 

 sweep like fire through the almost endless stretch of con- 

 tiguous orchards and vineyards. Improved varieties of the 

 Tomato invite a rot which those nearer to the wild type 

 rarely harbor. There are new varieties of Apples which are 

 peculiarly affected by scab and blight, new varieties of 

 Blackberries and Raspberries which are special favorites of 

 the rust ; and as the different forms of Carnations multiply, 

 many of them are susceptible to diseases which once were 

 almost unknown. Every time we disturb the natural order 

 of things to produce something new in cultivation and bet- 

 ter for our use, we open new fields of enterprise for insect 

 life, and offer additional hospitality to parasitic fungi, where 

 both can live with less struggle and find greater advantages 

 for their development. 



Looking at these facts calmly one can hardly feel that 

 any precautions against the assaults of these ever-increasing 

 foes can be too great. It has been stated, on what seems 

 good authority, that the destruction of agricultural products 

 in this country by insects and fungous diseases amounts to 

 $500,000,000 a year. Whether the loss of a million and a 

 half dollars a day is a little too large an estimate, or not 

 quite large enough, certain it is that the amount is bewil- 

 dering and altogether beyond the grasp of the ordinary 

 imagination. Instead of depreciating efforts to arrest this 

 destruction, those who are giving studious attention to the 

 discovery of ways and means for warding off these attacks 

 or mitigating their violence deserve only commendation 

 and sympathetic support. As a matter of fact, the most 

 marked improvement in agriculture and horticulture during 

 recent years has been in this very direction. The rapid 

 changes in the physical features of this country, owing to 

 its recent settlement, have made our cultivated plants more 

 liable to attacks than they are in older countries where the 

 conditions are more stable, but fortunately these greater 

 trials have stimulated us to more earnest and honest effort, 

 so that we are now in advance of all other nations in the 

 variety and efficacy of our devices for protection against 

 our enemies. Indeed, the spraying-pump marks an epoch 

 in the history of horticultural practice. Not long ago 



