8o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 313. 



what lie already knows, or stimulate him to some sharp 

 thinking about the materials for building, the arrangement 

 of his houses, with their shading, heating, ventilation and 

 general furnishing. 



Notes. 



Leaves of the Talipot Palm in Ceylon sometimes attain the 

 length of twenty feet, with a width of eighteen feet. They are 

 used by the natives in making tents. The leaves of the double 

 Cocoanut Palm are often thirty feet long, while those of the 

 Inaja Palm on the banks of the rivers of Brazil are sometimes 

 fifty feet long and ten to twelve feet wide. 



A correspondent of the Country Gentleman makes note of 

 the fact that he found the Skunk Cabbage in bloom on the 26th 

 of January at Redding, Connecticut. This is always one of our 

 early flowers, but we have never seen one in this latitude open 

 in January. It is really a handsome flower and it never emits 

 the odor which justifies its common name unless it is bruised. 



The Spinach mildew, which has of late been a serious trou- 

 ble in the truck-fields in this vicinity, can only be controlled 

 by the use of some compound of copper which will prevent 

 the germination of the specific fungus spores on the plants. 

 The Bordeaux mixture could be used once or twice a week, 

 but, inasmuch as it is necessary to spray the under surface of 

 the leaves of the plants, the nozzle of the sprayer should be 

 held close to the ground so as to reach every exposed portion 

 of the plant. 



The eighth volume of De Candolle's Suites au Prodromus 

 Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegctabilis, which has just reached 

 us, is devoted to the Guttiferie, and is from the pen of Julien 

 Vesque. The editor, Cassimere DeCandolle, of the third gen- 

 eration of the family of illustrious Geneva botanists, calls 

 attention to the fact that the publication of this volume marks 

 a solemn date in the progress of the enterprise, as it is the last 

 upon which his father, the second of the name, was occupied. 

 As the surviving editor of the work, Monsieur Candolle ex- 

 presses the hope of being able to complete it on the plan 

 under which it was commenced. 



The most important work on systematic botany which has 

 recently appeared, Engler & Prantl's account of the natural 

 families, is now nearing completion, the ninety-third part hav- 

 ing recently reached us. This work, which seems destined to 

 have an important influence on American botany, as it has 

 been adopted as a model in the arrangement of the natural 

 groups of families and genera for the New Flora of North 

 America, which a number of American botanists have ar- 

 ranged to prepare, is published at Leipsic, by Wilhelm Engel- 

 mann. The price of subscription is one mark and a half for 

 each part. At the present rate at which the work is appearing 

 there is every evidence that it will be completed during the 

 current year. 



Many of our native shrubs can be successfully forced in 

 winter. Of these Mr. Jackson Dawson considers the best : 

 Andromeda speciosa, A. floribunda, Rhododendron nudirlo- 

 runi, the Rhodora, Epigsa repens, Pyrus nigra, Kalmia lati- 

 tolia, Ledum latifolium, Prunus pumila and Vaccinium stami- 

 neum. Some of these, like the Andromedas, Pyrus nigra, 

 Kalmia and Vaccinium, would carry well and could be used in 

 the trade to as good advantage as the Deutzias, Lilacs, Citisus 

 and other foreign plants which are now largely raised. These 

 shrubs, grown in a cool-house, would make handsome deco- 

 rative plants for winter and early spring work, and they would 

 flower more abundantly and often make more perfect speci- 

 mens than they do when left to themselves out-of-doors. 



Last year we gave some account of the efforts to check the 

 spread of the tent-caterpillar in certain parts of Massachusetts 

 by offering prizes to the children for collecting the largest 

 number of belts, as well as a certain sum for each thousand. 

 We have received a circular which is signed by D. D. Slade, 

 President, and L. H. Farlow, Secretary of the Newton Horti- 

 cultural Society, which has been doing work of this kind. In 

 the winterof 1891-92 it is estimated that 25,000 eggs of caterpil- 

 lars were destroyed, and during the winter of 1892-93 more 

 than 40,000 were destroyed. The city of Newton also appro- 

 priated $500 to be used under proper supervision for cutting 

 down such trees as formed breeding-places for insect pests. 

 The Newton Horticultural Society proposes to continue this 

 work this year, and offers to pay a bounty of $1.00 for every 

 thousand belts, while the city has appropriated $800 for the 

 continuation of its work. The enlistment of children in this 

 crusade against destructive insects is valuable, not only for its 

 immediate effect in checking the ravages of these pests, but it 



has a certain educational value by encouraging in children 

 habits of observation and furnishing object-lessons in more 

 than one natural science. 



Mr. Albert M. Herr writes to the American Florist that some 

 growers of Carnation-flowers for market are raising their 

 plants from seed. Mr. Shelmire, who is an expert in the cul- 

 tivation of these plants, finds that nearly all seedlings of the 

 variety Csesar have good double salable flowers. Of course, a 

 few of them will produce flowers that are inferior, but seed- 

 lings have so much more vigor than cuttings, and are free 

 from rust and other diseases which come from propagating 

 from infested plants, that they prove as profitable, at least, as 

 plants from cuttings of the standard varieties. Other growers 

 are experimenting with the variety Buttercup, and it is said that 

 a large percentageof theseedlingscometrue. Mr. Herrsuggests 

 that when a variety shows this persistence of type, it might be 

 possible, at least after a few years' selection, during which all 

 strange pollen is excluded and the flowers on each plant fer- 

 tilized with the flowers of another of the same variety, so as to 

 prevent self-fecundation, which is supposed to cause weakness 

 of constitution, a strain of seed might be secured which could 

 be trusted to reproduce the parent variety with certainty. Ex- 

 periments of this sort are worthy of trial, no doubt, since plants 

 from seed have many advantages over those from cuttings. 



Professor Troup, in a recent report on some experiments 

 with small fruits, speaks of the necessity of adopting some 

 means to secure an adequate water-supply. Strawberries and 

 other small fruits which ripen early in the summer were 

 almost completely ruined last year by the severe drought, and 

 since these fruits always require a large amount of water dur- 

 ing the ripening period to enable them to develop properly, 

 experience has shown that it is not safe to depend on the nat- 

 ural rainfall, not so much because this is insufficient in amount, 

 as because it is not properly distributed. The average monthly 

 rainfall in Indiana during the six growing months would 

 usually be sufficient if it were properly distributed, but while 

 there were 4.13 inches of rainfall at the station during May 

 and June, there was little more than one inch in June, and all 

 this fell in four days, leaving twenty-six days without any rain- 

 fall. An inch of water during the dry periods would have been 

 worth thousands of dollars in every location where fruit is 

 grown. Near Muncie, Indiana, Mr. Lewis Cowing, when he 

 found his crop threatened by drought, bought an engine which 

 could be propelled by natural gas, and placed it in a well so 

 that he could raise the water over a large portion of his berry- 

 garden. His well seemed almost inexhaustible and he had a 

 good crop of perfect berries. The gas-engine and pipe cost 

 him $90, but he saved a crop worth more than $300. On a few 

 rows not watered the fruit was worthless. After the Blackberry 

 season was over he turned the water on his Celery with most 

 profitable results. 



The Orchid Review for February contains the first of a series 

 of articles on the " History of the Cultivation of Orchids," and 

 they promise to be as interesting as the series on the "Hy- 

 bridization of Orchids," which ran through the numbers of the 

 same monthly last year. This opening chapter shows that 

 Orchid-culture, as we know it, did not exist until the beginning 

 of this century, although some very interesting details are 

 given of the introduction of tropical Orchids in the first half of 

 the eighteenth century. Bletia verecunda was the first tropical 

 Orchid ever cultivated in England. The plant was sent as 

 a dried specimen to Peter Collinson in 1731 from the Bahamas, 

 and Collinson, not despairing of life in the tubers, sent them 

 to the garden of a Mr. Wager, where they were placed in a 

 tan-bark bed during the winter, and, having recovered health, 

 produced flowers the next summer. Two of ourNorth Ameri- 

 can Cypripediums, C. spectabile and another one, which may 

 have been C. pubescens, were cultivated, perhaps, as early as 

 1737. At the end of the century there were cultivated in Eng- 

 lish gardens, besides several hardy species, Orchids which had 

 been brought home by travelers, naval officers and military 

 officers from the West Indies, China and the Cape of Good 

 Hope, although when these managed to survive the long trip 

 in sailing vessels, they were in too many cases killed on their 

 arrival by improper treatment. Our beautiful little Calopogon 

 pulchellus was introduced accidentally in some bog-earth 

 which had been taken over to England with some plants of 

 Dionasa for the botanist Curtis. His gardener noticed some 

 small tooth-like, knobby roots in the soil, and having placed 

 them in pots of the same earth and plunged them in a tan-pit 

 with gentle heat they produced plants the following summer 

 which flowered, and from the strongest of these plants the first 

 Orchid was figured in 1790 in the Botanical Magazine, vol. iii., 

 t. 116. 



