IOO 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 315. 



small octavo volume, intended to supplement the larger works 

 now in use, and especially adapted for high-school instruction. 

 Such a book is particularly needed in the states whence Pro- 

 fessor Spalding's University draws its students, as a knowledge 

 of botany is now required in the entrance examinations for its 

 Literary Department. 



Rods of thin metal are now made in Germany to be used as 

 substitutes for sticks in supporting plants grown in pots. They 

 branch out below into several slender feet, so that they are 

 easily fixed in an erect position ; and as they are hollow 

 throughout it is said that water may more advantageously be 

 applied by pouring it into their tops than by applying it directly 

 to the surface of the soil. 



The leading article in a recent issue of Gartenflora is an 

 appreciative description of Mr. H. H. Hunnewell's fine place 

 at Wellesley, Massachusetts, written by the editor, Dr. Witt- 

 mack, who was one of the commissioners to our World's Fair, 

 in the Department of Horticulture. It is accompanied by a 

 large folding print showing the Italian garden, a picture of 

 which was given in Garden and Forest, vol. ii., p. 98. 



A joint meeting of the American Forestry Association, to- 

 gether with representatives of several other bodies interested in 

 forestry, begins its sessions in Albany as we go to press. The 

 meeting will continue through Tuesday and Wednesday, and on 

 Thursday the members have been invited to visit the Beaver 

 River Forest, on the Adirondack and St. Lawrence Railroad, 

 where an opportunity will be afforded of seeing the Black 

 Spruce of that region and observing some practical forestry 

 operations. 



- M r - J- N. May writes to the American Florist that as the days 

 are growing longer and the Roses are making active growth, 

 and show the need of more food, a thin mulch of ground 

 bone, spread thinly over the surface of the soil at the rate of 

 twenty-five or thirty pounds to a house 100 feet long and 

 twenty feet wide, will be found more satisfactory than liquid- 

 manure. Half an inch of well-decayed manure should be 

 placed over the bone, and every time the plants are watered a 

 limited amount of food-material will be carried to the roots, 

 and they can assimilate it more readily than if they received it 

 in stronger solutions at rarer intervals. 



The literature of spraying plants against insects and fungi is 

 so voluminous that fruit-growers and farmers ought to wel- 

 come the Spray Calendar, which has just been issued by Mr. 

 E. G. Lodeman, of Cornell University. All the actual infor- 

 mation needed is here printed on one side of a sheet fifteen 

 inches long and ten inches wide, which can be tacked up 

 anywhere for reference. In half a dozen columns will be 

 found concise directions for preparing each special application 

 which is needed for the various diseases and various insects 

 which injure our different fruits and vegetables, together with 

 the proper time and manner of treatment, and the number of 

 sprayings needed in each case. Altogether, this compact and 

 carefully compiled calendar is good enough to be called an 

 inspiration, and Mr. Lodeman deserves the gratitude due to a 

 public benefactor. 



The Experiment Station at Burlington, Vermont, has issued 

 a leaflet which contains the reproduction from a photograph 

 of part of a Potato-field, which shows in a graphic way the 

 good results of Bordeaux mixture as a preventive of blight. 

 Besides the picture, the leaflet contains some instructive 

 figures which show the actual gains per acre from spraying 

 Potatoes during the last two years, in checking the blight and 

 rot. This leaflet was originally printed for distribution at the 

 meetings of the State Board of Agriculture, and a bulletin has 

 been prepared in which the results are given in still greater 

 detail. This bulletin also gives the description, with an illus- 

 tration, of a spray-cart which has been found useful in applying 

 the Paris green and Bordeaux mixture. Any one sufficiently 

 interested in this matter to send his address to the experiment 

 station will be furnished with a copy of the bulletin. 



A correspondent from Salem, New Jersey, writes that he has 

 Winter Aconite in bloom in the open border on the 1st of 

 March, and wishes to know if this is not unusually early. Per- 

 haps the plant is a little ahead of time in flowering, but it 

 usually opens with the Crocus, or earlier, and it often flowers 

 as soon as the snow melts away. Some five years ago a Phila- 

 delphia correspondent sent us some flowers of this plant, 

 Eranthis hyemalis, which he had gathered in Bartram's Gar- 

 den, where it had been growing for fifty years at least. It has 

 become naturalized, and is now the first plant there to bloom 

 in spring. It always thrives well in groups under trees, and its 

 bright yellow blossoms, an inch across, are very attractive in 



the early season. It is a dwarf perennial with bright green 

 leaves, and not more than two or three inches high. It has 

 been a favorite in the gardens of western Europe, of which it 

 is a native, for three centuries, and it ought to be more com- 

 monly cultivated in this country. 



In spite of the prevailing hard times, neither flower-growers 

 nor flower-dealers in this vicinity are making serious com- 

 plaints. The market does not seem to be overstocked with 

 the ordinary varieties, and while not as high as they have 

 sometimes been, good flowers sell at fair prices for the Lenten 

 season. In addition to the roses generally seen, some good 

 blooms of the old Merveille de Lyon are offered at fifty cents 

 each. Cape jessamines are becoming favorite flowers for 

 boutonnieres, and sell for thirty-five cents each, and a dozen 

 short sprays of Jasminum grandiflorum bring fifty cents. 

 Among flowering plants not often sold for decorative pur- 

 poses are the so-called Bottle-brush, Metrosideros robusta, 

 its striking clusters of long crimson stamens closely set 

 along the stems, and its thick leaves making a showy 

 specimen. Messrs. Siebrecht& Wadley are also making some- 

 thing of a specialty of Boronia heterophylla, and its abundant 

 clusters of drooping carmine flowers among its slender and 

 graceful leaves on plants two to three feet high are very at- 

 tractive. B. megastigma, although not so showy, has a deli- 

 cious odor, and plants in flower ought to sell well. Flowering 

 plants of Acacia dealbata and Genista, and well-berried speci- 

 mens of Ardisia are still abundant. 



In a paper on Chrysanthemums which appears in the last 

 issue of the journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of Great 

 Britain, Mr. Richard Parker, in speaking of the marvelous im- 

 provement in recent varieties, observes that it is not in size or 

 formation of blooms or in richness of color that the most con- 

 spicuous advances have been made, but in the fact that supe- 

 riority in these points have been gained in connection with a 

 much dwarfer size, a point which is not always appreciated. 

 For example, blooms of Viviand Morel or William Tricker can 

 be exhibited from plants which are often little more than three 

 feet high, while that good old variety, Madame C. Audiguier, 

 not uncommonly ran up to a height of ten feet before a good 

 exhibition bloom could be obtained. Among the white Japa- 

 nese varieties, the tall-growing Fair Maid of Guernsey has 

 made room for such admirable dwarf varieties as Avalanche 

 and Stanstead White, while among the yellows, though Thun- 

 berg bears a lovely flower, yet for general usefulness, com- 

 bined with exhibition qualities, it is quite inferior to W. H. 

 Lincoln, Sunflower and others, whose habit is much more use- 

 ful for decorative purposes. These dwarfer varieties, too, en- 

 able a greater number of growers — that is, those with limited 

 greenhouse accommodation — to include some of the best va- 

 rieties in restricted collections, so that amateurs and small 

 growers are able to have as pleasing a display, even if it is not 

 so large, as those made by persons who possess abundant 

 greenhouse space. 



At the Illinois State Experiment Station some tests have 

 been made with a view to compare the merits of the more 

 simple methods of training Grapes. One row was trained on 

 a horizontal trellis made by putting two-feet cross-bars on the 

 top of posts three and a half feet high and then stretching over 

 them three wires, one fastened to the post and the others to 

 the ends of cross-bars. Another row was trained on a single 

 wire three and a half feet high. Another still on a trellis 

 with three wires ranged respectively two feet, three and a half 

 feet and five feet from the ground. Another was trained on a 

 similar trellis with an inverted v-shaped trough over it made 

 of twelve-inch boards, forming a roof twenty inches wide, 

 which it was thought would keep off the rain and dew and to 

 some extent stop the growth of the black-rot fungus. Another 

 row was trained to stakes five feet high. The method of prun- 

 ing was the same in nearly all cases, except that the vines 

 attached to the stakes were trimmed closer, not more than 

 one-half as much bearing wood being left on each vine as 

 there was on the trellised rows. Without taking into account 

 the differences in the five varieties of Grapes planted, those 

 trained on the horizontal trellis with one branch of the vine 

 running each way on each wire proved the best. The vines 

 on the stakes made the poorest growth and gave the smallest 

 yield. The grapes on the covered trellis have rotted less than 

 those on the row next to it, which was not covered, but the 

 vines yielded fewer grapes, owing to a failure of the fruit 

 to set. The horticulturist of the station remarks that the hori- 

 zontal trellis used is probably too low for general convenience, 

 since it is easier to pick the fruit by getting under the trellis 

 than by standing at one side of it, because the bunches mostly 

 all hang down and are in plain sight from below. 



