1 68 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 322. 



least a dozen years more to settle this question thoroughly ; 

 and, unless I am much mistaken, it will turn out that, in the 

 section for which they are best adapted, these north European 

 Apples will show as large a proportion of winter sorts as those 

 which have been longer known. Meantime, it ought to be 

 everywhere understood that valuable all-winter apples of any 

 origin are in number relatively few, and are likely to remain so. 



Growing Seedling Fruit-trees.— New varieties, some of marked 

 merit among them, appear from time to time, mostly of chance 

 growth ; but there has been, in this country, very little 

 systematic planting of the seeds of our tree-fruits with the 

 object of securing improved sorts. Perhaps the chance 

 growths do as much for us as systematic work would do, in 

 our middle and southern sections. Certainly, it is to chance 

 that we owe most of our leading native varieties. The num- 

 ber known to be otherwise produced is very small, with the 

 exception, perhaps, of Pears and Cherries. In the "cold 

 north," however, the good new varieties adapted to the rigors of 

 the climate present themselves too slowly to satisfy the planter; 

 and already there are a considerable number of experimenters 

 in this line. The pioneer was Mr. Peter M. Gideon, of Minne- 

 sota, and his energy and perseverance have been well enough 

 rewarded to encourage his successors to renewed and more 

 systematic efforts. It is not a difficult matter to grow seedlings 

 from the more promising "iron-clads," native and foreign, 

 which at three or four years of age may be planted out along 

 the fences and left to show what they can do. The more prom- 

 ising selections made from these can easily be given a better 

 chance by grafting, and their good qualities determined from 

 the result. This work is especially commended to our ex- 

 periment stations, where, also, the more skilled work of cross- 

 ing and hybridization can be followed to valuable results. 



Newport, Vt. T. H. HosklllS. 



Correspondence. 



Lilacs. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — Will you be kind enough to name a dozen of the best 

 Lilacs for shrub plantations ? _ 



Moriistown, N. J. '-'• 



[Most people who speak of Lilacs have in mind only the 

 different varieties of the common garden Lilac, Syringa vul- 

 garis, with, perhaps, the Persian and Chinese Lilacs, S. Per- 

 sica and S. Chinensis. Nurserymen sell many forms of 

 S. vulgaris, some of them double, but we know of none 

 better than Charles X., one of the darkest ; Philemon, a rich 

 purple red, and Marie La Grange, a pure white. There are 

 other good varieties named in the catalogues, and Monsieur 

 Lemoine, of Nancy, has raised an interesting series of hybrids 

 between different species. S. oblata is not a new species, 

 but it is by no means common in gardens. In its botanical 

 characters it is closely allied to the common Lilac, although 

 it flowers ten or twelve days earlier than that species. We 

 have often spoken of its thick leathery leaves, which re- 

 main on the bushes late in autumn and sometimes turn to 

 fine colors, and of its freedom from mildews. The flowers 

 resemble those of some forms of the common Lilac, al- 

 though the species are easily distinguished by the form and 

 texture of the leaves. The Persian Lilac is well known in 

 old gardens as a graceful shrub, and the Chinese Lilac, 

 which is rather larger and intermediate in form between 

 S. Persica and S. vulgaris, is admirable in habit and alto- 

 gether one of the most desirable of hardy shrubs. Both of 

 these have forms with white as well as lilac-colored flow- 

 ers. Their season of bloom is a little later than that of 

 S. vulgaris. 



There are several other Lilacs, however, nearly a dozen 

 species altogether ; some of these are first-rate garden- 

 plants, and others which have not yet been cultivated. We 

 have figured the best of these in Garden and Forest and 

 called attention to their merits as they have flowered in the 

 Arnold Arboretum. But new shrubs gain recognition slowly, 

 and these Lilacs are planted very sparingly throughout the 

 country. The seeds of S. Japonica were received in the 

 Arnold Arboretum as long ago as 1876. The plant grows 

 rapidly with a straight, tree-like trunk and upright branches. 

 The older specimens are now considerably more than 



twenty feet high, and are perhaps fifteen feet through. The 

 immense cream-colored panicles of flowers from eighteen 

 to twenty-four inches long, standing high above the foliage, 

 make this tree a very conspicuous object when it is in flower 

 in early July. S. pubescens flowers at the same time as 

 the earliest varieties of S. vulgaris. The flowers are rose- 

 colored, fading to white, and very fragrant. This is cer- 

 tainly one of the best hardy shrubs of recent introduction. 

 S. villosa is a more robust plant than S. pubescens ; it 

 bears abundant flesh-colored, bad-smelling flowers, which 

 appear in large, compact, shapely clusters after the 

 common Lilacs have faded. The last two species have 

 long tubes like S. vulgaris, S. oblata, S. Chinensis and S. 

 Persica. The leaves are pale on the under surface. S. Ja- 

 ponica belongs to the section with very short and corolla 

 tubes, and so do S. Pekinensis, a small tree of graceful 

 habit of northern China, and S. Amurensis, of the Amoor 

 country. These all produce ample clusters of creamy- 

 white flowers, with the disagreeable odor of the flowers of 

 the Privets. — Ed.] 



The Untimely Frost. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The effect of the March freeze is more apparent on 

 tender Roses than almost anything else, except the Grapes. 

 Large Tea Rose-bushes that were loaded with buds when the 

 freeze came, and which have stood unharmed for many win- 

 ters, are dead to the ground. A large Banksia Rose on my 

 piazza, covering a space fifteen by twenty feet, is dead. A 

 Marechal Niel, on the same piazza, loses much wood, 

 while Gloire de Dijon, a little further along, on the same 

 piazza, too, where the morning sun did not strike it, is little 

 hurt. The Polyantha Roses are killed to the ground. My 

 Figs, that I hurriedly bent to the ground and covered with soil, 

 did not lose a leaf, and the young fruit is all right. Peaches 

 are entirely lost, but I find many Plums s till sound. Some 

 good Apple-blooms have come out since the freeze. Grape- 

 vines lose nearly all of last year's wood and are breaking from 

 dormant buds on old wood. This also occurred in 1890, but the 

 shoots from the old wood made fruit. Some Rye that was 

 heading is killed, and early Wheat and winter Oats look very 

 sick. Winter Vetch that was knee-high is dead and brown, 

 and the tops of Corn were cut down. The Oaks are still brown, 

 with dead catkins and young leaves, and have not yet ventured 

 to start again. All vegetables, even Peas and Cabbages, in 

 our gardens were killed, and Onions look as though boiling 

 water had been sprinkled on their tops. 



Raleigh, N. C. W. F. MtlSSey. 



Roses and Cannas at Tarrytown, New York. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Some four years ago, as the business of F. R. Pierson 

 & Co. was rapidly outgrowing its limits in Tarrytown, the firm 

 purchased a farm a few miles north of Tarrytown, near Scarbo- 

 rough, and began to erect a group of glass houses devoted to the 

 growing of Roses for cut flowers. At the convention of the 

 Society of American Florists in Montreal in 1891, Mr. Pierson 

 read an essay which gave an elaborate description of his first 

 houses, which had been constructed with an especial view to 

 durability, since he had found that the expense for constant 

 repairs was one of the most serious obstacles to commercial 

 success. These houses, which were built by Messrs. Lord & 

 Burnham, of Irvington, New York, seemed in many respects 

 an improvement on anything of the kind hitherto erected, and 

 their imperishable frame of rigid iron, from peak to founda- 

 tion, was considered at the time a model. 



A few days ago I visited the houses at Scarborough, and 

 found that they had gradually increased, until, instead of four, 

 there were no weight parallel houses facing the south, each more 

 than three hundred feet long, making altogether a structure prac- 

 tically twenty-five hundred feet long and twenty feet wide. What 

 interested me most was the fact that the original idea had 

 developed in various directions until the last house, although 

 in its essentials similar to the first, is manifestly as superior to 

 the first as the first were to structures erected twenty years ago. 

 So much has been written about these houses that there is no 

 need to give a careful account of all their features. It must 

 suffice to say that the houses are thirteen feet high at the ridge, 

 with the long side of the roof toward the south. The "con- 

 tinuous rafters" are of wrought iron, half an inch by three 

 inches in dimension, and joined together at the ridge by cast- 



