1 88 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 324. 



mixed with a pailful of some dry material, preferably wood- 

 ashes, but'sand, sawdust, or even dry soil will do fairly well, 

 and after the plants are well up and the trouble is at hand a 

 sprinkling of this mixture along the rows about twice a week 

 during the time the fly does its work will be found a sure pre- 

 ventive of the trouble. With us this is from the beginning of 

 April to the end of May ; after this there is little danger, as the 

 onions are of a good size and not so liable to injury. 



South Lancaster, Mass. E. 0. Orpet. 



The White Grape Currant.— I have an idea that many persons 

 think they have this variety, when in reality they have some 

 other sort. It was a long time before I secured what I believe 

 now to be the genuine plants. The White Grape is, in my 

 judgment, absolutely the finest Currant grown. It is very 

 large, handsome and of a clear color, entirely unlike the 

 creamy color of the more common so-called White Currants. 

 The White Dutch has a very rich flavor, but it is more seedy 

 and mellow. The color is translucent, with a soft yellow tint. 

 I find the true Versailles not unlike the Fay in size and color, 

 but it has a much more upright growth. It has a long fine 

 stem, and is enormously productive, with a flavor almost ex- 

 actly like that of the Fav. _ _ _ 



Clinton, N. Y. ' E. P. Powell. 



Correspondence. 



Measurements of White Pine. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In the pursuit of an extensive series of measurements 

 instituted by the Forestry Division for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining the rate of growth and production of White Pine and 

 Spruce, one of our agents has just reported from Merrill, Wis- 

 consin, the measure of a remarkable White Pine, a windfall, 

 which had been thrown probably a number of years ago, as 

 the sap-wood, mostly rotten, indicates. It measured 200 feet in 

 length by forty-five inches in diameter on the stump. As in 

 the Census work of Professor Sargent, the range in height is 

 given to 170 feet (fifty-two meters), it might be interesting to 

 record this unusual length of an old monarch. Altogether, 

 the measurements of the acre-yield on the clay soil of the sta- 

 tion, with a good humus cover, are worthy of notice. The 

 height of the Pines, which are mixed with Hemlock and Birch, 

 averages over 120 feet, not a few reach the height of 150 feet ; 

 the length of the timber — that is, of the merchantable part — 

 exceeded in many of them 100 feet ; the total amounts of tim- 

 ber contained on the acre are not as yet computed. The age 

 is from 200 to 250 years ; the diameters are not extraordinary, 

 and range from thirty to thirty-six inches. 



In this connection I would like to ask readers of your jour- 

 nal for addresses where second-growth White Pine groves, 

 naturally grown or planted, could be found in New England, 

 for measurements of their yield. 



Forestry Division, Department of Agriculture. B. E. Fer 1101V. 



The Flavor of Maple-syrup. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — According to his promise, Professor Hills has sent me 

 some of that maple "honey," and it is delicious. The drip is 

 heavy and good, the color is light and the flavor delicate, and 

 the true maple taste can be recognized on cakes made from 

 refined wheat-flour, but it is almost imperceptible on cakes 

 made from buckwheat, Graham flour, corn-meal or any other 

 grain with a flavor of its own. 



I do not urge a return to the open kettle in making maple- 

 syrup, but I do believe that syrup properly made in open 

 pans has a better flavor than that made in the modern evapo- 

 rator. I do not believe that the especial maple flavor is due to 

 leaves, buds and foreign matter, and what I should like to 

 know is, whether a syrup or sugar can be made by modern 

 methods, whereby this flavor will not suffer ? I should like to 

 know if any one is prepared to present evidence that the 

 present style of evaporating does not destroy at least a part of 

 the real flavor of the .maple-sap, which would occur in the 

 syrup if made in the open kettle, even when all leaves, buds 

 and " dropping mosses and fragments of bark" are excluded. 

 It is possible that here is a field for investigation worthy the 

 attention of chemists and practical maple-sugar-makers. The 

 open kettle does not furnish an ideal method of making syrup, 

 and yet there is abundant evidence that much of the syrup and 

 sugar made by the modern evaporator is of very unsatisfactory 

 quality. 



Agricultural Experiment Station, Ind. c. o. riltinO, 



Irrigation in the Garden. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — A few years ago my little daughter brought home 

 about fifty Verbena plants from one and a half inch pots. They 

 appeared to be worthless and had been given to her by a gar- 

 dener who was about to throw them away. To gratify the 

 child I planted them in the only place which I could use for that 

 purpose — a shady back-yard, trodden hard by the children, 

 i spaded the ground about eighteen inches deep, added a little 

 fresh earth and well-rotted barn-yard manure, making a bed 

 about seven feet square, with a shallow ditch around it. The 

 plants were watered freely with a sprinkler two evenings and 

 the ditch filled with water at the same time. The summer 

 was very dry, but no further sprinkling was done until the early 

 frosts came. About once a week the ditch was filled with 

 water and kept filled for an hour. The Verbenas soon cov- 

 ered the ground and yielded a profusion of bloom until the 

 plants froze. The effects of light frosts were dissipated by 

 free sprinkling with cold water before the sun reached the bed. 

 Is there not a hint in this homely experience for watering by 

 means of open ditches, where costly methods of subirrigation 

 are not practicable ? 



St. Paul, Minn. F. D. Willis. 



Recent Publications. 



The winter-killing of trees and shrubs is the subject of a 

 recent bulletin from the Wyoming Experiment Station, a sub- 

 ject interesting everywhere, but particularly so in the arid 

 regions and high altitudes of western plateaus where fruit- 

 trees and forest-trees are grown with great difficulty. Trees 

 and shrubs thrive on these high plateaus during the irrigation 

 season, but the most promising often fail to get through the 

 first winter. The cause of this can hardly be the low tempera- 

 ture, for it is not colder there than in New England or Minne- 

 sota, where winter-killing is less common. It is, therefore, 

 probable that desiccation is the principal cause of winter 

 losses. Since the water absorbed by the roots contains food- 

 material in very small quantities, the excess of water passes 

 off by transpiration. The rate of transpiration is greater when 

 the light is intense, and it is greater in a high temperature, so 

 that in these high altitudes, where the intensity of the light is 

 only dimmed by slight cloudiness, and where the rays of the 

 sun in the rarefied air fall with peculiar force upon all exposed 

 objects and raise their temperature considerably beyond that 

 of the surrounding atmosphere, transpiration is greatly ac- 

 celerated, while the prolonged winds agitate the trees and aid 

 in this work. An excessively dry atmosphere increases tran- 

 spiration, and the roots in a dry or frozen soil cannot make 

 good the loss, because the low temperature decreases the ab- 

 sorbing power of the roots and the conducting power of the 

 stem, and the soil yields its water much more slowly. Although 

 when leaves are absent no one notices the wilting of vegeta- 

 tion, the plant dies as truly from wilting in January as it does 

 in July. 



There is one other factor in the case which has not often 

 been considered, and that is atmospheric pressure. It seems 

 probable that the diminished pressure in high altitudes exerts 

 an influence upon transpiration independent of the fact of dry 

 atmosphere. To determine the relation between atmospheric 

 pressure and transpiration, Mr. Alven Nelson, the botanist of 

 the station, constructed an apparatus for testing this point, and 

 the experiments prove conclusively that the rate of evapora- 

 tion from the surface of the plant is proportionately increased 

 by the diminution of the atmospheric pressure, and this, 

 added to the several other causes of desiccation specially 

 operative in the plains region, indicates the real cause of such 

 a large percentage of winter-killed trees and shrubs. 



Of course, the remedy is to keep the plant, and especially the 

 roots, in a moist condition, but this is often difficult to accom- 

 plish. Late fall irrigation and occasional irrigation during the 

 winter months is recommended. It frequently happens that 

 although the soil temperature is below the freezing-point, 

 there is not enough moisture in the particles of the soil to 

 cause them to adhere to each other, and for the purposes of 

 the plant the soil is absolutely dry. If water is flowed over the 

 soil on a warm day some of it will enter into its interstices, 

 and if a coat of ice forms over the surface this will prevent 

 loss by evaporation. In the natural groves of Cotton-wood 

 that border the western streams, the ground in winter is usually 

 covered with ice and snow. Irrigation is especially need- 

 ful during the first two or three years after transplanting, 

 when the roots are few and near the surface. After they have 

 penetrated below the frost-line the plant will be much better 



