200 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 325. 



Notes. 



Last year more than 2,000 car-loads of beans, mostly Limas, 

 were shipped from Ventura County, California. Merchantable 

 beans on one ranch were raised at the rate of 1,000 pounds an 

 acre, the entire product being 103 car-loads. 



The third part of vol. ii. of the Contributions of the United 

 States National Herbarium contains the conclusion of Profes- 

 sor John M. Coulter's " Manual of the Phanerogams and Pteri- 

 dophytes of Western Texas," the earlier parts of which were 

 noticed in these columns as they appeared. 



"The Manual of Orchidaceous Plants," comprising those 

 cultivated under glass in Great Britain, has just reached us. 

 It is published by James Veitch & Son, and is completed in 

 the tenth part, containing a general review of the Orchidese. 

 This valuable work will be thesubjectofareviewinalaterissue. 



A meeting was recently held at the house of Mrs. J. P. Lundy, 

 in Philadelphia, to discuss the question of public playgrounds 

 for the children of that city, and a committee was appointed to 

 confer with the Board of Education with reference to using 

 the yards connected with some of the public school-houses for 

 playgrounds during the summer vacation. 



A writer in Medians' Monthly observes that nature makes 

 provision for getting rid of the bark of trees by means of cork 

 formations which rift the bark as the trunk increases. As it is 

 the intention of nature, therefore, to remove the old bark it 

 seems no injury to the tree, but rather a help to aid the plant 

 in this direction. Washes of soap-suds or lye-water, or even 

 scraping the trunks of trees, has been found of advantage. 

 Lime-wash is often used, but the objection to it is its white 

 and glaring color. It is, however, the cheapest and best way 

 to treat the bark of fruit-trees. 



The profuse flowering of the many Dogwood-trees in Pros- 

 pect Park, Brooklyn, has been a local event each spring for 

 some years past, and this year's display is now attracting 

 many visitors. The borders of all the neighboring wood- 

 lands are also beautified by the blossoms of Cornus 

 florida, and the Black Haw, Viburnum prunifolium, is flower- 

 ing in every road-side thicket. It is a good thing to repeat 

 what we have often said, that no flora in the world has more 

 beautiful deciduous trees than our different Viburnums, Dog- 

 woods, Hawthorns and Sumachs. 



New tamarinds from the West Indies are offered in the fancy- 

 fruit stores, and hot-house peaches from Connecticut may be 

 had at seventy-five cents to a dollar each. The first water- 

 melons from Florida last week sold here for two dollars 

 apiece ; these were more fully ripened than a small lot of musk- 

 melons which came on the same steamer. Large shipments 

 of strawberries from North Carolina and Norfolk have made 

 low prices for this fruit ; choice berries from the lower part of 

 Delaware are in the markets now, and command at retail from 

 twenty-five to fifty cents for a quart box. 



The New Jersey forestry bill, whose provisions we briefly 

 explained in the issue of March 28th, has since become a law. 

 On Saturday a meeting to celebrate the passage of the bill was 

 held at Banksmere, the home of Mrs. John C. S. Davis, Riv- 

 erton, New Jersey, and the New Jersey Forestry Association 

 was regularly organized. The constitution and by-laws of the 

 Pennsylvania Forestry Association were adopted. Mr. Edward 

 Burrough was elected President, and Mr. D. H. Wright, Sec- 

 retary, and an executive committee was appointed, composed 

 of twelve members of the new assocition. 



Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Division of Forestry of the 

 Department of Agriculture, is delivering a course of lectures 

 to about fifty members of the senior class of the Agricultural 

 College at Amherst, Massachusetts. The subjects treated in 

 the twelve lectures are "Timber Physics," "Silviculture," in- 

 cluding " Artificial Afforestation " and " Natural Regenera- 

 tion"; "Forest-protection" and " Forest-exploitation," " For- 

 est-survey," " Forest-regulation " and " Forest-finance," " What 

 is Forestry?" "How Trees Grow," "How Forests Grow," 

 " Accretion and its Measurement," " The Battle of the Forest " 

 and " Forestry Problems in the United States." 



At a recent display of the Royal Society in London the 

 Messrs. Veitch exhibited a flowering plant of the Corean Rho- 

 dodendron Schlippenbachii, a handsome plant with pale, rosy 

 lilac, funnel-shaped flowers, the upper lobes of the corolla 

 marked with dark spots near the base. Rhododendron 

 Schlippenbachii is quite new to western gardens, although, in 

 common with many Corean plants, it is a favorite in those of 

 the Mikado's empire, where it was found by Mr. J. H. Veitch 



during his visit to Japan two years ago. This species, which 

 may be expected to prove hardy in the eastern United States, 

 has not, so far as we know, flowered in this country. 



Messrs. Barnard & Densmores, of Los Angeles, California, 

 who send to this market crystallized figs, to which we alluded 

 a few weeks ago, write us that they began to buy figs some 

 ten years ago when there was but one bearing orchard within 

 shipping distance. There are now several thousand acres in 

 good bearing, but some of the varieties cannot be treated by 

 their process for preserving, the details of which, we believe, 

 have never been given to the public. A Fig-tree bears a crop 

 the second year, and a good paying crop the third year. Messrs. 

 Barnard & Densmores have paid one grower at the rate of 

 $500 an acre for figs from trees which were less than ten 

 years old. 



Along the palisades of the Hudson River, near this city, 

 patches of Viola cucullata are showing luxuriant flowers in 

 shades of lavender and purple, while the downy yellow vio- 

 lets of V. pubescens and the fragrant white flowers of V. 

 Canadensis are scarce enough to make their discovery a rare 

 pleasure. The flowers of Claytonia Virginica are, perhaps, 

 most abundant of all, although the pink-purple cranesbills, 

 Geranium maculatum, are only less common than the spring 

 beauties. The trim little wind-flower, Anemone nemorosa, is 

 seen singly on occasional plants, and clusters of rue anem- 

 one, A. thalactroides, are quite common among the spread- 

 ing roots of the forest-trees. On jutting ledges of gray rock, 

 fifty feet and more below the crest of the precipice, gay masses 

 of columbines and feathery clusters of the White Baneberry 

 revel in their secure positions. 



In a late number of the Rural New Yorker there is a figure 

 of a pod of the White Zulu Pole Bean, which was introduced 

 by Mr. Burpee. Last year the vine, as grown on Mr. Carman's 

 grounds, was eight feet tall on the first of August, the seed 

 having been planted on the first of May. The pods, then averag- 

 ing six inches in length, were often irregular in shape and un- 

 evenly filled. The pods were of an ivory whiteness, varying 

 in width from half an inch to an inch, and were very solid and 

 fleshy ; the seeds at this stage of maturity were purple, kid- 

 ney-shaped and about an inch long. The vine remained 

 healthy through August, bearing beans in all stages of growth. 

 When matured, these were purplish black. The quality was 

 rich and excellent and the pod stringless. In a better soil and 

 in a more favorable season it is probable that the beans would 

 grow considerably larger than they did last year, and be more 

 uniform in shape. 



Seedlings of Impatiens auricoma, sent to Kew this spring, 

 are now flowering freely there, though the plants are barely 

 six inches high. This distinct little tropical Balsam was intro- 

 duced into France last year from the Comoro Islands, and dis- 

 tributed by Monsieur Godefroy-Lebeuf, of Argenteuil. It is 

 said to grow to a height of two feet and to bloom all the year 

 round, and it grew well in the open air last summer in France. 

 I. auricoma probably has the same habit and constitution as I. 

 Sultani, but is not likely to become as popular, the flowers be- 

 ing deep yellow, about an inch long and nearly an inch across. 

 A figure of it is soon to be published in the Botanical Maga- 

 zine. I. Sultani when introduced from Zanzibar to Kew, some 

 ten years ago, had rich rose-red flowers, but has since sported 

 into varieties with pink, salmon, crimson and almost purple- 

 colored flowers. A mass of these many-colored blossoms now 

 makes a beautiful picture in one of the tropical houses at Kew. 



A correspondent writes us from the Netherlands of the 

 immense bulbous-plant farms with which Haarlem is encir- 

 cled, and describes the narrow beds of many-colored hya- 

 cinths which extend one after another as far as the eye can 

 reach, "like one of those delicately striped gauze scarfs our 

 grandfathers used to bring from the east, flung out over the ' 

 land. The tulip season is even more famous than that of 

 the hyacinth, and tulip-time is dazzling with scarlet and gold ; 

 but the earlier blossoms are both more delicate in hue and 

 more fragrant. Their sweetness would be overpowering 

 under a less wide and open canopy of sky. It hurts one's feel- 

 ings, however, to see the flaunting advertisements of rival 

 growers suspended or erected upon every side. Yet, from 

 the practical point of view, the bulb farms are satisfactory, too. 

 Their exquisite neatness is notorious, and the stiffness of 

 arrangement, which might be wearisome elsewhere, is here 

 exactly in place. Nor is the Dutch gardenei without his dream 

 of evolving something strange and new, and as you listen to 

 his theories you too become converted to his belief that the 

 absence of novelties this spring will be abundantly compen- 

 sated for next year." 



