250 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 330. 



way of variety, a few Clover-flowers, labeling them Trifolium 

 incarnatum. The next day he received a telegraphic order for 

 more, and he now finds his Clover-field a new source of 

 revenue. 



The extermination of our native flora by forest-fires is often 

 more complete than that caused by plant collectors, who miss 

 small seedlings and do not remove all the roots of plants, 

 many of which will start from dormant eyes. But a fire, 

 especially when it attacks the habitat of plants such as Cypri- 

 pediums, imbedded in Sphagnum-moss and covered with old 

 leaves, completely destroys them root and branch. 



In early spring Oxalis purpurea, a native of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, is one of the most delightful features in some 

 Santa Barbara gardens, where this pretty little plant has be- 

 come thoroughly established and where it forms broad mats 

 of lio'ht green foliage studded with its large rosy flowers, 

 which open in succession for a long time, and where it grows 

 and blooms with a freedom and luxuriance unknown in the 

 gardens of colder climates. 



In some of the gardens of San Diego and Santa Barbara, 

 Dolichos Lablab (D. lignosus), a tall, stout, woody climber, 

 with trifoliolate evergreen leaves and short racemes of rosy- 

 colored flowers with purple keels raised on long stout pedun- 

 cles, is used with excellent effect to cover arbors and other 

 buildings. It is a native of India, where it ascends the Hima- 

 layas to elevations of six to seven thousand feet. In California 

 it begins to flower in early spring. Roxburgh describes thir- 

 teen varieties cultivated in India. 



Cistus Monspeliensis, a low-growing evergreen, which is 

 beinc carefuly tested in Mr. Meehan's nurseries at German- 

 town^ to determine its hardiness, was covered with while 

 llowe'rs the first week in June. Another species, C. laurifolius, 

 a large-growing shrub, is perfectly hardy, blooming in Ger- 

 mantown about the middle of this month. A specimen of 

 Pterostyrax hispida, nearly twenty feet high, flowered beauti- 

 fully in these nurseries this year ; the ornamental value of this 

 comparatively new hardy Japanese tree deserves to be more 

 generally known. 



The arguments for the protection of forests, wild plants and 

 birds are many of them similar, as the interests defended are 

 closely related, and Superintendent Babcock, of Oil City, Penn- 

 sylvania, has recently established a Bird Day in the schools under 

 his supervision. The literary exercises were similar to those 

 that have characterized the observance of Arbor Day for the 

 last decade, the object being the preservation of American 

 birds from the women who wear them and from the small 

 boy. So excellent and useful an exercise can scarcely fail to 

 become generally observed throughout our public schools. 



In the last annual report of the Park Commissioners of the 

 city of Louisville, Kentucky, a plate is given in which the 

 damage done to street-trees by itinerant tree-trimmers is 

 strikingly set forth. Some trees, whose leading. branches had 

 been carelessly lopped off, are shown, and their sickly, scarred 

 and generally dilapidated look is in strong contrast with the 

 picture of another tree of the same species which stands one 

 hundred feet away from the first group and has been allowed 

 to grow naturally. The plate teaches the lesson that bad 

 pruning is worse than no pruning at all. We should like to 

 see another illustration to show the good effects of proper 

 pruning. 



In the June issue of Erylhrea Mr. J. G. Lemmon describes, 

 under the name of Pinus Apacheca, a Pine collected by him 

 on the Chiricahui Mountains of south-eastern Arizona, the 

 name he has selected probably relating to the fact that these 

 mountains were once a favorite stronghold of the Apache 

 Indians. Its relationship is with P. ponderosa and P. lati- 

 folia, and, unless it may be considered an extreme northern 

 form of P. Engelmanni of the Sierra Madre of Mexico, it will 

 probably best be united with P. ponderosa, from which it 

 hardly appears sufficiently distinct to be considered more than 

 a variety of that widely distributed and very polymorphous 

 species. Little, however, is known of the trees of the Chirica- 

 hui Mountains, now one of the least explored regions in the 

 United States, botanically, and until more material can be 

 obtained for the study of this tree any opinion upon Mr. Lem- 

 mon's species would, perhaps, be hazardous. 



The Alligator Pear, as the fruit of Persea gratissima is 

 known, is occasionally seen in this market, and although it 

 ships well and of late years there is a growing demand for 

 it, it has never become so popular here as it is in tropical 



countries where it is largely used as a salad-plant, and often 

 eaten with pepper and salt only. Dr. Franceschi writes in a 

 California paper that there is a specimen of this Persea in 

 Santa Barbara which is eighteen years old, and is now thirty 

 feet high, and ripens in favorable seasons five hundred fruits. 

 Seedlings from this tree and from other sources vary much in the 

 size and shape of their leaves, and, no doubt, the fruit will show 

 similar variation, so that by careful selection better varieties 

 may be secured and propagated by grafting. The tree is a 

 beautiful evergreen of pyramidal growth, with glossy foliage 

 and greenish flowers, which appear in short panicles on the 

 tops of the branches, not unlike those of the California Laurel, 

 to which it is closely related. _ _. 



One hundred and fifty years ago Baron Henry William 

 Stiegel settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and founded 

 the borough of Manheim, calling it after his native town in 

 Germany. The Baron founded large iron and glass works 

 and cultivated a Rose-garden which attracted visitors from 

 afar. In his old age, fearing that the church he had built 

 might be some time claimed by his heirs, he gave the church, 

 together with the land for a cemetery, to the congregation, 

 with the proviso that a red rose should be paid every year to 

 himself or his heirs. The tribute was paid annually for nearly 

 a hundred years, when it fell into disuse, but has lately been 

 revived again, and last week the rose festival of Manheim 

 was celebrated, and the old church was transformed into a 

 bower of beauty, great numbers of people gathering from the 

 surrounding country with contributions of roses and other 

 flowers for its decoration. The red rose was presented by the 

 pastor, Dr. L. Lohr, to Mrs. Rebecca Boyer, of Harrisburg, 

 the great-granddaughter of Baron Stiegel, and other descend- 

 ants of the Baron were present from Virginia and other states 

 as well as from Germany. An oration was delivered by 

 Attorney-General Hensel. 



It is certainly strange that American gardeners have paid so 

 little attention to the Mountain Laurel, Kalmia latifolia, as a 

 decorative plant. Probably there is not one Laurel planted in 

 this country for every thousand Rhododendrons and Azaleas, 

 although the flowers of the Laurel are not less beautiful ; 

 indeed, some good judges consider them more beautiful than 

 the flowers of any other American shrub. It is, moreover, an 

 easier plant to cultivate, and much less particular about soil 

 and exposure. One of the reasons why it has been neglected, 

 no doubt, is that it is a common native shrub, and another is 

 that it is not always an easy matter to procure well-grown 

 plants. Young plants can be dug up in the woods, but they 

 require some care and cultivation in the nursery before be- 

 coming well established. Now, however, small plants cov- 

 ered with flower-buds can be obtained from Dutch nurserymen 

 by the thousand at what seems a ridiculously low price. At this 

 time of the year no other shrub is so beautiful in the northern 

 states ; it is one of the best subjects to plant on the borders of 

 natural woods or in other half-wild situations, as it endures 

 the shade of overhanging trees and does not suffer from 

 drought. Its value as a decorative plant should be better 

 known and more often insisted upon. 



The benefit of cross-fertilization as a means of increasing 

 the productiveness of Plum-trees has been often observed, 

 but some experiments made by C. H. Heideman at New Ulm, 

 Minnesota, seemed to indicate that within certain limits foreign 

 pollen has a secondary effect upon the size and quality of the 

 fruit. Blossoms of the Wolf Plum fertilized with pollen from 

 the Hiawatha Plum produced fruit which very early showed 

 superior size to those fertilized with the pollen of half a dozen 

 other varieties, and when ripe they were of a plainly superior 

 quality. The pollen from other varieties showed its influence 

 on the fruit for good or bad where blossoms were cross-fer- 

 tilized on the same tree. Differences in individuals of the 

 same groups — that is, in the fruits which resulted from pollen 

 from any one tree — were scarcely noticeable, but these differ- 

 ences were marked when the various groups were compared. 

 Another instance was cited in which a tree bore large, oblong, 

 free-stone fruit of good quality when it was fertilized by pollen 

 from a Weaver tree, but when left to itself the fruit was 

 smaller, round and cling-stone. It should be added that these 

 results do not agree with the tests made at several of our ex- 

 periment stations, where the weight of authority indicates that 

 among Rosaceous plants there is no immediate secondary 

 effect of pollen upon the fruit. The question, however, is 

 still in dispute, and if the quality of plums improves or dete- 

 riorates when the blossoms are cross-fertilized, it is a matter 

 of importance to know which varieties to plant for the produc- 

 tion of pollen. 



