270 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 332 



Notes. 



Work upon the new park at Corlear's Hook-, in one of the 

 most crowded parts of our city, is immediately to be begun, 

 upon plans elaborated by Mr. Calvert Vaux. 



The Raisin Growers' Association of Fresno, California, have 

 decided that no raisins shall be sold except on board the cars 

 at points of shipping-. This regulation is meant to insure uni- 

 form packing and to permit no inferior samples to go out, and 

 to prevent any such cat in prices as that which brought disas- 

 ter to the industry last year. 



It is good practice to pick promptly all the ripe or decayed 

 fruit from Cucumbers and Tomatoes. Even when seed is 

 wanted, no more than one fruit should be allowed to ripen on 

 a plant from which a continuous supply is expected. New 

 fruits cease to set if the old ones are allowed to ripen, and the 

 prompt removal of fruit before it matures will keep the plants 

 growing and yielding much longer. 



We have already given some account of that weed 

 known as the Russian Thistle, or Russian Cactus, although it 

 is not related either to the Thistles or the Cacti. Botanii illy 

 it is Salsola kali tragus, and those who wish to learn all the 

 known facts in relation to its history, together with the means 

 available for its eradication, can find them in Bulletin No. 15, 

 lately published by the Division of Botany, United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture. The bulletin has been prepared by 

 Lester Hoxie Dewey, Assistant Botanist of the Department, 

 and it is illustrated with maps and figures. 



The people of southern Colorado are .preparing petitions 

 asking that Congress shall reserve the region called the Mancos 

 Canon as a public park. This region is remarkable for i!s 

 natural features, and contains the most interesting remains of 

 the Cliff-dwellers which exist in the United States. If not soon 

 protected, its archaeological interest, at least, will be greatly 

 impaired. Many of the houses are in very inaccessible posi- 

 tions, one of the finest occupying a narrow ledge of rock 600 

 feet above the bottom of the canon ; nevertheless, their inac- 

 cessibility does not protect them from the ravages of curiosity- 

 hunters. 



A Pennsylvania correspondent of the Rural New Yorker 

 men lions among the merits of the Japan Quince as a hedge- 

 plant, that it does not naturally grow much taller than the 

 proper height for a hedge, and that it quickly reaches that 

 height; cattle will not browse it or break it; it does not 

 sucker much ; its foliage has a rich color, which is held all the 

 season through ; it blooms every year, and when in flower it 

 is beautiful; it is readily propagated by roots cut into inch 

 lengths from any old plant in the autumn and kept in damp 

 sand until the spring ; it has great endurance and longevity ; 

 its stems are continually renewed from the collar, and it is 

 easily trimmed and kept into tidy shape. 



One of the most curious trees in Germany stands on the left 

 bank of the River Oder, in Ratibor, Silesia. It is a Maple, at 

 least one hundred years old, which has been twisted and cut 

 into a sort of circular two-storied house. A flight of steps 

 leads up to the first level, where the branches have been grad- 

 ually v/oven together so that they make a firm leafy floor; 

 above this is a second floor of smaller diameter, formed iu 

 the same way ; and the ends of the brandies have been woven 

 into solid walls, and cut so that eight windows light each of 

 the apartments. Below the first floor, at the level of the sec- 

 ond, and at the top of the tree the boughs have been allowed 

 to grow out naturally, while the intermediate walls and the 

 edges of the window-like openings are kept closely clipped. 



A correspondent of the North-western Lumberman states 

 that last winter, in St. Louis, he found that while white poplar 

 was selling slowly and there was no demand for yellow pine, 

 and hardly any for cypress, cottonwood was in active request. 

 The lower grades of cottonwood are used for packing boxes, 

 vegetable crates, barn boards, sheathing, etc., and the upper 

 grades are largely made into wagon-boxes, where the tough- 

 ness of the wood renders it specially valuable, while clear 

 stock under twelve inches wide serves for flooring, ceiling, 

 casing and other purposes where pine is commonly used. 

 When properly dried, cottonwood is said to be equal to poplar 

 for many purposes, and because of its lightness, the ease with 

 whichitis worked, and the way in which it takes and retains 

 paint, it answers for many uses where pine was once consid- 

 ered indispensable. 



In Europe tobacco-pipes are made principally of two kinds 

 of wood, one is Cherry and the othei is the so-called Briar. 



This latter is really a Tree Heath, Erica arborea. It is called 

 by the French Bruyere, wbi< h has been corrupted into Briar, 

 and great quantities of it are used in Austiia and Italy in mak- 

 ing pipes. Now the Agricultural Gazette, of New South 

 Wales, states that the root and trunk of a small tree called 

 Beef-wood (botanically Hakea leucoptera) is being largely used 

 and is highly prized by smokers as a material for pipes. It is a 

 Proteaceous plant, related to the Honeysuckles andGrevilleas, 

 and its common name is derived from the color and general 

 texture of the wood. It also goes under the name of the 

 Needle-bush, from the prickly character of itsleaves. It is a 

 small tree or large shrub which rarely attains a trunk diameter 

 of more than nine inches and grows in the arid interior of the 

 country. 



The Italian-Swiss agricultural colony at Asti, Sonoma 

 County, California, as described in a recent issue of the Pacific 

 Rural Press, is a prosperous settlement in the beautiful Rus- 

 sian River valley. The organization was effected in 1881 , and 

 fifteen hundred acres of warm hill-side and rich valley land are 

 now planted in vineyards and orchards, and additional tracts 

 are being cleared and planted. Many of the plants were im- 

 ported direct from Italy, and now the Olive of Lucca and the 

 Riviera, Orange-trees from the Mediterranean, Fig-trees from 

 Naples, Barberino di Val d'Elsa and Vines from Italy, thrive 

 side by side in the colony. Thrift and good work are every- 

 where evident, and experienced viticuiturists and horticul- 

 turists follow the same general methods practiced in Italy. 

 The buildings at Asti are among the best of their class, and 

 include a concrete storage-house for wine with a capacity of 

 more than 1,000,000 gallons. 



During the past week plums, which have been comingfrom 

 California in great abundance and variety as well as in admira- 

 ble condition, have been selling at wholesale for as high as 

 five dollars a half-crate. Apricots from the same state have 

 also been beautiful in color and in good condition, but they 

 si !l slowly, while cherries, with the exception of the variety 

 Royal Anne, have sadly fallen off in quality. The rapid growth 

 which all fruit and vegetables have made during the past hot 

 weather is shown by the fact that huckleberries are now 

 coming from New Jersey, which but a fortnight ago were 

 coming from the Carolines, and green corn from the same 

 state is in the market. The best strawberries used in this city 

 are now picked as far north as Oswego, and next week they will 

 be coming in from Maine. Currants have rarely been as abun- 

 dant and cheap as they now are, and they can be bought for 

 from two to two and a half cents a pound. Hart's Late 

 oranges are still coming from Florida, and sell at from $4.00 

 to $5.00 a box in spite of the abundant receipts of good Rodi 

 oranges from Sicily, which are the standard summer fruit. 



Commenced in 1S4S by the late Filippo Parlatore, the 

 "Flora Italiana" has at last been completed, with the excep- 

 tion of a part of the seventh volume, the concluding part of 

 the tenth and final volume having been issued in April of the 

 present year, although it is Professor Teodoro Caruel who has 

 completed it, Professor Parlatore having died several years 

 ago. The Flora of Italy is one of the few modern Floras of 

 large countries or of extensive botanical regions which has 

 come so near completion. The two notable exceptions are 

 Bentham's "Flora of Australia" and Boissier's "Flora of the 

 Orient." The other great floras of recent times still remain in 

 a fragmentary condition. Gray finished only half of the " Flora 

 of North America" and Sir Joseph Hooker has still at least one 

 more volume before him before his " Flora of British India," 

 which has pretty constantly engaged his attention for the last 

 forty years, will be completed. Oliver's " Flora of Tropical 

 Africa" and Harvey &Sonder's " Flora of Southern Africa" are 

 siill incomplete, while the death of the author stopped Cossons' 

 " Flora of Algeria" in its early stages. The "Flora of Brazil," 

 commenced by Martius many years ago, the first part having 

 appeared in 1846, isstill appearing with considerable regularity, 

 and there is some probability that it may now be completed 

 within a reasonable time. Floras of Mexico and of cen- 

 tral America, of Chili and Peru, of Argentina, of China 

 and Japan, and of Europe as a whole are still needed. During 

 the last century a good deal has been learned of the char- 

 acters, relationships, uses and distribution of the plants 

 that cover the earth's surface ; but our knowledge of 

 plants, however, is still fragmentary and often unsatisfactory, 

 and there is still a vast amount of work to be done by mor- 

 phological and economic botanists, in spite of the statement 

 which has become fashionable of late in some quarters, that 

 there is no real work left in botany for any one but the 

 physiologists. 



