28o 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 333. 



fall for the month in that region, where the average is rather 

 more than four inches. 



Parts 103, 104 and 105 of Engler & Prantl's Die Natiirlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien have just reached us. They contain the 

 completion of the Leguminosae, by Taubert ; an instalment 

 of Composite, by Hoffmann ; Begoniaceae and Datiscaceae, by 

 Warburg, and Cactaceae, by Schumann. 



The great logs and tree-trunks of which the Washington 

 State Building, on the Chicago Fair Grounds, was composed, 

 were recently loaded on a schooner which was to take them 

 from Chicago to a French port, the intention being to re-erect 

 the structure in that country. Some of the logs are 140 feet in 

 length. 



A friend of Harvard University, whose name is withheld, 

 recently gave $10,000 to its Botanical Department for im- 

 mediate expenditure. One-quarter ot the sum will be used 

 for the Gray Herbarium, while one-quarter will be devoted to 

 the Botanic Garden, and the remaining half to the Botanical 

 Museum for the completion of some of its collections. 



The tombof Alphand, thelandscape-gardener who so greatly 

 beautified Paris and secured the artistic success of her Inter- 

 national Exposition, has just been completed in the cemetery 

 of Pere-Lachaise. It consists of a pyramidal structure ten feet 

 in height, upon one side of which is a bronze bust of Alphand, 

 by Dalou, one of the most famous of modern sculptors. 



The Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution has 

 already marked, in an appropriate way, General Wayne's old 

 headquarters at Centreville and Fort Washington, and has 

 placed commemorative boulders at Valley Forge and at Wash- 

 ington's encampment-place at Gulph Mills. This year it ex- 

 pects to dedicate another votive stone at Queen's Lane, in 

 Fairmount Park, a spot upon which Washington twice en- 

 camped. 



Mr. Frederick McMonnies, the sculptor of the great fountain 

 at the Chicago Fair, has just returned to Paris, charged with 

 important commissions for the adornment of the approaches 

 to Prospect Park, in Brooklyn. He is to design a great quadriga 

 for the top of the Soldiers' Memorial Arch at the main en- 

 trance, and two large groups for the pedestals against its face ; 

 and also two groups of men and horses for the isolated pedes- 

 tals which form part of the elaborate gateway built by Messrs. 

 McKim, Mead & White, at the boulevard entrance toward the 

 south-eastern extremity of the park. 



It is now universally understood that the proper thinning 

 out of fruit will help to give a greater quantity and much better 

 quality, and that it is not only good practice for market-growers, 

 whose profits depend on good, evenly graded fruit, but that it 

 pays from every point of view in private orchards. One 

 advantage of thinning not generally taken into account is 

 explained by Professor Taft in the current number of The 

 American Agriculturist. A tree which is allowed to ripen 

 too great a number of fruits will be weakened, so that it will 

 not be able to mature fruit-buds for next year's crop, and the 

 tree will then waste half its time in recovering. The flesh of 

 the fruit is largely water, it is true, but theseeds contain much 

 mineral matter, and when we remember that a bushel of 

 peaches from trees in which the fruit has not been thinned 

 contains three times the number of pits which a bushel does 

 from the thinned trees we can see what a dratt this makes, both 

 upon the soil and upon the tree, and how it helps to account 

 for the irregular bearing and the premature exhausting of 

 orchards. Peaches, Plums and other stone-fruit trees are par- 

 ticularly liable to injury from excessive bearing, but other 

 fruit-trees are injured in the same way, although to a less 

 extent. 



We are glad to announce the appearance, after a long delay, 

 of another part, the eleventh, of Mr. Hemsley's " Enumeration 

 of Chinese Plants," published in the Journal of the Linncean 

 Society. The present instalment of this important work com- 

 pletes the Thymelaeaceas and embraces the Elaeagnaceae, 

 Loranthaceaj, Santalaceae, Balanophoreae, Euphorbiaceas, 

 and the Urticaceae through Ulmeae, Celtidae, Cannabineas 

 into Moreae. Like the earlier parts, the present issue only 

 confirms the reader's idea of the richness of the Chinese flora, 

 especially in woody plants, and reminds him that western 

 China still contains' many trees and shrubs that are unrepre- 

 sented in our gardens. Among the novelties here first de- 

 scribed, which may be expected to flourish in this country, are 

 Ulmus castaneifolia, a tree said to be fifty feet in height, with 

 narrow Chestnut-like leaves, found by Henry in Hupeh and 



Szechuen ; Celtis nervosa, from Formosa, and Morus Cathay- 

 ana, from Hupeh, a species said to resemble the Indian Morus 

 laevigata, from which it is distinguished by its relative short 

 flower-spikes borne on short peduncles. Other trees in- 

 cluded in this issue, which are still to be introduced into 

 cultivation, although previously known to botanists, are Ulmus 

 Davidiana, discovered by the Abbe' David at Jehol; U. macro- 

 carpa, which Mr. Hemsley surmises is not distinct from the 

 last ; Zelkova Davidii, a tree that is apparently not rare in the 

 vicinity of Peking and at Jehol, and which has also been dis- 

 covered in Corea ; Celtis Bungeana, from Peking, and Ptero- 

 celtis Tatarinowii, a Celtis-hke tree, of western China. 



The railroad strike, which has practically put a stop to 

 freight traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, has 

 brought about some strange conditions in the fruit market 

 here. Two car-loads of California fruit, belonging to the 

 Earl Fruit Company, by some good fortune reached this city 

 on Monday in fair condition, and since it is not probable 

 that any more California fruit will arrive for a month, the 

 prices brought were unusually high. Plums sold for as much 

 as J3.00 a box and upward; apricots, which a few days ago 

 sold for seventy and eighty cents a box, went up to $3.05 ; 

 peaches brought $3.30 a basket ; Bartlett pears brought $4 75 

 a box, while Seckel pears brought $5.00, and a few Red As- 

 trachan a.pples sold at the rate of $17.00 a barrel. Naturally, 

 the stoppage of so large a source of supply as the California 

 orchards has strengthened the prices of all local fruits like 

 cherries, raspberries and watermelons, as well as the few 

 oranges and pineapples which are now coming into this port. 

 Bananas, too, are considerably higher, while lemons, on ac- 

 count of the falling off of the demand in the west, are piling 

 up here and are becoming a drug in the market. The fruit- 

 growers of California, especially those who depend on early 

 fruits, must sustain very heavy losses. In such places as 

 Vacaville telegraphic advices say that tons of early fruit are 

 being dried or canned, as no fruit trains have started from that 

 point for more than a week. Arrangements are not adequate, 

 however, for drying all the fruit produced, and many of the 

 canneries can get no sugar, so that much of it has already 

 been wasted. At this time, in an ordinary season, 250 car- 

 loads of fruit leave San Jose alone for the east every day, and 

 it is impossible to can or dry this enormous quantity, so that 

 if the blockade continues long enormous quantities of fruit 

 will be sacrificed. 



In Bulletin 67, just issued by the Cornell Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station, Professor Bailey gives some account of 

 several garden vegetables which have been introduced into 

 this country by the Chinese. The most valuable for American 

 gardens is the so-called Chinese Cabbage, Pe-Tsai. It is a 

 plant with a loose, lettuce-like head of crisp leaves, which may 

 be used in all the ways in which cabbage is served. It is an 

 autumn vegetable, and requires a cool moist soil. The same 

 cultivation and attention is demanded for the Chinese Mus- 

 tard, which is an excellent plant tor greens, and produces an 

 enormous amount of herbage. California Pepper Grass, 

 which was brought prominently into notice by John Lewis 

 Childs in 1890, seems to be a finely cut leaved form of a Mus- 

 tard which has been long known in old gardens in this coun- 

 try, but has not been described either in American botanies 

 or gardening books. It is one of the best of all plants for early 

 spring greens. It is not known how or when the plant first 

 came to this country, for, although it is cultivated in China and 

 Japan, it does not appear to have been independently intro- 

 duced from either of these countries in recent years. There 

 are other Mustard-like plants which have been introduced 

 from China which possess less merit than the foregoing spe- 

 cies for American gardens. Among them are the Pak-Choi, 

 used as greens and for the thick white leaf-stalk ; and the 

 tuberous-rooted Mustard, grown for its small turnip-like root. 

 Of the cucurbitaceous plants introduced by the Chinese the 

 best is the Wax Gourd, Zit-kwa, the fruit of which is excellent 

 for conserves. It is easily cultivated, but requires a long sea- 

 son. The La-kwa, or Momordica Charantia, is not new to the 

 American city trade, but has more merit as a curiosity and an 

 ornamental vine than as an esculent for our taste. The Luffas, 

 or Dish-cloth Gourds, are of two species, which differ chiefly 

 in the contour of their fruits. The one best known has ribless 

 cylindrical fruits, but the one chiefly cultivated by the Chinese 

 in the neighborhood of New York has club-shaped ribbed 

 fruit. These fruits are chiefly interesting because they yield a 

 sponge-like fibre which is useful for household purposes. The 

 Tau-kok is a Bean of some merit for late home use, but the 

 Chinese Pea has little to recommend it, and the other vegeta- 

 bles named have hardly any value for our gardens. 



