August 29, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



347 



now be divided to advantage, and the roots of the hardy her- 

 baceous Poppies can now be cut up for propagating new stock. 



Good growers always recommend the early planting of Lily- 

 bulbs, and Mr. Horsford has asserted in these columns that 

 he prefers to winter them in a cool cellar rather than to set 

 them late. When they are planted early a new growth of 

 fibrous roots is made, and they are thus prepared for an earlier 

 and more vigorous start in the spring. Like many other 

 plants, Lilies are exhausted by bearing seeds, and plants of 

 Lilium Canadense taken up while in flower and replanted are 

 sure to give better flowers the next year than if they had been 

 left to go to seed where they originally stood. Of course, it is 

 a good plan not to allow Lilies to ripen seed ; the bulbs will 

 be stronger for it. 



Of course, it is desirable to get a supply of spring-flowering 

 bulbs as early as possible, and to get them in the ground be- 

 fore the approach of cold weather. When they are planted 

 late they may flower fairly well the first year, but the follow- 

 ing season will show the bad results of delay. They may 

 flower well for once, because the food already stored up in 

 the bulb is used to produce flowers and seed, but unless they 

 have made a good root-growth the year before they have not 

 the power to elaborate and store up material for another year, 

 and will often die or be found diseased if they are examined 

 after the foliage is ripened. In warm places where the plants 

 can make roots all winter this early planting is not so essential, 

 but wherever the earth freezes hard and remains so all winter 

 it is necessary to the continued health of the plant that the 

 bulb should be set in the ground sufficiently early in the 

 autumn to make a good root-growth before severe frosts. 



Montclair, N. J. B. 



Flowering Annuals. 



AT this season there is no lack of color in our gardens 

 where a proper use has been made of these plants. The 

 Dwarf Sunflowers, Nasturtiums, China Asters, Marigolds, 

 Coreopsis and many others are very useful when quantities of 

 flowers are needed. Delphinium consolida is still very beau- 

 tiful, with its long racemes of intense blue flowers, which con- 

 tinue to show themselves in spite of drought. The many 

 beautiful forms of the perennial Larkspurs have pushed this 

 plant aside somewhat, but it deserves a place in every collec- 

 tion of annual flowers. Of course, there are many varieties, 

 double and single, and the colors range through various 

 shades of blue and white and pink, but none are more beauti- 

 ful than those of a clear deep blue. The China Asters have 

 been changed by selection and crossing till the plants differ as 

 widely in habit as they do in the color and shape of the flow- 

 ers. One can hardly go amiss in selecting from the approved 

 strains of the best florists whether plants are wanted for bed- 

 ding or for cutting. As the nights begin to grow cool the 

 single-flowered Dahlias, and especially the dwarf kinds, are be- 

 ginning to do their best. They come in almost all colors and 

 combinations of colors, and form broad plants hardly more 

 than eighteen inches high, so that they need no stakes, and 

 produce flowers in the greatest profusion. 



The practice of sowing the seeds of the hardier annuals in 

 autumn is one to be altogether commended. Those which 

 bloom only once will flower earlier, and with much greater 

 vigor, while those which continue to bloom for a long time, 

 develop into a size which spring-sown seedlings never attain. 

 A plant of Coreopsis Drummondii, for example, will have 

 stems an inch through and cover a space a yard across. 



Jamaica, L. I. M. Amot. 



In the Shrubbery. — Shrubberies in general have fewer attrac- 

 tions now than at any other season. The time has hardly 

 come for the turning of the leaves, although some of the 

 flowering Currants are already brilliant ; and, again, the best 

 season for the great body of those which have showy fruit has 

 not yet arrived, although some of the forms of Pyrus baccata, 

 with their arching branches loaded with miniature apples 

 of the brightest color, are already singularly beautiful. But 

 shrubs in flower are rather rare, and this gives an especial 

 value to those which flower in late August and early Septem- 

 ber. It is singular that the Heaths of the Old World are not 

 more generally used here, for, if properly cared for in soils 

 which are not of a clayey texture and contain no limestone, 

 they give comparatively little trouble. The common Heather, 

 Caluna vulgaris, is, perhaps, the best for beginners, as it is the 

 most vigorous and has various forms — some with white flow- 

 ers, some with flowers darker-colored than the type, some 

 with double flowers, and many others of peculiar form — ■ 

 prostrate or erect. The Cornish Heath, Erica vagans, is 



rather more difficult to deal with ; so is the four-leaved Heath, 

 E. tetralis. St. Daboec's Heath, Dabcecia polifolia, bears 

 large, dark-colored purple flowers often half an inch long. It 

 is a spreading plant, and the racemes of flowers are borne on 

 long stems above the shining evergreen leaves. It produces 

 flowers for a long time, but most profusely in late summer, 

 when flowers on woody plants are needed, and it is an admira- 

 ble species for a rockery. Another plant of the Heath family 

 is the Sorrel-tree, Oxydendrum arboreum, which now bears 

 long one-sided panicles or drooping racemes of pure white 

 bell-shaped flowers, a quarter of an inch long. Among 

 other shrubs the Hypericums are, perhaps, the most inter- 

 esting at this season. You have already given pretty full ac- 

 counts of the different species, but they are all useful. They 

 are of varied habit, from erect to prostrate. They flower for 

 a long time when few other shrubs are in bloom. The foliage 

 is neat and clean, and they fill a place which no other genus 

 occupies. No doubt, many of the spring-flowering shrubs 

 which have ripened up their wood early on account of the 

 drought will give a second crop of blossoms with the first 

 autumn rains. 



Hartford, Conn. J ■ Stanton. 



Henderson's Bush Lima Bean. — Three distinct forms of Bush 

 Limas have now been sufficiently long before the public to 

 enable ordinary growers to form a conclusion as to their com- 

 parative merits, and I, for one, have decided that Henderson's, 

 taken all in all, is the best. It leads both Burpee's and Dreer's 

 (Kumerles) in time of maturing. Its productiveness is re- 

 markable, and far exceeds that of its rivals, while its habit of 

 persistent bearing is unequaled. The plants are smaller than 

 those of any other variety, and they can, therefore, be set 

 more closely. It is less liable to sport into the climbing or 

 running habit, and is more uniform in its bush habit than the 

 others, while it is quite as hardy and vigorous as either. In 

 fact, it excels in every point but one, and that is that its flavor 

 is not quite as rich, and yet the difference in this respect is so 

 trifling that it hardly weighs against its manifest advantages 

 in other respects. 



Montclair, n.j. Beefield. 



Meetings of Societies. 



American Forestry Association. 



A SUMMER MEETING of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation, held in conjunction with the session of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, be- 

 gan on Tuesday evening, August 21st, in Brooklyn, New 

 York, with an illustrated lecture on the Battle of the Forest, 

 by B. E. Fernow. Sessions were held in the morning and 

 afternoon of Wednesday, in which several important papers 

 were read and discussed. Mr. Fernow, in an address on 

 the condition of our public timber-lands and forest-reserva- 

 tions, called attention to the necessity of following up the 

 policy of reserving forest-lands, which was inaugurated 

 through the efforts of the American Forestry Association, 

 with measures for their protection and rational use. As 

 the law now stands, the Secretary of the Interior cannot sell 

 timber, but he can give it away. He must refuse the offers 

 of lumbermen to buy timber because he is not empowered 

 to take the money, and there is no adequate check on cut- 

 ting timber on Government lands. The sentiment of the 

 population near the reservations, which was once favorable 

 to them, is now setting against them, because there are no 

 means for utilizing their products. 



At the close of this address Mr. Fernow offered the fol- 

 lowing resolution, which, after some discussion, was unan- 

 imously adopted : 



Resolved, That the the American Forestry Association de- 

 sires to express again, emphatically, its approval of the efforts 

 of the Public Lands Committee of the House of Representa- 

 tives, and its chairman, the Hon. Thomas C. McRae, for the 

 enactment of a law, providing not only for the care and pro- 

 tection, but also for the rational use, of the timber and other 

 resources in the forest-reservations and on all public timber- 

 lands. The policy of reserving can hardly be considered an 

 advantage to the forestry interests unless followed up by an 

 intelligent and efficient administration of the reservations. 



This association emphatically denies that it advocates in the 

 policy of forest-reservations the unintelligent exclusion from 

 use of large territories and the resources contained therein, 



