4oo 



Garden and Forest 



[Number 345- 



remedies ; discussions on various fertilizers and their spe- 

 cial values; references to plant-portraits when trustworthy 

 ones can be found ; descriptions of. garden structures, im- 

 plements, appliances, methods — in short, it is a com- 

 prehensive book of reference in which the selection and 

 exclusion of topics have been made with conscientious 

 and intelligent care. 



The book is published in America by Macmillan & Co., 

 New York, and it is well worth the $4-00 for which it is 

 sold. 



Notes. 



Professor Lloyd, of the Pacific University of Oregon, in a 

 note about the Tree Ipomceas of Mexico, which were de- 

 scribed and figured in our issue for September 12th, states that 

 the common name of Ipomcea arborescens in Sonora is Palo 

 bianco, which means the white tree, a name significant of its 

 pale, ghost-like appearance. 



A small area has been successfully planted with Licorice in 

 San Joaquin County, California, and the horticultural papers 

 suggest that this industry could be profitably extended. Lico- 

 rice-roots, to the value of about a million and a half dollars, are 

 imported every year, and in ordinary seasons 20,000 acres of 

 land could furnish this entire product. 



If Tomato-plants are covered on nights when frost threatens 

 with a hay-cap, or even a tent of heavy paper, they will escape 

 injury, unless the temperature tails very low. Even loose 

 straw shaken over them will protect them, and since weeks of 

 warm weather often follow the earliest frosts, the season for 

 this fruit can be greatly prolonged by this precaution. 



Since the rains in early September the Apple-orchards have 

 undergone a complete transformation. The drought was so 

 long and severe that some of the leaves on the trees and part 

 of the fruit fell to the ground, while that which remained was 

 very small. When the supply of water came the apples began 

 to swell out, and trees which looked on the first of Sep- 

 tember as if they bore no crop worth picking, are now loaded 

 with an abundance of full-sized and beautifully colored fruit. 

 It is the universal testimony among fruit-growers hereabout 

 that rarely, if ever, have they seen apples increase in size with 

 such rapidity. 



An orchard of Keiffer Pears, near Moorestown, New Jersey, 

 containing a thousand trees in a solid block, has never borne 

 even half of a poor crop, while the trees in the middle of the 

 orchard have never borne anything at all. Trees on the outer 

 rows, where the blossoms can be fertilized by bees which visit 

 other varieties of Pears, have borne fruit, but not abundantly. 

 Mr. Isaac Rogers, who makes this statement in the Farm 

 Journal, adds that if a hundred Le Conte Pear-trees had been 

 planted with the Keiffer trees the orchard would have paid like 

 a gold mine. Whether this last statement is strictly true or not, 

 it certainly has been amply demonstrated that many varieties 

 of orchard fruits and of small fruits also do much better when 

 other varieties are planted among them, since they are partially, 

 and sometimes almost absolutely, barren unless cross-fertil- 

 ized. 



A marked change of decoration in the windows of flower- 

 stores plainly indicates the coming of autumn. Instead of 

 Sweet Peas and othersummer flowers there are now displayed 

 branches with bright-colored autumn foliage or brighter- 

 colored berries, wild Asters and Golden-rod ; while in one 

 window large branches of Pokeweed, Phytolacca decandra, 

 with their long racemes of dark purple berries, broad 

 tropical leaves and crimson stems, produce a marked effect. 

 The first Chrysanthemums were shown on Saturday, and 

 fairly good flowers of several of the varieties sent out by 

 Delaux are now for sale. Violets are just coming in, and are 

 not yet at their best. Gaillardias, Gardenias, Bouvardias, Tube- 

 roses, Gladioli, Kniphofias, Cosmos, white China Asters and 

 Dahlias are other flowers most frequently seen, besides the 

 usual stock of Carnations and Roses. 



Last year Professor Greene, of the University of Minnesota, 

 undertook some experiments at the request of the State Hor- 

 ticultural Society, to determine why Moore's Early Grape was 

 so shy a bearer, as it was believed by many persons that this 

 variety was more fruitful when furnished with foreign pollen 

 than when dependent on its own. Paper bags were pinned 

 carefully over the branches so as to include half a dozen clus- 

 ters of these grapes before any of the flowers had opened, so 



that no pollen of other varieties, whether conveyed by insects or 

 the winds, could reach the flowers. The vines treated in this way 

 set fruit perfectly, showing that Moore's Early has an abun- 

 dance of pollen to fertilize the stigma under ordinary condi- 

 tions. The perfect form of its fruit-clusters showed that 

 scarcely a flower failed to produce a well-developed berry. 

 Professor Greene thinks that Grapes, in which the blood of 

 Vitis labrusca enters largely, have, as a rule, sufficient pollen, 

 and that the failure of Moore's Early to fruit is caused by the 

 lack of development of the bud from which the fruiting canes 

 grow each year ; and since these so-called fruit-buds are less 

 abundant on this variety than on some others, it is advised in 

 that region to prune this vine less closely than some others. 

 In the same experiment it was shown that the Lindley and 

 Brighton Grapes need to be fertilized with foreign pollen in 

 order to be productive, and, therefore, they should be planted 

 near some of the strong staminate kinds. 



Alexander apples are the most costly apples now quoted in 

 the regular market supplies. This large, red-striped fruit lias 

 a distinct flavor, and fancy grades bring $3.00 a barrel at whole- 

 sale, while large selected apples from Michigan command as 

 much as $1.00 a dozen in the fancy-fruit stores. With the 

 end of the season for peaches in sight, prices have advanced 

 for all grades, and $3.50 a basket is asked for choice lots of 

 Morris White, Rareripe and Stump the World. Farmers in 

 northern New Jersey, who grow late varieties mainly, have 

 already been selling their peaches in the orchards, without 

 sorting, at the rate of $1.50 a basket. Exceptionally iarge and 

 handsome quinces may now be had as low as seventy-five 

 cents for a basket containing more than a half bushel. Even 

 at such a reasonable price the fruit meets with very slow sale, 

 proving clearly that its delicious flavor when baked and when 

 used with apples for sauce is not generally known and appre- 

 ciated. California fruit continues plentiful, the finest Tokay 

 grapes of the season being included in forty-eight car-loads 

 received here last week. The season for Mediterranean 

 oranges is ended, and the last cargo of lemons is on the way 

 from Naples. The scarcity of oranges has raised the price of 

 Jamaica fruit to $6.00 a barrel at wholesale, but as new-crop 

 Florida oranges are already in our markets, there will soon be 

 a plentiful supply. Some Florida lemons have also arrived. 

 These lemons will be in more active demand in a few weeks 

 when they are more fully matured and when large lots of in- 

 ferior fruit from the Mediterranean have been disposed of. 

 Some of these small and poor quality lemons, the late pickings 

 from Mediterranean groves, have brought only five and ten 

 cents a box, while the small supply of choice Sorrento and 

 Majori lemons command from $2.50 to $5.50 a box. 



A writer in The Independent states that in Georgia Water- 

 melons are planted in hills fourteen feet apart, and from four 

 to six melons are allowed to set on a vine. All these do not 

 mature properly, so that a thousand marketable melons to the 

 acre may be considered a large yield. These will make a car- 

 load if they are of average size — that is, weighing from twenty 

 to twenty-five pounds each. Early in the season the grower 

 may realize $125.00 net for a car-load at the point of shipment, 

 but from this point the price runs down until they are some- 

 times sold out for the freight. Occasionally a grower will go 

 into the refinements of cultivation and allow a vine to perfect 

 only one fruit of some good variety, the others being removed 

 as soon as they are set. Melons weighing sixty or seventy 

 pounds have been grown this way, and easily marketed at 

 $[.00 each, even when there was a glut of the commoner fruit. 

 The melon most commonly sent north is the handsome 

 variety known as Kolb's Gem, which is a good shipper, owing 

 to its heavy rind, and it is of good quality. Of much finer 

 grain and flavor is the variety known as Rattlesnake, a melon 

 of great length in proportion to its girth at the waist, and 

 curiously and irregularly striped and mottled. In Chattanooga 

 the name of a certain grower was found tagged to every Rat- 

 tlesnake melon which he had sent, and in an overstocked 

 market, with melons of the same variety selling for almost 

 nothing, those labeled " Dean, Grower," were at once taken up 

 by dealers and consumers at fair prices. There is an obvious 

 moral to this little story. The Rattlesnake melon, having a 

 thin rind, does not endure carriage to northern markets, 

 although it is largely grown in Georgia for home use. When 

 care is taken in packing a car, however, and the bottom 

 courses are laid in such a manner as to break joints and dis- 

 tribute the weight of the top courses, the crushing of the 

 lower ones is measurably avoided, and melons with a tender 

 shell will carry safely. Melons too small to market, or those 

 which are specked or rotted from contact with the ground, are 

 usually fed to the hogs. 



