October 24, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



421 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Plant Doctor 421 



Corlears Hook Park. (With plan.) 422 



Native Trees and Shrubs about Montreal, Canada.— V J. G. Jack. 423 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 424 



New or Little-known Plants: — Cypripedium Arnoldise. (With figure.) 



A. Dimmock. 425 



Plant Notes 425 



Cultural Department : — Some Hardy Grasses R. Cameron. 426 



Gloriosa superba E. O. Orpet, T. E., Theodore L. Mead. 426 



The Vegetable Garden W N. Craig. 42S 



Violets E. O. Orpet. 428 



Juneberry Success Samuel B. Greene. 428 



Tricyrtis hirta J. N. G. .429 



Correspondence:— Aquatics in Central Park J. N. G. 429 



The Buck Bush Sadie I\l. Price. 429 



Our Native Elders Dorcas E. Collins. 429 



The Persimmon E. P. P. 429 



R ecent Publications 429 



Notes 430 



Illustrations : — Cypripedium Arnoldise, Fig. 67 425 



Plan of Corlears Hook Park, New York, Fig 6S 427 



The Plant Doctor. 



IN the course of an essay before the last meeting of the 

 American Carnation Society, Professor Arthur said : 

 We will suppose that something is wrong with the Carnation 

 bench. There seems to be no indication of insect work, and 

 so fungi are suspected. What next ? The best plan would be 

 to call an experienced specialist, a plant doctor, a practical veg- 

 etable pathologist, and accept his diagnosis. At present this 

 is an unusual proceeding, but the time will doubtless come 

 when it will be as common and thought as sensible a practice 

 as it is now to call a doctor for one's horses or one's children. 



Professor Arthur's suggestion seemed to the editor of The 

 Florists' Exchange to have much pertinence, and he there- 

 fore wrote to several men of science, whose official position 

 makes it necessary for them to study plant-diseases, and 

 asked them to give in outline what they considered the 

 requirements and appropriate field of a practical vegetable 

 pathologist. The letters are so interesting that we give 

 the central thought of each. 



Mr. E. G. Lodeman, Instructor in Horticulture at Cornell 

 University, observes that plant-diseases and their remedies 

 do not behave in an identical manner in different seasons, 

 and that treatments made one year will not necessarily be 

 advantageous in other years. He, therefore, thinks that a 

 community could profitably unite and employ a man to 

 look after the welfare of the plants in the neighborhood, 

 and he adds that this practice has been adopted in some 

 foreign countries. 



Professor Atkinson, Cryptogamic Botanist to the Cornell 

 Experiment Station, also suggests that communities of 

 growers invite a competent man to look after the health of 

 their crops. They should fit up a small laboratory, with a 

 microscope, spraying apparatus and a few other things, 

 and engage an expert on a salary for the season. 



Dr. W. C. Sturgis, Mycologist of the Connecticut Experi- 

 ment Station, believes that florists and nurserymen might, 

 with profit, consult a specialist who is able to diagnose the 

 diseased conditions of plants, whether they are due to lack 

 or excess of nutrition, to unfavorable hygienic conditions, 

 or to attacks by fungi or insects. Having determined the 

 cause, the specialist ought to be able to prescribe a bene- 

 ficial course of treatment. Practical florists and nurserymen 



might place a portion of their stock at the specialist's dis- 

 posal for the purpose of scientific study. He thinks the 

 lack of co-operation between practical growers and scien- 

 tists heretofore has been due to the fact that the value of 

 scientific knowledge has been underrated by the former 

 class. Dr. Sturgis objects to the name of "plant doctor" 

 as being akin to "herb doctor," which has become a term of 

 ill repute. It may be added, that Dr. Atkinson also objects 

 to the title, because it tends to belittle the calling in the 

 same way that the term "horse doctor" has belittled the 

 profession of the veterinarian. 



Dr. Galloway, Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pa- 

 thology in Washington, thinks that the time is rapidly near- 

 ing when the plant doctor, or, as he chooses to call him, the 

 phytopathologist, will be quite as legitimate a factor in 

 society as the veterinarian. Plants will always have an 

 Eesthetic and economic use, and as population increases 

 there will be need to produce plants as economically as 

 possible. They must, therefore, be kept in perfect health, 

 and the work of the phytopathologist will be to diagnose 

 and prescribe for diseases in various forms, and to study 

 plant-hygiene in order to establish conditions for the best de- 

 velopment of the plant. Of course, in the treatment of plant- 

 diseases there will be the danger of quackery, just as there 

 is in the practice of medicine, but in the matter of plant- 

 hygiene the phytopathologist will have an important field 

 in studying the conditions which will insure ideal plants 

 economically considered, so that he can, in given instances, 

 point out causes for failures and reasons for success. No 

 man can hope to become an expert in the growth of all 

 plants. Specialists will, therefore, have to limit their 

 fields. 



Dr. Halsted, Botanist of the Experiment Station of New 

 Jersey, calls attention to the fact that the colleges and 

 experiment stations disseminate so much information about 

 plant-diseases that nurserymen and vineyardists already 

 talk learnedly of fungi, copper salts and spraying-machines, 

 and they begin to have some faith in the plant pathologist 

 after he has saved a crop of grapes or pears. The botanists 

 of the stations oftentimes save much money for fruit- 

 growers by prescribing treatment, but the man who 

 actually treats the tree or vine — that is, who does the spray- 

 ing, for example — needs to be instructed and trained. Dr. 

 Halsted hopes to have a man next year expert in mixing 

 fungicides and applying them, who can go from one place 

 to another, and begin the work of spraying and instruct 

 farmers how to continue it. A practical sprayer who has 

 learned the art and science of fungicidal applications ought 

 to find a place ready. Nurserymen might be the first to 

 ask assistance, and even now leading men in this business 

 are looking for such an expert. 



Professor S. T. Maynard, of the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station, enumerates the subjects in science 

 and practice in which a plant physician should be skilled, 

 and they make a formidable list. When he has mastered 

 them, however, he should be able to diagnose diseases of 

 plants as the veterinarian diagnoses the diseases of animals, 

 and he ought to be able to apply remedies or supply con- 

 ditions by which plants may be cured and crops saved. 

 Such a calling ought to be remunerative, for the loss by 

 disease amounts to millions, and the doctors should be 

 allowed a liberal percentage on the values saved. The 

 Government is doing much in the experiment stations, but 

 there is no reason why a disease which attacks garden 

 crops should be treated and cured at the public expense 

 any more than a disease which attacks animals, and, 

 although by the knowledge of plant-diseases which is scat- 

 tered broadcast over the land, the ordinary farmer will 

 soon learn to apply simple remedies of great value, still 

 there will- always be a field for the true physician who 

 spends his entire time in studying and curing the diseases 

 of plants. 



Professor Taft, of the Michigan Agricultural College, 

 thinks that the increase of plant-diseases makes the vege- 

 table pathologist a necessity. Pie would have a different 



