November zi, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



469 



shown by Mr. W. A. Manda. The foliage was notable for 

 new colors and for the richness of their combination, as 

 also for the large size of the leaves. One of these plants, 

 named Malcolm MacRory, with leaves of solid scarlet 

 and the indentations on the edge tipped with yellow, re- 

 ceived a certificate, as did another variety named Charles 

 Weathered, which was as showy as a bright Bertolonia. This 

 variety is crimson, marbled with a very dark brown. This new 

 strain of Coleus promises to be useful for verandas in sum- 

 mer. Other noteworthy plants in Mr. Manda's collection were 

 Dracaena rubro-nigra and D. Souvenir de Nice. They are 

 comparatively rare, and their narrow foliage and open habit 

 will make them useful for table decoration. The Horticultural 

 Department of the Cornell Experiment Station sent an instruc- 

 tive exhibit in the shape of a card, on which were specimens 

 of Chrysanthemums affected by thrips as well as by leaf-blight, 

 the new bud disease, etc., labeled so that growers would be 

 able to identify the peculiar trouble from which their plants 

 were suffering. 



The regular exercises of the club consisted of an address by 

 Mr. W. A. Manda, in the course of which he expressed regret 

 that the hardy varieties of Chrysanthemums were not culti- 

 vated out-of-doors, as they once were. He advises the lifting 

 and division of stock-plants the second year, and planting out 

 in early May the roots of such varieties as President, purplish 

 pink ; Bob, the favorite red ; Val d'Or, yellow ; President Hyde, 

 an early yellow ; the white and the yellow Madame des Granges ; 

 Elaine, white ; John Thorpe, magenta. He explained how the 

 plants should be disbudded, so as to get the best flowers. Dr. 

 Hexamer advises the pinching in of the branches before any 

 buds appeared and while the plant was no more than a foot 

 high, so as to make a stocky growth. This should be done 

 about three times before the middle of July. Mr. John May 

 said that there was no need for an amateur to try disbudding ; 

 all that was needed would be to keep the beds weeded and to 

 tie up the plants. 



When Dean Hole, who had come to the flower-show, en- 

 tered the room, he was invited to the stand by Dr. Hexamer, 

 President of the Club, and made one of his graceful and happy 

 addresses, the central thought being that a real interest in 

 plant-life is a source of perennial pleasure. 



T 1 



Chrysanthemums at St. Louis. 

 'HE general effect of the Chrysanthemum show here was 

 injured, because the plants so much outran the space offered 

 them that it was necessary to break the collection up into 

 small sections. The best cut Chrysanthemums were those 

 which competed for the best twenty-five blooms of yellow, 

 white or pink, or of any variety introduced since the year 

 1891. Among the white flowers the majority were Queens, 

 and the premium in this section went to Mr. Vesey, of Fort 

 Wayne, Indiana. Viviand Morels prevailed in the pink section, 

 and Mr. Richard Frow, of St. Louis, won the first premium here. 

 The yellow varieties were wonderfully good and largely con- 

 sisted of Golden Wedding. Missouri growers seem to have no 

 trouble with this variety, of which some complaints have lately 

 been made elsewhere. Eugene Dailledouze, which was 

 another great favorite, was shown in good form also, and Mr. 

 E. J. Hill took the second prize with this variety, while the 

 Michel Plant Company, of St. Louis, won the blue ribbon with 

 Golden Wedding. In the class for twenty-five blooms of recent 

 introduction, the Michel Company won with a vase of Harry 

 Lauderbeck, which was judged superior to Mr. Hill's entry of 

 Challenge, because the latter lacked a few days of being at 

 their best. There were excellent blooms of Mrs. William 

 Trelease on good stiff stems, while the varieties Mrs. Twom- 

 bly, Mrs. Charles Lanier (yellow), Pitcher & Manda, the strange 

 two-colored flower, and the beautiful white, Mrs. J. G. lis, were 

 remarkable. Mr. Hill, too, showed fine blooms of Judge Hoitt, 

 the only anemone-flowered variety exhibited, and really very 

 pleasing. The finest white flower in the show, and perhaps the 

 best flower of any color, was Philadelphia, which is said to 

 have made a sensation in other cities. It was certainly most 

 effective as shown here. 



Recent Publications. 



The Birds' Calendar. By H. E. Parkhurst. Scribner's 

 Sons, New York. 



Every year the press of this country and of England 

 teems with works upon botany or ornithology, or some 

 kindred branch of natural science ; some, ponderous and 

 didactic, treat of the hard facts of nature and her laws ; 



others, lighter in tone, have for their chief motive the desire 

 to call back the wandering thoughts of men to the restful 

 pleasure to be found in a close observation of nature's 

 works. To this latter class belongs the volume before us, 

 with its pretty and expressive title, The Birds' Calendar. 

 Air. Parkhurst will almost persuade every reader to be an 

 ornithologist, so contagious is the cheerful but restrained 

 enthusiasm with which he sets forth the charms of his 

 favorite pursuit. It has, in his opinion, an advantage over 

 botany in that much can be learned in any one locality of 

 birds whose favorite abiding-place may be in some far dis- 

 tant land. "If one would study the botany of Labrador 

 or of Mexico, he must needs go to Labrador or Mexico for 

 his specimens. Plants adhere to their own zone and climate. 

 But, by the laws of migration, the birds of these, and of 

 even more remote regions, accommodatingly come to our 

 doors every spring and fall. One can find in his front 

 yard strange visitors from tropic and arctic climes, if he is 

 only up betimes to greet them"; and then he adds that 

 increased enjoyment is due to the fact, that "while other 

 friends come and go, one never loses the friends he makes 

 among the birds, for the attachment is to the class, not to 

 the individual. Specimens die, but the species survives. 

 One never thinks of age in connection with these creatures. 

 They seem to have discovered the elixir of life, and to 

 maintain the perennial freshness of youth. Year after year 

 they arrive at just about the same time in the spring, sing 

 the same old songs, repeat their love passages, nest in the 

 same fashion, and perpetuate all their graceful ways and 

 charming oddities. The old man finds his Cherry-trees 

 plundered by apparently the very same robins that he saw 

 in his boyhood, in his father's orchard, and drives away the 

 same everlasting crows from his corn-field. The wood- 

 pecker's vigorous tapping never becomes feeble, nor the 

 song-sparrow's song less blithesome; the burden of sorrow 

 is never lifted from the ever-lamenting peewee, and in sea- 

 son and out of season, with sometimes provoking equa- 

 nimity, the chickadee is brimful of merriment. These 

 sights and sounds are among the stabilities of life— the 

 changeless things that give equilibrium to nature, binding 

 the present to the past, and spreading a pleasing and rest- 

 ful aspect of permanence over the mutabilities of existence." 



Every page of this little volume breathes the fresh, 

 bracing air of the woodlands and thickets, where birds in 

 general congregate; and so tonic is its atmosphere that 

 only upon the writer's own confession could we be con- 

 vinced that it is the work of a busy man whose home is in 

 the heart of this great metropolis. The observations here 

 recorded were made during the intervals of business in 

 1893, and his area of observation was confined chiefly 

 to .the Ramble, in Central Park, an area of about forty 

 acres, where, between January and December, he has 

 found and identified nearly a hundred species of birds, 

 May breaking the record with sixty species. The work, 

 however, contains much more than a year's individual 

 experience ; for, by interweaving with his narrative a dis- 

 cussion of the varied aspects of bird-life, the book gives a 

 view of the subject more comprehensive than a mere 

 record of personal and local observation could offer. 



Though disclaiming all scientific knowledge, and writing 

 as a layman for laymen, he gives so clear and definite 

 a description of the outward characteristics of the birds 

 under review that the chronicle will prove serviceable to 

 the beginner in identifying each species, while his knowl- 

 edge of their habits is both accurate and varied, and his 

 pages have that vividness of impression that can be con- 

 veyed only by one who has gained his knowledge at first 

 hand, and for his own pleasure, rather than for the mere 

 purpose of communicating it to others. He knows the 

 notes of each little songster, and can interpret them, not 

 through a formal musical scale, but in terms of passion 

 and emotion. In fact, so familiar is he with the complex- 

 personality of his feathered friends that we are almost 

 charmed into the belief that bird-life is but a travesty of 

 human life; and we arc rather grateful to Mr. Parkhurst 



