November 28, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



479 



leaf-stems, in particular, a new lease of life, preventing the 

 ordinary cessation of growth and consequent readiness to fall 

 away from their attachment. 



I notice in the Public Garden and on the mall in the Common 

 that quite a number of shrubs and trees still retain their leaves 

 to a certain extent, and it is always the latest growths which 

 remain. Some of the English Elms look quite yellow, although 

 they have been exposed to snowstorms and high winds. Many 

 of the weeds growing in the waste lands around have had a 

 November bloom. The CEnotheras had their season of growth 

 and went to seed ; their spikes of open capsules became dead, 

 woody matter long ago. But a few, lingering, half-dead little 

 buds below them have sprouted under the warm sun, and 

 little flowers, not a quarter as large as the summer ones, have 

 made their appearance. Sweet Clovers have taken on a new 

 growth, as vigorous as the earlier ones in summer. These 

 are slight instances of life's changes, being the results of life's 

 environment ; faint beginnings of Nature's forces in the evo- 

 lution of differing habits and forms in the vegetable world. 



I have noticed, this season, the marked difference between 

 the areas of coloration in plants which continue to grow as 

 long as the temperature permits, not ceasing when a certain 

 maximum amount of development has been reachedj as in 

 Maples and Lindens. The Japanese Ampelopsis, so common 

 here, exhibits remarkable differences in the time and place of 

 its changes. The young growths retain their brilliant green, 

 while the leaves upon the old wood have assumed the rich 

 reds of autumn. I watched one of our native creepers in 

 Hingham this summer, the leaves of which, upon the last 

 year's growth, went through all the gradation of change of 

 color up to a brilliant scarlet and then fell away, long before 

 any frost had appeared ; while the smaller leaves, of this sum- 

 mer's growth, were still living, of a fresh, bright green. 



These are evidences that a leaf ripens when it has gone 

 through a certain term of individual existence and reached the 

 last of its life changes. If the environment begins to change, 

 then the life-history will not repeat itself ; it will change also. 

 Our scarlet Ampelopsis, acclimated under a tropical sun, 

 might never blush at all nor drop its leaves at regularly 

 recurring periods. 



Boston. o. 



Plant Houses at Summit, New Jersey. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The close competition in business which characterizes 

 our time has by no means left at one side the growers of mar- 

 ket flowers, and it is interesting to visit places where the most 

 advanced methods are adopted and only a few species of 

 flowers grown to the highest state of development. This was 

 the thought forcibly brought home to me on the occasion of a 

 recent visit to the plant house of Mr. John N. May, of Summit, 

 New Jersey, where I went primarily to inspect his Chrysanthe- 

 mums. Mr. May's flower factory is devoted practically to 

 Roses, Carnations and Chrysanthemums. The thirty-odd 

 houses are mostly of the modern type, three-quarter span, 

 facing south, and set in ranges on each side of two spacious 

 packing-sheds. The newer houses are steam-heated, but hot- 

 water circulation is also used in part of them. The most 

 striking general feature of the place, besides the general air 

 of cleanliness and tidiness, was the fact that there was not a 

 solid bed in any of the houses. Everything is grown on shal- 

 low benches holding about three inches of earth. These 

 benches are of varying heights, usually arranged so that the 

 plants will have all the light possible without being too near 

 the roof. Many of the Chrysanthemums had been cut just 

 previous to my visit. One house was wholly cleared, and was 

 now being planted with Carnations. On the 7th of October 

 Mr. May began to cut Yellow Queen, Mrs. E. G. Hill (pink), 

 Kate Brown (white). 



A small span-roofed house was so filled with flowers that its 

 roof showed almost an unbroken lining of color. This is not 

 incredible when it is stated that the single-stemmed plants are 

 grown only a foot apart each way, and these were almost 

 invariably furnished with a bloom of exhibition size. They 

 were rooted cuttings in July, at which time they were planted 

 on the benches. I am constitutionally blind to rust, mildew 

 and insects on my neighbors' plants, but in this case am sure 

 that the foliage could not have been better or stems more per- 

 fectly covered to the ground. Any one who has grown Chrys- 

 anthemums out-of-doors knows that they will gather any mil- 

 dew afloat, and that a cool rain is always a signal for loss of 

 foliage. The protection of glass seems to obviate this trouble. 



Of the flowers I thought Mr. May's Minerva a glorious one 

 in size and form, and especially in its rich lemon-yellow color. 



Among the numerous yellow kinds I think there is no other 

 exactly of this shade. Mayflower was in first-rate character 

 this year, but the Queen, Mr. May's white variety of the pre- 

 vious year, had been already cut, as had Daybreak, his new 

 pink variety. The sample seen resembled in shade a La 

 France Rose. Mr. May had several new wonders, but the 

 only one I remember is the recently named Dean Hole, which 

 is a fine white, but slightly flushed pink on outer petals at 

 some stages. Among other kinds the silvery white Niveus 

 was particularly good, and Eugene Dailledouze seems to be a 

 good late yellow. 



In the Carnation houses, besides the main plantings of stand- 

 ard varieties, Mr. May is getting up stocks of a few new kinds 

 in which he has great confidence. One of these, Maud Dean, 

 seems to possess all the qualities of a perfect Carnation, nar- 

 row glaucous foliage, neat and long stems sufficiently rigid to 

 carry the large flowers without staking. The flower is full- 

 petaled, light pink at first, flushed crimson at the base of the 

 petals. This is lost later, and in perfection it is of a most deli- 

 cate pink, lighter than Daybreak. The Dean Hole, a name 

 which has lately been given to many kinds of garden flowers, 

 is this time applied to a yellow Carnation, scarlet-flaked — a 

 strong-growing plant — with broad leaves and large flower, on 

 the Clove Carnation order. Lena Saling is a rosy Carnation of 

 great size, which was seen only in cut state, where a test was 

 being made to discover how long it would "stay awake." 

 Next to a bursting calyx, the fault of going to sleep, or folding 

 its petals, is a most grievous fault in a market Carnation. 

 There appears to be no end to new florists' Carnations, but it 

 seems to me that the florist who will furnish us two or three 

 nice spikes of foliage with each flower will meet the want 

 most seriously felt. 



All the most fashionable Roses are grown here in great 

 quantities. The new Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan has already been 

 noted in Garden and Forest as a most brilliant Rose under arti- 

 ficial light. Great use is made here in all the houses of galvanized 

 wire. The general plan is to run wires from end to end of bench 

 along each row of plants, with corresponding wires overhead. 

 When necessary, vertical wires are attached to the horizontal 

 ones. These vertical wires are sometimes thin ones, and in 

 other cases rigid stakes, say an eighth of an inch in diameter. 

 All perishable stakes have been discarded. If the absence of 

 solid beds is the most striking feature of the place, I think 

 the visitor must be really more impressed with the evident 

 care and attention given to each branch of each plant among 

 the thousands grown. 



It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in any private place 

 any such detailed care given to cultivation. Each plant among 

 the thousands seems quite a duplicate of its neighbor, and is 

 treated like a delicate little machine whose work it is to pro- 

 duce the most money. It is by no meaus machine work, how- 

 ever, to secure with any certainty a profitable crop of flowers, 

 even under the best conditions. Druggists will always say that 

 " business will be good with them as soon as the furnace fires 

 are started," and, like humanity, plants become very tender 

 and subject to vicissitudes as soon as they are exposed to arti- 

 ficial heat. 



It is often said that there are no secrets in growing plants, 

 but this is scarcely more than a half truth. After every detail 

 has been given over and over again most frankly by the most 

 experienced growers, there still remain secrets which nature 

 only reveals to those who devote to their work a kind of talent 

 which, in many cases, seems instinctive, rather than acquired. 

 Elizabeth, N. J. J.N.Gerard. 



Recent Publications. 



Trees of Worcester, by Miss Arabella H. Tucker, a teacher 

 in the Normal School at Worcester, Massachusetts, is a list 

 of the trees, native and introduced, that grow in the streets 

 and grounds of that city, with such directions for finding 

 them that any student of trees in Worcester, with this use- 

 ful volume at hand, will have no difficulty in locating its 

 most remarkable and interesting specimens. Mention is 

 made of 161 species, of which seventy are exotic, and 

 thirty-five more, although indigenous to the United States, 

 do not grow naturally in Worcester County. The people 

 of Worcester appear to have early appreciated the value of 

 shade-trees, for in 1783 the following ordinance was passed : 

 "Whereas, a number of persons have manifested a disposi- 

 tion to set out trees for shade near the meeting-house and 

 elsewhere about the town, and the town being desirous of 

 encouraging such a measure, which will be beneficial as 



