490 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 354. 



wins now bring but $2.00 to $2.50, while Newtown Pippins are 

 plentiful at $2.50 to $5.62. 



The death is announced, in his eighty-fouth year, of Mon- 

 sieur P. Duchartre, the distinguished French botanist. He 

 was the author of a comprehensive and lucid text-book, Les 

 Elementes Botanique. He was a careful experimenter and 

 observer and a voluminous writer in physiological botany, 

 and in systematic botany produced, among other papers, 

 classical monographs of the Aristolochia and Lily families. 

 To horticulturists he is best known as editor of the " Journal of 

 the National Horticultural Society of France." 



Florida is now sending to this city new peas, which bring 

 $[.00 a half-peck, and string beans which cost eighty cents for 

 thesame quantity. New peppers, from the same state, are 

 offered at fifty cents a dozen. Chicory and lettuce are coming 

 from New Orleans, and radishes, kale and spinach from Nor- 

 folk. Field-grown tomatoes from California cost twenty-five 

 cents a pound, and tomatoes from near-by hothouses forty to 

 fifty cents. Mushrooms are in rather short supply and com- 

 mand $1.25 a pound. A few shipments of Copenhagen cab- 

 bage have been received, for which the low price of $5.00 for 

 one hundred heads is asked. 



The cranberry crop has been severely affected by the pro- 

 longed drought of last summer, damage by worms and by 

 early frosts, so that less than 50,000 barrels constitute the out- 

 put from the Cape Cod region this year, whereas 200,000 bar- 

 rels were shipped last season. An extreme price last year 

 was $5.00 a barrel, while cranberries known to the trade as 

 defective are now quoted in the wholesale market reports at 

 the unusual price of $6.00 to $8.00 a barrel, and prime and 

 fancy grades range from $8.50 to $13.00. As the best berries 

 are especially scarce, even these high prices are likely to ad- 

 vance later in the season. 



In discussing the forage problem in the north-western 

 prairie states, Professor Pammel says that, in addition to the 

 various Grasses and leguminous plants, root crops, such as 

 Turnips, Mangolds and Artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus), 

 can be planted to advantage even in a dry season. Turnips 

 were planted in fowa on the 24th of June after a rainfall of two 

 and three-tenths inches, and were cultivated once a week 

 during forty-eight days, during which time no rain fell. The 

 cultivation provided a constant three-inch mulch of earth, and 

 on the 10th of August the roots averaged as large as hens' 

 eggs. After a moderate rainfall in August the crop made a 

 rapid growth of foliage, and many of the roots weighed five 

 pounds each. The untrimmed crop weighed twenty-eight 

 tons to the acre, about four tons of which were leaves, which 

 could be utilized as green forage. 



Mr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the Entomological Section of the 

 Department of Agriculture, states that Dr. F. W. Harris was 

 the first entomologist to receive public compensation for his 

 labors in this country. He prepared a catalogue of insects, 

 appended to the geological report of Massachusetts, as early as 

 1831, which was a work of inestimable value, when we con- 

 sider the condition of American science at that time. At a 

 later period he was appointed as one of a commission to make 

 a geological and botanical survey of the state, and in this 

 capacity he prepared his now classical Report on bisects Inju- 

 rious to Vegetation, which was published in full in 1841. He 

 reprinted the work under the name of Treatise, instead of 

 Report, in 1842, and again in a revised form in 1852, and the 

 whole sum received by him from the state for his labors was 

 $175.00. In its present beautiful form, with the wood-engrav- 

 ings which marked an epoch in that art, this work, prepared 

 more than half a century ago, is to-day, perhaps, above all 

 others, the manual of working entomologists in the north- 

 eastern section of this country. After all, it rather strains the 

 facts to classify Dr. Harris as an "official entomologist," and 

 the first scientific man to receive a true commission for the 

 investigation of injurious insects was Dr. Asa Fitch, of New 

 York, the Legislature of that state having made an appropria- 

 tion in the session of 1853-54 for an examination of insects in 

 an act which authorized the appointment of a suitable person 

 to perform the work. Dr. Asa Fitch was appointed in May, 

 1854, by the New York State Agricultural Society, which body 

 was authorized to make the selection. 



From a report made by Monsieur Daubree, Director of the 

 French Forest Department, the area of forests managed by 

 the Department and belonging to the state amounts 102,691,165 

 acres, while that belonging to the communes and public estab- 

 lishments amounts to 4,738,637 acres, something more than 

 11,600 square miles altogether, or about one-eighteenth of the 



total area of France The private forests of France contain some 

 20,800 square miles, so that the entire forest area is fifteen and 

 a half per cent, of the total area of the country. Of the seven and 

 a half million acres of forest managed by the state, rathermore 

 than ten per cent, are classed as unproductive or not stocked 

 with trees, and largely consistof waste lands which thestate is 

 acquiring constantly to prevent the denudation of the moun- 

 tains by torrents or the encroachment of sand-dunes. More 

 than half the area of the state forests are under high forest- 

 treatment, and they consist chiefly of productive Silver Fir 

 and Beech forests in the Vosges ; forests of Pinus Laricio and 

 Pinus Pinaster in Corsica, which yield only poor returns on 

 account of the frequent forest fires ; Beech forests in Nor- 

 mandy, with a small proportion of Oak, and Oak forests on the 

 Loire, where Beech is kept subservient to the principal spe- 

 cies. Nearly $500,000 were spent in 1892 in planting up dan- 

 gerous mountain-sides and regulating the beds of mountain 

 torrents, while $40,000 were expended in fixing shifting sands. 

 The cost of maintaining the productive forests for that year 

 was about $2,000,000, or less than thirty cents an acre, while 

 the average annual yield to the acre is something less than a 

 hundred cubic feet of wood, worth rather more than $5.00 for 

 firewood and timber, 



Farmer's Bulletin No. 21, issued by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, is a compact little monograph on the 

 value and proper management of barnyard-manure. If the 

 fertilizing constituents of the manure produced by all the farm 

 animals of the United States are estimated at "their market 

 value the total amount foots up to the enormous sum of more 

 than two billions of dollars in a year. This estimate does not 

 mean that the manure produced by our farm animals is 

 actually worth that amount of money to the farmers, for much 

 of it is actually thrown away, and much of it is carelessly 

 applied. It means, however, that the phosphoric acid, potash 

 and nitrogen which this product contains would cost that 

 much if it was purchased. It ought to be borne in mind, too, 

 that if this valuation is too high, it takes no account of the use 

 of manure in improving the mechanical condition and the 

 drainage of the soil, which is almost as important as its actual 

 fertilizing value. Professor Roberts, of Cornell University, 

 thinks that $250.00 is a conservative estimate of the value of 

 the manure produced during seven winter months on a small 

 farm which carries four horses, twenty cows, fifty sheep and 

 ten pigs. At least one-third of this is lost, which would mean 

 for the whole country a waste of nearly $700,000,000. This lit- 

 tle pamphlet of thirty-odd pages gives plain directions for pro- 

 tecting this valuable product from loss by fermentation or by 

 the leaching out of its soluble constituents. It also explains 

 the rational methods of preserving and applying manure, and 

 when taken in connection with Bulletin No. 16 on Leguminous 

 Plants for Green Manuring and Feeding, it ought to prove a 

 real assistance to every intelligent farmer or gardener who 

 will give it an attentive reading. 



In summing up some reports on strawberries for the year, 

 Professor Maynard, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, 

 speaks of Haverland as one of the best for market or home 

 use because of the good size, color and quality of its fruit 

 where the plants are not allowed to grow too closely. The 

 berries are light-colored and soft in matted rows. Marshall 

 seems to be a remarkably vigorous plant, which makes few 

 runners, and bears large berries of perfect form, rich color 

 and good quality. It ripens early, but shows a tendency to 

 leaf-blight. Timbrell is pronounced of better quality than any 

 berry thus far tested. Careful records were kept of the growth 

 of about a hundred and twenty-five varieties, the fruit of which 

 was picked every day and carefully weighed. There are tables 

 which show the size, color, form, quality and firmness of the 

 fruit, with the sex and vigor of the vines, the percentage of 

 winter-killing in each variety, with the date of the first and last 

 picking, all of which seems to be an expenditure of effort 

 which an accomplished horticulturist and trained investigator 

 could use to better purpose in some other direction. The 

 work is of very little value after it is done, because the final 

 test of the usefulness of any variety for any particular place 

 must be made where it is to be planted. Much investigation 

 is needed in the field of horticulture, where the expensive 

 apparatus, the length of time required to conduct the experi- 

 ments, and the scientific training needed to interpret them are 

 only found at such centres as the agricultural colleges and 

 experiment stations. This indicates the appropriate work for 

 experts properly equipped and paid by the state. It is a waste 

 of energy, which ought to be belter employed, for scientists 

 capable of higher work to be doing what every gardener and 

 fruit-grower can do perfectly well for himself. 



