February 25, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



95 



ized and clarified, and this process none of us have yet suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining from the manufacturers. The grease 

 must be so clarified that rancidity is impossible. I have cor- 

 responded with Mr. George Keene, Mrs. Antoinette Wakeman, 

 Colgate & Co. and others, but as yet we are still uncertain as 

 to the process. In Piesse's "Art of Perfumery" a recipe is 

 given, but, although followed closely, failure resulted. About 

 three months ago I received a letter from a resident of California, 

 in which it was stated that an experiment with raw or uncooked 

 leaf-lard had resulted in success. If true, it would open up 

 another industry to our southern states, where the Jasmine, 

 Violet, Tuberose and Acacia are all hardy and grow in prodi- 

 gal profusion. Success in one instance came near crowning 

 the efforts of Miss Ida Nowell, of Georgia, who used the Cape 

 Jasmine (Gardenia) for her experiment. The pomade was 

 submitted to Colgate & Co., who, after it was tested, offered her 

 a contract to make from 100 to 200 pounds of the pomade at 

 $1.50 a pound. This pomade sent to the Messrs. Colgate & 

 Co. as a sample was made into an "Extract of Gardenia," which, 

 after being returned to me, I turned over to Freeman, per- 

 fumer, Avho kindly exhibited it at the Cincinnati Exposition in 

 1887. It was such a small bottle, not holding over one-eighth 

 of a gill, that it must have been lost, as it was never returned 

 to me. 



I am one of the managers of the Columbian Fair for South 

 Carolina, and even to-day I have been busily writing to differ- 

 entpersons urging the desirability of a renewed effort to dis- 

 cover the secret of the preparation of the pomade. There was 

 imported into the United States in 1890 $3,000,000 worth of 

 these flower pomades alone. I am now negotiating for the 

 purchase of a copper still in which I hope to distill the oil 

 of Rose Geranium, which is used by unscrupulous dealers to 

 adulterate attar of rose. 



Spartanburg, S. C. J • ■->• P- lllOlllSOn. 



[In an article in another column some of the questions 

 raised by Mrs. Thomson are discussed and the general 

 method of preparing the fat for pomade is indicated. We 

 should be greatly obliged if any reader who is familiar 

 with the processes of preparing marketable perfume would 

 forward specific directions. It should be remembered, how- 

 ever, that, like any other manufacturing business, this must 

 be learned by experience, and it can only be prosecuted 

 with profit with skilled labor and the most approved appli- 

 ances, so that uniform excellence can be secured by the 

 most economical methods. — Ed.] 



Periodical Literature. 



One subject treated of in the latest bulletin of the Cor- 

 nell Experiment Station is the crossingof plants of the Squash- 

 family, and the experiments recorded seem to demon- 

 strate the fallacy of many popular beliefs. It is pretty 

 widely believed that the different species of cucurbitaceous 

 plants intermingle readily and hybridize freely, so that 

 almost any story about the crossing of these plants will find 

 believers. Professor Bailey began experiments in cross- 

 ing those plants three years ago, and has continued them on a 

 large scale ever since. After having made more than a thou- 

 sand careful pollinations by hand, Professor Bailey asserts that 

 there is no immediate effect of crossing Pumpkins and 

 Squashes — that is, the effects of the cross are not seen in the 

 fruits of the first year, but only in the offspring of the seed. 

 Of course, ordinary experience would lead to the same con- 

 clusion ; for if there were any immediate effect we should 

 always look for different kinds of fruits on the same vine, 

 while, as a matter of fact, the squashes or pumpkins on any 

 vine are always alike, with such exceptions as are due to ar- 

 rested development or some other immediate cause. 



There is a prevailing belief that Pumpkins and Squashes 

 cross indiscriminately, but, in studying the question, Professor 

 Bailey divided the fruits called squashes into two groups, one 

 including the summer and fall squashes, like the Scallop, 

 Crook Necks, Bergen and the like, which belong to the same 

 species as the field pumpkin — Cucurbita Pepo. These squashes 

 cross with each other and with the field pumpkin, although 

 the mixture is not indiscriminate. The Hubbard, Turbans 

 and so-called Mam moth squashes and pumpkins, like the Mam- 

 moth Chili, belong to another species — Cucurbita maxima. 

 After many careful pollinations between these two classes of 

 fruits seeds were not produced in any case, and all the experi- 

 ments show that these different species will not hybridize. In 

 large collections of summer pumpkins and squashes fruits 



which might be taken for hybrids with the Turban class may 

 be found, but they are nothing more than incidental variations 

 of Cucurbita Pepo. 



In Pumpkins and Squashes the flowers are either wholly 

 staminate or wholly pistillate, and therefore they cannot be 

 self-fertilized. The two kinds of flowers, however, are borne 

 on the same plant. A great number of trials were made in 

 which the pollen from a staminate flower was used upon a 

 pistillate flower of the same plant, but in every case the 

 seeds were thin and worthless. In cross-pollinations, that is 

 when the pollen from the flowers of one plant were applied to 

 female flowers of another plant, a large part of the trials were 

 successful, which indicates the impotency of pollen to fertilize 

 a flower produced on the same plant. Pollen of Squash-flowers, 

 however, which cannot produce fertile seeds, may still cause 

 the development of the fruit. This influence of pollen is well 

 attested in other instances, and it is not impossible that 

 squashes may sometimes develop without any pollination 

 whatever. It is the common belief that the best way to render 

 new varieties permanent — that is, to fix them so that they will 

 reproduce themselves from seed — is to inbreed them to 

 establish their ancestral qualities ; but the above trials seem 

 to prove that close pollination is practically impossible in 

 the case of the Pumpkin and the Squash. 



It is generally accepted among gardeners that musk melons 

 are rendered insipid when cucumbers grow near them. Some 

 growers suppose this influence is immediate, but others hold 

 that it appears only in the offspring of supposed crosses be- 

 tween the two species. Last summer ninety-seven Musk 

 Melon flowers of various varieties were pollinated with Cu- 

 cumber pollen of many kinds, but not a fruit developed. 

 Twenty-five Cucumber flowers were pollinated by Musk 

 Melon pollen ; one fruit developed, and that was seedless. 

 These trials indicate that the two species do not cross and that 

 the influence of one upon the other is imaginary. 



An examination of the flowers on Musk Melons, Water 

 Melons and Cucumbers show that from six to twenty-four 

 times as many staminate as pistillate flowers are produced. 

 The pistillate flowers appear later in the season, five days in 

 the case of the Cucumber to thirty days in the case of one 

 Musk Melon-plant. The staminate flowers continue to appear 

 later than the fertile ones. This fact justifies the common 

 observation that the Cucumber is more precocious than the 

 Melon, and enforces the necessity of starting Melons early in 

 short seasons. 



The most interesting paper to the general reader in the 

 January Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information issued from the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew doubtless is the one which relates to 

 the origin of the ginger which comes to us from China in 

 earthenware jars of more or less artistic merit. Professor 

 Wright, of the University of Dublin, several years ago pointed 

 out the fact that the " large, flat, finger-like masses sent from 

 China as preserved ginger" were different from anything that 

 the ordinary Ginger-plant {Zinziber officinale) could possibly 

 produce. The question then arose, What was the plant that 

 supplied the preserved ginger of commerce ? The common 

 Ginger-plant, as is the case with many cultivated plants, is not 

 known in the wild state. It is believed, however, to be a na- 

 tive of Asia, and was known to the Greeks and Romans, who 

 received it by way of the Red Sea, and believed that it came 

 from southern Arabia. 



The Ginger-plant was introduced into the West Indies, from 

 which it was shipped commercially to Europe as early as the 

 sixteenth century, it is said ; and the dried ginger of commerce 

 is now almost entirely derived from the West Indies, from 

 Senegambia, from Egypt and India. None apparently is pro- 

 duced in China. The long correspondence which the authori- 

 ties of Kew have carried on with regard to the origin of Chinese 

 ginger, and their experiments in cultivating various plants sent 

 from China, for the purpose of determining the source of the 

 preserved ginger, leads at last to the conclusion that it is pro- 

 duced by Alpinia galanga, and the specimens, curiously 

 enough, which enabled this determination to be made, did not 

 come from China, but from the Botanical Department at 

 Jamaica, where Alpinia has long been grown. Probably one 

 or two species of the same genus also produced edible ginger 

 in Siam and other countries of tropical Asia. 



The other papers in this issue are on west African Bass 

 Fibre and on the Production of Seed and Seminal Variation in 

 tlie Sugar-cane. The fact lately discovered that the Sugar-cane, 

 which from time immemorial has been propagated by buds, 

 sometimes produces seeds, is a matter of considerable agri- 

 cultural importance as suggestive of the possibility of produc- 

 ing improved seedling varieties. ' 



