9 6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 157. 



Notes. 



It is said that in north-western Persia and in eastern Afghan- 

 istan the bulbs of a species of Tulip {Tulip a montana) are largely 

 used as food. They may also be found in the markets of Bom- 

 bay, where they are called " Salep." 



The patience characteristic of modern students of plant-life 

 is well exemplified by the fact that Herman Mueller, when 

 studying the cross-fertilization of flowers, recorded ten thou- 

 sand instances, observed by himself, where insects had visited 

 flowers in such a manner as to carry the pollen from one to 

 another. 



According to Gartenflora the district of Reutlingen, in Ger- 

 many, had, in the year 1885, an income equal to about $65,000 

 from the fruit-trees planted along its highways. In the district 

 of Monheim the fruit-trees on the public roads, which had 

 been planted in 1858, yielded in 1868 a revenue of some $1,850, 

 in 1878 $4,250, and in 1885 nearly $7,000. . 



In a recent issue of the Official Gazette of Montenegro, 

 Prince Ferdinand ordered that every military man in active 

 service should, during the year, plant a given number of 

 Grape-vines, the number varying according to his rank. Each 

 guide, furthermore, is to plant two Olive-trees, and each cor- 

 poral one ; and the Gazette calculates that by this means 

 4,000,000 Vines and 20,000 Olive-trees will have been set out 

 by January, 1892. 



A monument is to be erected in France to Jean Nicot, who 

 introduced the Tobacco-plant into that country, and whose 

 name it since has borne. In the year 1560, when ambassador 

 at the Court of Portugal, he sent a package of seed to the 

 French queen, Catherine de Medici. Sixty years later the first 

 tobacco tax was imposed by Cardinal Richelieu, and not long 

 afterward the revenue from this source amounted to some 

 $50,000, while in 1718 the tax was "farmed" to a collector for 

 an annual sum of $3,200,000. 



Writing of Japan in the American Garden, Professor George- 

 son says : " The total area of the main islands is 1 12,000 square 

 miles, but of this total 68,000 square miles are entirely unpro- 

 ductive mountain and desert lands, and 24,000 square miles 

 more are in forests and uncultivated agricultural lands. . . . 

 The remaining 20,000 square miles contain the 40,000,000 in- 

 habitants of the country, which thus gives an average of 2,000 

 people to the square mile. Kansas contains 81,000 square 

 miles. If her people could live as the Japanese do, she could 

 sustain 40,000,000 souls, and still leave three-quarters of her 

 territory a wilderness ! " 



The Tea-industry of China is very much demoralized by the 

 increase of Tea-production in other countries, especially in 

 India, and great distress prevails in many of the Tea-districts. 

 We learn from a recent issue of the Fouchow Echo that the 

 authorities are advising the owners of Tea-gardens to destroy 

 their Tea-plants and replace them with Rice or Potatoes. This 

 advice is being adopted wherever a supply of water can be 

 obtained for irrigating the Rice-fields. The cultivation of 

 opium is also increasing in some parts of China, in the place of 

 Tea-plant. But thousands of families, it is said, who were 

 formerly supported by cultivating Tea-gardens are now ruined. 



The danger from damage to forests by fire where lumbering 

 is carried on, arises largely from the fact that the tops of the 

 trees and large limbs which are left on the ground dry rapidly 

 and give fuel for any running fire to catch in. The burning 

 of these leavings is an expensive matter, and it is suggested 

 by Mr. Fernow, in his Adirondack report, that the branches 

 might be lopped, so that both they and the tops would fall to 

 the ground. In this way the tops, which are ordinarily braced 

 up from the ground by "the branches and kept as dry as tinder, 

 would be likely to be kept moist from snow and rain and rot 

 sooner. A trial of this method would be an interesting ex- 

 periment. To answer the purpose most completely, the lop- 

 ping should be done as soon after the felling as possible. 



A correspondent inquires if the Strawsonizer is a machine 

 for throwing poison spray as an insecticide. It is that, and it 

 is more. It is a machine which may be adapted to many uses, 

 such as the sowing of grains, the distributing of fertilizers and 

 of dry or liquid insecticides by a blast of air produced by a 

 revolving fan, worked by the traveling wheels of the machine. 

 It is said that rapid and even work in broadcasting grain is 

 done with this machine, and that the grain is scattered with 

 great regularity over a track from eighteen to twenty feet 

 wide, and it is equally good as a distributer of fertilizers and 



poison-powder for insects. There are some machines worked 

 by hand-power, and larger ones by horse-power. The machine 

 is more fully described in the issue of Insect Life for January 

 in the article by Profesor Riley in the "Outlook for Applied 

 Entomology." 



It seems doubly fortunate now that the prehistoric " Ser- 

 pent Mound" in Ohio should have been preserved against all 

 the dangers man's agency might work by the establishment 

 of a public park to contain it, for we are told that another 

 famous work of the same kind, " Monk's Mound," is to be 

 destroyed, that its materials may be used to fill in certain low- 

 lying portions of East St. Louis. It was described by Charles 

 Dickens in his " American Notes," and is said to cover an area 

 of thirty acres, its peak rising nearly a hundred feet above the 

 level of the surrounding country. "On the apex," says the 

 New York Times, "there was a dwelling at one time, and a 

 few years ago an extensive Peach-orchard flourished on the 

 southern slope. Nearer the base, on the opposite side, field 

 products and garden truck were cultivated— the soil yielding 

 bountiful crops." 



In commenting upon the statement that three successive 

 Dukes of Athol had planted altogether 14,000,000 Larch-trees 

 on their estate in Scotland, Galignani's Messenger recently re- 

 marked that it had been doubted from the apparent belief that 

 it implied that the noble owners had set out the trees with 

 their own hands. Such, of course, was not the fact, " but," 

 adds the Messenger, "if it comes to planting trees with one's 

 own hands there is still something to be said " for ro)al and 

 noble personages. With his own hands " Charles II. planted 

 nearly all the trees in the avenue at Windsor .... and some 

 that are now in St. James' Park ; and George III. had a mania 

 for planting his own trees as well as innumerable Grape-vines. 

 Her present Majesty has planted over 5,000 trees in various 

 places she has visited, and the Prince of Wales cannot be very 

 far behind her in so doing." 



The Journal of the Society of Arts (England) recently said : 

 "A memorandum, together with a sample of the plant, lately 

 received from Sir Alfred Moloney, K.C.M.G., the Governor of 

 Lagos, gives an account of the- endeavor he is making to en- 

 courage the exportation of the fibre known as African Bass, 

 the fibre of the Bamboo Palm or Rafthia vinifera. The Bam- 

 boo Palm or Raphia vinifera is perhaps the commonest tree 

 in the swamps and lowlands which line the waterways of the 

 colony. Dense thickets of these Palms, traversed only by the 

 palm-wine gatherer or the bamboo-cutter, push their way into 

 the lagoons, and extend over the flood grounds, and even to a 

 distance of from fifteen to twenty miles up the river valleys 

 into the interior. The area occupied by the Raphia-forests it 

 would be impossible to calculate, but it may be accepted with- 

 out doubt that they extend throughout the length of the colony, 

 and to a distance of at least fifeen miles from the sea-coast, and 

 that over this area of about 5,000 square miles they form a con- 

 siderable proportion of the vegetation ; next only in numbers 

 to the Oil Palm {Elceis Guineensis) and the Mangrove {Rhizo- 

 phora mucronata). The fibre itself is the one in most common 

 employment on the coast, being used by the natives for all 

 sorts of purposes — cloth, cordage, thatch, fishing-lines, etc. 

 The cost is only that of collection and preparation, the latter 

 being a very simple process of soaking and scraping. The 

 price, delivered in England, is said to be ^30 to ^32 per ton 

 for good fibre. The cost of production is estimated at ^14 per 

 ton, shipping and other expenses at £4 10s. The samples are 

 now on view at the Society's house, and can be inspected by 

 anybody desirous of doing so." 



Catalogues Received. 



Bush & Meissner, Bushberg, Mo. ; American Grape Vines. — H. 

 Cannell & Sons, Swanley, Kent, England ; Vegetable and Flower 

 Seeds; Illustrated Floral Guide. — Chadborn & Coldwell Mfg. Co., 

 Newburgh, N. Y. ; Lawn Mowers. — Cold Spring Seed Farm, Big 

 Horn City, Wyoming ; The Buffalo Berry and Native Wild Fruits of 

 Wyoming. — D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, Mich.; Vegetable and 

 Flower Seeds. — Peter Henderson & Co., 35 and 37 Cortlandt Street, 

 New York, N. Y. ; Ornamental Plants, Flower and Vegetable Seeds; 

 Everything for the Garden. — McMath Bros., Onley, Accomack 

 County, Va. ; Vegetable Seeds; Small Fruits and Vegetable Plants. — 

 Rea Brothers, Norwood, Mass. ; Hardy Plants.— E. W. Reid, Bridge- 

 port, O. ; Vegetable Seeds, Fruits and Small Fruits. — Selover & At- 

 wood, Geneva, N. Y. ; Ornamental and Fruit Trees, Bulbs, Shrubs, 

 etc. — J. C. Vaughan, 146 and 148 West Washington Street, Chicago, 

 111. ; Vegetable and Flower Seeds, Small Fruits. — Vilmorin-Andrieux 

 & Cie., Quai de la Megesserie No. 4, Paris, France ; Flower and Vege- 

 table Seeds. 



