142 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 161. 



tion of fifty healthy and vigorous plants only. It is these fifty 

 home-raised plants, then, that have the constitution and the 

 vigor you desire to propagate. We ought to raise American 

 plants for American gardens. A great many of the European 

 novelties in all plants are failures here. It is not that they are 

 worthless originally, but because the conditions they are sub- 

 jected to are not to their liking. They were born and bred in 

 other surroundings, and, as a rule, are better adapted to them. 

 This, however, is not a rule without exceptions. 



"Can strong plants be grown from the cuttings of a weak 

 one ? " 



When cuttings are taken fairly early, it makes no apparent 

 difference whether from a strong plant or a weak one of a 

 given variety, provided always that they are properly treated 

 afterward. A cutting no thicker than a knitting-needle, if well 

 cared for from the start, should be as strong two months later 

 as one that was originally as large as a lead-pencil. Some be- 

 lieve that permitting a plant to produce only a few flowers 

 tends to strengthen the plant, and the fact is it costs the plant 

 less effort to elaborate one flower than it does fifty. If a plant 

 is allowed to carryall its flowers without disbudding, what a 

 task it has ! A single shoot of some varieties has as many as 

 forty buds formed, and when we consider that each flower, 

 when open, carries from 140 to 150 florets, it will be seen that 

 the strain on the plant is a very severe one. 



" Is the production of a blue Chrysanthemum possible ? " 



I do not see why it is impossible, and I hope yet to see a 

 genuine blue Chrysanthemum. The old botanists declared 

 that we could not have blue, yellow and red in the same spe- 

 cies of plant. But we have blue, yellow and red Hyacinths, 

 and I see no good reason why we should not get the same 

 colors in the Chrysanthemum. The original colors of the 

 Chrysanthemum-flower were limited to a pale yellow, white 

 and a very weak lilac shade, and from these have been elabo- 

 rated all the colors and shades we now enjoy in this flower. 

 This has been accomplished by very slow and persistent work 

 in selection and cross-fertilization and by the tendency of the 

 plant to sport. Notice how the yellow shades have been in- 

 tensified and how many shades there are. The lilac has be- 

 come pink of pure quality. Cullingfordii oftentimes, when 

 the flowers are closely shaded, presents us with nearly a pure 

 tone of red. The most pronounced purple we have to-day 

 comes from the lightly tipped, incurved Princess of Wales, in 

 the form of a sport named Violet Tomlin. It is a true purple, 

 and we cannot get purple without blue. To those who are 

 hard at work watching the tendencies and developing new 

 forms of the Chrysanthemum, the sudden appearance of a 

 blue one would prove no great surprise. Raisers of seedlings 

 frequently see signs of a new departure four or five years be- 

 fore it actually takes place. A blue Chrysanthemum may first 

 be obtained from a sport. 



The Influence of Pollen upon Fruit.— Among many experi- 

 mental studies which have here been made of Tomatoes 

 growing under glass the past winter, trials of pollinating in 

 various ways have yielded, especially in one case, very inter- 

 esting and suggestive results. One flower of a cluster was 

 pollinated upon one side of the stigma with the least quantity 

 of pollen which it was practicable to apply ; to another flower 

 of the same cluster was at the same time given a superabun- 

 dance of pollen over the whole stigmatic surface. The two 

 resulting fruits have grown and ripened side by side. The 

 one grown from abundant pollination developed to a normal 

 size, and, when cut through transversely, showed the usual 

 even distribution of placentae and seeds. The one scantily 

 pollinated, on the other hand, reached only about one-fourth 

 the size of its mate, and when cut like the other, seeds were 

 found on only one side of the fruit ; the other side, however, 

 had grown almost symmetrically with it, but, instead of being 

 filled with seeds, contained only the enlarged placentae, mak- 

 ing the fruit nearly solid on that side. This suggests an im- 

 portant field for further study in relation to the influence of 

 pollination upon the development of fruit and related sub- 

 jects, and it has practical bearings of no little importance. 



Cornell University. C. W. Mathews. 



Saxifraga Burseriana major. — This is an extremely pretty Saxi- 

 frage, and is well worth the attention of the gardener. It is a 

 very old plant — at least the typical S. Burseriana is — having 

 been described and figured in Jacquin's " Miscellanea " as long 

 ago as 1778. The variety Major is far superior to the type, 

 and has flowers about twice as large, although even on the 

 same plant great variation in this respect is observable. The 

 plants are almost perfectly hardy in England, but it is safer to 



have them kept in a cold frame during vigorous winters so 

 that the pure white flowers may not be nipped off before their 

 expansion in January and February. 



London. J. W. 



Correspondence. 

 Protection from Field Mice. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I wish to ask through your columns for advice as to 

 the protection of trees, young and old, deciduous and ever- 

 green, from the depredations of field mice. We have had 

 snow on the ground for fourteen weeks, and, as the last of it 

 is now disappearing, the ground is covered with a complete 

 network of their runs. Their nests have been made of the 

 grass under the snow, and they are now easily seen, but the 

 late occupants have migrated. Their work, however, remains. 

 Apple-trees, twenty-five years old, are completely girdled by 

 them so that not a vestige of bark remains where they have 

 been at work, but worse damage has been done among choice 

 trees and shrubs recenly planted. A fine young Copper 

 Beech is stripped of bark for quite two feet above the ground 

 level. The damage was not visible until the snow cleared 

 away, and then the ruin was beyond repair. 



South Lancaster, Mass. O. . 



[A good way of protecting trees from mice is to tramp 

 the snow hard about the trunks after every storm during 

 the winter. The mice cannot push through the snow when 

 it is packed. If the bark of the tree is washed late in au- 

 tumn with some preparation distasteful to the mice this 

 will often answer as a protection. Aloes, gas-tar, carbolic 

 acid and sulphur are used for this purpose. After the in- 

 jury has been done scions are sometimes laid over 

 the girdled space, with their thin ends inserted under 

 the bark above and below and carefully waxed and 

 wrapped. This conservative surgery will in many cases 

 save the tree. — Ed.] 



" Insect Lime " for the Gypsy Moth. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.— The reference by Mr. J. G. Jack, in your issue for March 

 nth, to the almost explosive appearance in destructive num- 

 bers of Liparis monacha (nonne) in Germany, when dis- 

 cussing the war against an allied species of the Gypsy Moth in 

 this country, leads me to send you a few brief notes from a 

 paper which I read two weeks ago before the Entomological 

 Society of Washington on the former subject almost on the 

 very day when the Gypsy Moth Commission held its sessions 

 in Boston. 



It seems to be the world's practice for each community to 

 go on trusting to its own experiences rather than profiting by 

 that of others, exactly as it does in the forestry problem. 



What these insect pests mean to a forest-administration will 

 be understood when it is stated that the last ravages of the 

 above-named "nonne" involved an area of over 100,000 

 square miles, the premature cutting of 55,000,000 cords of 

 wood, and the most inconvenient disarrangement of working 

 plans, which, in a forest-administration, are necessarily laid 

 for 100 or more years in advance. 



Many thousands of dollars were spent last year, and many 

 more will be spent the coming year, not in exterminating, 

 but in checking, the pest, until natural causes, like fungus dis- 

 eases and parasites, will reduce it to its usual limited exist- 

 ence. Many remedies have been proposed and tried, and 

 where such large areas are concerned and such values in- 

 volved, they were, of course, tried without stinting expense 

 and without losing sight of their practicability. In one district 

 of 2,000 acres of Spruce-forest not less than $12,000 were spent 

 experimentally. 



The only really effective remedy was found in the applica- 

 tion of bands of " insect lime," a glue specially prepared and 

 extensively used in Germany. This preparation, applied in 

 various ways, is useful against quite a number of insects. It 

 would no doubt be applicable against our Canker-worm ; 

 against the Bag-worm, Fall-web-worm and Tussock Moth, and 

 has been found most effective against the Gypsy Moth in its 

 native country. 



In this latter case the "insect lime" is best applied toward 

 the end of the winter — that is, just now— upon the patches of 

 eggs which this insect is in the habit of attaching to the outer 

 bark of the trees. The glue, of course, prevents the hatching 



