300 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 174. 



to a great extent, of small trees which ten or twenty years ago 

 would have been passed over as of too little value to saw. 

 During the last ten years there has been a sort of clearing up of 

 the forests going on in these states, so that while they make a 

 fair showing in the general output, the area of good Pine- 

 forest is now, beyond question, " dangerously small in propor- 

 tion to the consumption of White Pine lumber." 



The predicted exhaustion of these forests within a compara- 

 tively short time seems assured by returns from individual 

 manufacturers. Their present holdings of standing timber in 

 this group of states are only sufficient to supply them for about 

 five years at the present rate of consumption. The quantity 

 in reserve is believed to be principally comprehended by what is 

 standing on lands owned by the federal and state governments. 

 This quantity, however, is unknown. The federal govern- 

 ment supplies no information on this subject, but the holdings 

 of public lands reported by state governments indicate that no 

 considerable area of timbered lands is owned by the state of 

 Michigan. 



The total area of land held by the state of Wisconsin on Sep- 

 tember 30th, 1890, is reported at 671,633 acres. Most of this 

 land is located in the northern counties, and about one-half is 

 said to be timbered. The state of Minnesota reports owner- 

 ship of 13,000,000 acres of timbered land, containing twenty 

 billion feet of standing timber, mostly Pine, valued at 

 $60,000,000. 



Notes. 



One of the most attractive shrubs now in bloom is Phila- 

 delphus nivalis. 



Just now the beautiful old Ascension Lily, L. candidum, is 

 blooming in unusual abundance in gardens near this city, the 

 disease which has for many years affected this plant having 

 apparently run its course. 



An English authority remarks that the growths of the 

 Asparagus which are made this season lay the foundation for 

 the next year's crop, and that, therefore, the stronger the 

 growth of the shoots and roots this year the better prospects 

 for a crop next season. This is true, and it follows that it is 

 not too late still to cover Asparagus-beds with dressings of 

 commercial fertilizers and of well-rotted manure in order to 

 feed the plants and strengthen the growth. 



Dr. Riley, of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 has published a bulletin on some of the more injurious locusts 

 of the United States, together with the means of destroying 

 them. It contains no technical matter, and any farmer will be 

 able to recognize the different species from the figures. The 

 most interesting part of the work is the illustrations of the ma- 

 chines which have been used for the destructions of these pests. 

 Most of the matter is to be found scattered among former re- 

 ports, but the description of the method used for trapping 

 locusts in Cyprus is new, and so is an account of the method 

 of poisoning them with bran and arsenic, which has been used 

 with success in California. 



Among the Columbines nothing is better than Aquilegia 

 ccernlea. Its white variety, Alba, has been distributed as a 

 variety of A. chrysantha, and is one of the best of the white 

 Columbines as we saw it growing recently on the grounds of 

 H. Meyer, Passaic, New Jersey. A striking plant in flower 

 there was Cetitauria Ruthenica, a tall thistle-like plant, three 

 to four feet high, with heads of yellow flowers an inch and a 

 half in diameter and deeply cut leaves. Scabiosa Caucasica, 

 one of the best of hardy plants, neat in habit, and with flowers 

 of the richest blue, was also in bloom. Henchera sanguinea 

 seems to have established its reputation for hardiness, although 

 it comes from Arizona, for it was here in perfect health and 

 opening its deep red flowers, although it had been in an ex- 

 posed situation all winter. 



At a late meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, Mr. 

 Barron, as reported in The Garden of May 30th, exhibited sev- 

 eral small flowering branches of Apple-trees to show the 

 variations in the size and tint of their blossoms. The largest 

 and showiest blossom was that of the Royal Codlin, the flowers 

 being deeply tinted with dark rose. Lord Derby, rather 

 smaller, had very showy blossoms, and Gravenstein was 

 almost pure white. It would be interesting to make a com- 

 parison of the blossoms of varieties which are well known in 

 cultivation in this country, and such a collection would add 

 interest to our spring flower shows. A study of the blossoms, 

 too, as hinted at in The Garden, would not be unprofitable 

 in answering such questions as those which follow, and very 



many more : Are large blossoms usually followed by large- 

 sized fruit ? Is there any connection between the color of the 

 blossom and the color of the ripe apple ? 



Dr. John Dougall, of St. Mungo's College, Glasgow, has a 

 letter in a recent issue of the Glasgow Herald on the banana, 

 in which he quotes from Stanley's "In Darkest Africa" to 

 show that "for infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspep- 

 tics, and those suffering from temporary derangements of the 

 stomach, the flour, properly prepared, would be of universal 

 demand." During Stanley's two attacks of gastritis a slight 

 gruel of this flour, mixed with milk, was the only material 

 that could be digested. It is odd, also, as pointed out in Stan- 

 ley's book, that in most Banana lands — Cuba, Brazil, West In- 

 dies — the valuable properties of this fruit as an easily 

 digested and nourishing food have been much overlooked. 

 Dr. Dougall has made some experiments in making banana 

 flour. He concludes that it should be made from the ripe fruit 

 at its place of production. In trying to make it from bananas 

 purchased in Glasgow, he obtained on drying the pulp a tough 

 sweet mass like toasted figs, an appearance probably due to 

 the conversion of starch into sugar. Bananas contain only 

 about fifty per cent, of pulp, and of this about seventy-five per 

 cent, is water. They would yield, therefore, only one-eighth 

 part of flour. 



That even Frenchmen of the seventeenth century did not 

 always approve of strictly formal gardens is shown by the 

 following passage, which occurs in an essay by Pierre Huet, a 

 well-known French critic of that time, called "Of the Gardens 

 in Fashion." The author says: "I have no more approval 

 for the gardens in fashion than for sky-lights. I mean those 

 open gardens, composed of large, broad, sand-strewn alleys, 

 of trellises, parterres, adorned only with a few delicate beds, 

 defined by strips of box and edged with a few flowers and a 

 few stunted trees, and in which you can scarce distinguish 

 summer from winter. M. le Nostre, who is quoted as the 

 author of this sort of garden, which, it is asserted, he brought 

 back from Italy, did, it is true, adapt it to the King's Gardens, 

 but he did not adapt it alone, for he added covered alleys, 

 shaped woods, trees of lofty trunk, palisades, and green 

 shades. The majority of private persons, possessing neither 

 sufficient ground nor sufficient means to give their gardens all 

 these ornaments and keep them up, have only adopted its 

 parterres, which require little time and expense, but in which 

 walking is out of the question throughout the day, and in 

 which ladies, regardful of their complexion, would only ven- 

 ture to appear after sunset." 



In an article called the "Evolution of Patent Medicine," 

 published in the Popular Science Monthly for May, Mr. Lee J. 

 Vance traces the belief in the efficacy of such nostrums back 

 to those ancient times when no distinction was drawn between 

 the physician and the magician, and when all remedies were 

 looked upon as charms — a condition which prevails, of course, 

 among savage and half-civilized tribes in our own times. The 

 names of plants, Mr. Vance explains, shows how general was 

 the belief in their inexplicable virtues. " Some plants have 

 animal prefixes, as, Dog-elder, Dog-rose, Cat's-tail, Cow-bane, 

 etc. Other plants derive their names from religious sources. 

 Thus they are associated with the Virgin Mary, Saint John the 

 Baptist, Saint James. Likewise the Latter-day Saints have par- 

 ticular plants dedicated to their memory. Most of the plants 

 with mystic names were supposed to have magical virtues, 

 and so they were largely used in folk-medicine. The weird 

 associations clustering around many roots and herbs were 

 enough to invest them with great repute," and in folk-medicine, 

 even at the present day, "herbs are used not so much for 

 their inherent medical properties as for their reputed magical 

 virtues. . . . Another stage in the evolution of patent medi- 

 cine is typified in the therapeutics of medieval mystics and 

 alchemists. The great plant in their pharmacopoeia was the 

 Mandrake. Why? Simply because the roots of this plant 

 were shaped like the human body. . . . The magical element 

 in patent medicines actually won scientific repute in the ' doc- 

 trine of signatures ' — a doctrine which held that plants and 

 minerals, by their external character, indicated the particular 

 disease for which Nature had intended them as remedies. 

 Thus the Euphrasia, or Eyebright, was good for the eyes ; the 

 Wood-sorrel, being shaped like a heart, for the heart ; the 

 Liverwort for the liver, and so on. Pettigrew, in his history of 

 medical superstition, says that this fanciful and magical no- 

 tion 'led to serious errors in practice' and often to fatal results. 

 Observe that at this stage of its evolution patent medicine is 

 herb medicine, and so it remained for a long time. The ma- 

 terials of the healing art were all vegetable. The patent-medi- 

 cine man was a dealer in herbs." 



