306 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 175. 



high standing. The berry is roundish, large and very sweet. 

 It is light red and handsome. There is very little waste from 

 small berries, and never any waste from ill-shaped ones. It 

 not only does well in all parts of the country, but in all locali- 

 ties — in the shade nearly as well as in the sun. I have them 

 growing under my Grape-vines, and even there the fruit is 

 smooth and handsome. Both Cumberland and Sharpless are 

 bisexual. 



Haverland has this year failed to give me its usual large 

 berries ; but it stands in matted rows. I think this berry, to 

 do its best, must have either hill-culture or be grown in very 

 narrow rows. It is a rampant grower and feeder, and needs 

 room for each plant. It bears enormously, and, at its best, 

 ■very large long berries. In flavor it is not up to the highest 

 rank. It is pistillate, and not suitable for distant shipment. 



Jessie I shall drop out. It needs petting to bring out its 

 best qualities, and is never a heavy cropper. The plant is 

 vigorous and the flower perfect. The quality is also excellent. 

 It has, in fact, enough good points to make it available as a 

 fertilizer for pistillate sorts. 



Warfield No. 2 I have tested thoroughly in different fields, 

 and, while it bears good crops, I want no more of it. The 

 berry much resembles Wilson, is quite as sour, and not of 

 standard flavor. The berries hang down close to the ground, 

 and are not as large, on the average, as those of the Wilson. 

 The fruit is solid, and bears shipment well ; the blossom is 

 pistillate. 



Mrs. Cleveland is not of the best flavor, but it is a superb 

 bearer, and the quality is at least good. The size is very large, 

 and the form not quite regular, but in no way distorted. I do 

 not think any one will make a mistake in planting this berry 

 freely. The flower is pistillate. 



A companion berry, sent out by Mr. Townsend, of Ohio, is 

 the Eureka. This pleases me in growth, in berry, in crop 

 and in foliage. The fruit is very large and of fine quality, 

 not equal, however, to Sharpless or Cumberland. The growth 

 is a trifle less luxuriant than that of Mrs. Cleveland, but they 

 both make runners very fast. Both grow well in hill or 

 matted rows. Some varieties, when matted, make so close 

 growth as to stifle each other, which is not the case with either 

 Eureka or Mrs. Cleveland. 



Among the not quite new but still scarce sorts I select, as 

 two exceedingly fine ones, Pearl and Florence. Pearl is a 

 truly good berry every way. It stands up well on strong 

 stalks, its form is regular and conical, with a slight neck. It 

 grows rapidly, vigorously, and bears splendid crops. I like 

 the looks of it, both in the row and the basket. The quality is 

 fine. Florence has also a tall stalk, bears freely a conical 

 berry, bright red and handsome. Mark these as attractive 

 berries, and both of them good to win buyers. Florence, 

 with me, makes the largest stools, but Pearl makes the most 

 rapid growth. They can both be planted with confidence. 

 Pearl has a perfect flower and produces pollen freely. 



Michel's Early, if I -have the real plant, is a disappointment. 

 It is not as early as Crystal City, and not very much larger. It 

 is a rampant grower, a good bearer, and the fruit stands up 

 well. When dead-ripe the flavor is good, but peculiar. It 

 bears considerable resemblance to Crystal City in style of 

 growth and fruit. 



Belmont is not a success in my grounds. I think it will be 

 profitable only under a system of highest culture. I am even 

 compelled to drop out that delicious berry, the Prince of Ber- 

 ries, a handsome and excellent fruit, but slow grower and im- 

 practicable every way. 



Among those that I admire is Summit, and until this year 

 have insisted on growing it. I cannot hold one of the berries 

 in my hand without thinking of a small pear. It is as large as 

 some Seckels, and most delicious ; but it is a very poor 

 grower, as well as so slow in ripening, as to make it another of 

 the impracticables. 



Gypsey is delicious, early, handsome, medium in size. It 

 is also a moderately good grower, but the quantity of fruit 

 does not warrant large plantings, while the foliage is not strong 

 nor abundant. 



One berry I have replanted and am satisfied I did not do it 

 justice by the first test — -that is Lida. It bears abundantly 

 large berries of good quality, and has many claims as a first- 

 rate fruit. 



Of strawberries, even more than of other fruits, one must 

 speak with much caution, because different varieties require dif- 

 ferent soil. My own fall-planting will include (1) Bubach, (2) 

 Sharpless, (3) Cumberland, (4) Eureka, (5) Mrs. Cleveland, (6) 

 Pearl, (7) Haverland, and there will be further test of Thomp- 

 son's No. 51, as well as Tippecanoe, Saunders, Middlefield, 

 Parker Earle and Edgar Queen. 



The extraordinary dryness of the present season has taught 

 me the absolute need of irrigation. I shall adopt the easy plan 

 of having my Strawberry-garden below my barn, so that I can 

 carry water to it in pipes from a well. This many can do. 



Clinton, N. Y. E. P. Powell. 



Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. — II. 



C OMETHING was said last week in these notes of the beauty 

 *^ of our native Viburnums, and of their great value for 

 planting in gardens, and on the wilder parts of city parks and 

 of large private estates. 



Equally valuable, certainly, for such purposes, are many of 

 our native Cornels, several of which are more graceful in 

 habit than any of the Viburnums, and which, although usually 

 not quite as ornamental in their flowers, produce generally 

 more highly colored and showier fruits. The bark of the 

 branches of some of the species is bright colored, and, in 

 winter, when the plants are stripped of their leaves they make 

 a brave show and offer bright bits of color which are invalu- 

 able in the winter landscape. 



The most beautiful of all the Cornels which grow spon- 

 taneously in this part of the world is the so-called Flowering 

 Dogwood, Cornus florida ; and here, in parentheses.it may be 

 affirmed that this plant is not poisonous. Many people think so 

 because a so-called Dogwood, like the Poison Ivy, has acrid 

 juices which are extremely poisonous to most persons, but 

 here is a case which illustrates the confusion which often 

 follows the promiscuous use of vernacular names for plants 

 instead of the precise and exact names imposed on them by 

 science, and which, in nine cases out of ten, are not more 

 difficult to learn and to remember than English names. " The 

 Poison Dogwood" is not a Dogwood at all, but a sort of 

 Sumach, or Rhus ; and the Poison Ivy is not an Ivy or anything 

 like an Ivy, except that it sometimes climbs by the aid of root- 

 lets produced from the stems ; and none of the Dogwoods are 

 at all poisonous. Here, then, are three popular errors about 

 three of our most common and best-known plants which have 

 all come from the unfortunate coining of popular names which 

 are now so firmly fixed that they will probably be used as long 

 as the English language is spoken on this continent. It may 

 be a small matter in speaking of a Rhus to call it an Ivy, but it 

 is rather unfortunate when this looseness in the use of lan- 

 guage casts a suspicion on one of the most beautiful of all 

 trees. For the Flowering Dogwood, or C. florida as people 

 ought to learn to call it, is not excelled in beauty by many 

 other trees. 



It has all the qualities which make plants valuable from the 

 ornamental point of view. In habit it is a low, round-headed 

 tree, sometimes at the south forty feet high, but at the north 

 rarely growing to half that height. The flowers, to be sure, 

 are small and not at all conspicuous, but the clusters are sur- 

 rounded by large snowy white floral bracts or leaves, which, 

 when they are fully grown, make what look from a little dis- 

 tance like white four-petaled flowers, each two or three inches 

 across. These floral leaves, and the flowers themselves, de- 

 velop before the appearance of the true leaves, so that when 

 the plant is in flower it looks as if it had been covered with a 

 white sheet. 



The illustration which was published on page 431, vol. hi., 

 of Garden and Forest shows what a beautiful object this 

 tree is in early spring. The foliage is abundant, ample in size, 

 and of cheerful and pleasant colors, yellow green on the upper 

 surface and pale on the lower. Very few of our trees, per- 

 haps not a single one, are more beautiful in the autumn than 

 C. florida. It is worth growing for the autumn effect which 

 the foliage affords, quite apart from its beauty as a flowering 

 tree. Here, in New England, toward the end of October the 

 leaves take on their autumn coloring, a deep and intense red, 

 which makes the trees conspicuous from as far as they can be 

 seen. The color of the leaves changes only on the upper sur- 

 face, while the lower surface retains its pale color, so that 

 when the wind plays through the branches charming contrasts 

 of color are produced between the upper and lower sides of 

 the leaves. The beauty of the tree in autumn is increased, 

 too, by the abundant fruit which is produced in heads or clus- 

 ters, each fruit being rather less than an inch long and bright 

 scarlet. Birds are fond of the fruit, and often strip the trees 

 as soon as it ripens, but when it escapes their attention it 

 serves to heighten by contrast the color of the foliage, and 

 gives to the tree a warm, cheerful look which is not easy to 

 explain by words. 



C. florida is one of the best of all the small trees to plant in 

 this country as a specimen on a small lawn or in a garden. It 

 needs good soil, and in eastern New England rather a shel- 



